Setting Goals
It is important to have specific goals to help you stay focused, disciplined and directed. Without having a goal to shoot for it’s pretty hard to score in the game of life, and it has been said that if you don’t have a plan for the way you spend your time, someone else will surely have a plan for you. Despite the undeniable importance of goal setting, I find many people don’t even create them, for fear of failing again like they have after setting goals in the past. Every day, billions of unfortunate and undirected souls wander around the playground of life, living out a wishy-washy routine of mundane and repetitive tasks as set for them by those with goals and ambition.
It is no secret that money is an important part of life. In fact after oxygen and water, it’s one of the most important things that we need to survive. Having money can literally mean the difference between life and death, and it is the biggest contributor to your lifestyle and how you spend your days on earth. Having said that, making money is not the only thing you should set goals for in life. There are 4 other areas of personal development that will ultimately determine your happiness and fulfilment. These other areas should not be ignored. People sometimes believe that if they win big in the lottery, or somehow come across a lot of money, that it will solve all their problems. This is simply not true, and can be a deadly trap to fall into. Being poor and healthy is infinitely better than being a millionaire on his deathbed.
So what are the 5 areas of personal development that will help you to become completely successful in the truest sense?
1.Finance
You are in the right place to learn about how to achieve your financial goals. By making an investment in your education you have showed that you are dedicated to making your financial dreams become a reality. Set goals and go get the results that you want. In my opinion this is one of the easiest of the 5 areas to master. Although finance is important, don’t forget about the other 4 areas.
2. Relationships
In the end, we do so much of what we do so we can have a happy home life. Harmony within the family is critical for a happy life because, after all, who wants to come home to unhappiness or conflict? How do you go about improving family relationships? Through clear, non-violent communication, through respecting and honouring the uniqueness of each family member, through forgiving each other, and by getting very clear on which battles are worth fighting and which are better left alone.
3. Health
Keeping a well-balanced diet with plenty of fresh fruits and veggies, reducing stress, getting enough sleep, getting fresh air and exercise – these are the very basic ingredients of a healthy life. They’re the necessities for a healthy body. If you’re challenged with health issues, this can put a real strain on your overall personal development, so be sure to take care of your body – after all, it’s your home for the duration of this life.
4. Mind
Peace of mind is an important part of becoming fulfilled. If you achieve success in the other areas but are plagued with a guilty conscience or the fear of losing what you have earned, you will not be able to sleep at night with a clear head. Thinking positively is the first step when it comes to the “mind” area of personal development. A chronically negative attitude about something in particular, or life in general, is a sure way to undermine any of your other personal development goals.
5. Spirituality
Nurturing your spirit means different things to different people, but one thing’s for sure: we all need it. Whether you attend a church or spiritual group, take regular trips to commune with nature, meditate, pray or volunteer to serve others, you will find that as you develop your spiritual nature, all the other areas will be easier to cope with.
Being a trading education company, naturally we are going to focus on your financial goals for the sake of this lesson. The reason I make a point to mention the other areas is because you will learn that they are all connected. You will not achieve financial success without having the right mindset and supportive relationships, nor will it come easily if you are deathly sick. The 5 areas of personal development should be looked at as one whole large goal, called happiness. If you are able to work on each piece of the puzzle and master every area, you will most likely design an amazing life and inspire many others to follow you.
How Much Do You Want To Make?
So how much money do you actually want to make? Saying “a lot” is not going to cut it. In fact saying anything is not going to cut it. Did you know that those who physically write down their clear and concise goals have a 200% higher chance of actually achieving them. We’re going to play a little goal setting game. Go and grab a pen and a blank writing pad and begin by writing down exactly how much money you want to make each month. Write down the number that resonates with you the most. Written goals clarify thinking, objectify their potential, and reinforce commitment. In 1953 there was a famous study from Yale which found that the 3% of Yale graduates who had written goals had more wealth years later than the other 97% of the class combined. To reinforce the study conducted by Yale, there is a novel called “Look within or Do without” by Tom Bay which talks about how the Harvard Business School did a study on the financial status of its students 10 years after graduation and found that:
- As many as 27% of them needed financial assistance.
- A whopping 60% of them were living pay check to pay check.
- A mere 10% of them were living comfortably.
- And only 3% of them were financially independent.
- The study also looked at goal setting and found these interesting correlations.
- The 27% that needed financial assistance had absolutely no goal setting process in their
lives. - The 60% that were living pay check to pay check had basic survival goals; such as managing
to live pay check to pay check. - The 10% that were living comfortably had general goals. They thought they knew where
they were going to be in the next five years. - The 3% that were financially independent had written out their goals and the steps required
to reach them.
Yes, the results of this study seem a little too perfect, but l’m not surprised at the overall implication. Without goal setting, people tend to work more and get less in return for their effort. Why? The answer is simple! Because they have no direction and focus.
What Exactly Do You Want?
The next step in the game is to grab a fresh piece of paper from your writing pad and write down a comprehensive list of dot points which includes everything you want. To clarify, you should only include things that money can buy. Imagine your perfect life. What would you have? Be specific. Instead of saying a “BMW”, say “A new BMW M3 in white/black dual tone”. By making your goals clear and specific it helps you to visualize exactly what they would look like, which helps retain your focus on them. Someone who makes vague, blurry and general goals has no advantage over someone who makes none. To help inspire you, I have included a brief catalogue of some of the more popular possessions of traders.
Remember that if you haven’t done so already, completely replacing your income from your regular job should always be your number 1 financial priority. Nothing wastes more time and hinders you getting on with your life, than spending your days in a job that is helping someone else achieve their goals but not helping you achieve yours.
Now that you have a comprehensive list of everything you want, you need to go through it and tally up how much it’s going to cost you! People are quick to find things they want and put it straight on their wish list, but few of them actually know how much it will cost. The truth is this: If you don’t even know how much it costs, you’ve never actually considered having it. If you are serious about buying something, you know exactly how much it will cost and exactly where you need to go to get it.
If you don’t even know how much it costs, you’ve never actually considered having it
Another important thing to mention is that you should tally up your wish list in terms of monthly cost. Most people jump to the conclusion that tallying up the cost of their wish list means searching for the retail price of each item and adding it up, which will most likely yield a figure in the millions. That would be a suitable method if you were going to save up and buy the items with cash, but that is an employee’s way of thinking. Employees work day in, day out, all year around to save up for a holiday, spoil themselves with a treat, or buy a new toy. They feel a certain level of satisfaction by being able to say they “saved” up for something and bought it with cash! They spend their savings, then the process repeats itself next year.
Traders and investors alike rarely use their own money to buy things. They leverage a powerful tool to purchase big ticket items, investments and business’s, called OPM (Other Peoples Money). After all, if you can be trading your cash and generating significant returns, why on earth would you use it to go out and buy a depreciating asset like a car or a boat? Contrary to popular belief, you don’t actually need to save up $500,000 to buy a luxury super car. Most manufacturers offer a very generous financing option which essentially allows you to borrow the money at a very competitive interest rate while you can keep your own cash growing in your trading account. To fully understand this concept you need to unlearn everything society has told you about borrowing money. Most people don’t have the ability to generate significant returns with their savings, so they’re often better off just buying things with cash in order to save themselves paying interest. However, as traders, if you can generate higher returns than what the interest rate is to borrow at, you are much better off borrowing instead of using your own money. A few weeks ago I was in the Ferrari dealership having a chat to the gentleman who happens to meet a lot of interesting people in his line of work. During our conversation I asked him about cash sales. He said there are only two kinds of people who buy Ferrari’s with cash: Lottery winners, and those who are so wealthy that they’re past the point of caring about the potential returns they could have made with the cash.
The image above explains how traders who can generate returns higher than borrowing costs are much better off trading their own cash and using other peoples money to buy everything. This diagram assumes that a trader makes 30% p.a and the interest on a bank loan is 5% p.a. Methods of finance, interest rates and the cost of items varies greatly from country to country so you will need to do some research as to how you would fund your wish list in the most efficient way, such that you can keep the majority of your cash in your trading account while getting an accurate monthly cost figure to work towards.
Are Your Goals High Enough?
The last thing you need to do now is to grab the first figure you wrote down and compare the numbers. It is always interesting to see what people say when you ask them “how much money do you want to make”, and then comparing it to the things they really want. Usually they are way off, in fact 98% of people dramatically underestimate how much money they need to make in order to afford the luxuries they truly desire, and there are a number of reasons for this.
When dealing with numbers, people are subconsciously conditioned by society as to what constitutes a realistic income. They are “capped” by what appears to be the maximum amount of income a professional can make. We hear about doctors, surgeons and bankers with a salary of $300,000+ per annum and think that is the holy grail of income. It doesn’t get much better than that, right? If you have been working hard in a job for many years, earning $40,000 per annum – the thought of making $40,000 per month won’t be realistic to you. It would not be a suitable goal for you because you think it’s unattainable. You’ve already experienced the pain of setting a goal that was never achieved, and the worst thing is that you actually thought you could achieve that one. $40,000 a month will never happen, right?
Its All About Perception!
You always hear this term in life, “be realistic”. Well realism and success are on two opposite ends of the spectrum. You’re always told in life that things of grand accomplishment are unrealistic, but the few successful people that actually act on their beliefs to prove those naysayers wrong is what determines someone who is successful from someone who is not. It is unrealistic to think that we could put people in a metal fixture and fly them from one point on the earth to another. Fortunately, the Wright brothers didn’t buy into the concept of “being realistic”. It’s unrealistic to think that the idea of electricity could exist, and that there could be light at any instant. Fortunately, Edison didn’t believe in the concept of “being realistic”.
The consequence of thinking too realistically and allowing your limiting beliefs to set goals for you is that you aim far too low. Most people I talk with should multiply their desired income by at least 10! The reason it is easy to fill a page with luxuries that you desire, is because you can visualize exactly what it would be like to own them. You can dream about what they would look like, sound like and smell like. Not only can you visualize it in detail, but on any given day you can drive down the road and see an expensive sports car, or take a walk along the marina and see the massive yachts moored there. You know that attaining these luxuries can be achieved, because people own them and have already achieved it! But have you ever seen someone make $40,000 in a month, with your own eyes, from doing virtually nothing? Most likely not. Your belief system is rejecting this as a possibility because you’ve never seen, and hardly heard of it happening. Let me assure you that there are many people who wouldn’t even get out of bed for $40,000 per month. The ladies and gentlemen you see in 3 million dollar yachts, or with a garage filled with sports cars do not make their money from earning a salary. These people aim high, take risks and think outside the box. Don’t be like the majority, by setting a goal to have a “good job” and earn “more than the average”. Think big and aim out of the ball park!
Shoot for the moon, because even if you miss you’ll land amongst the stars
Shiny Ball Syndrome
Shiny ball syndrome is the name given to the phenomenon of people changing their goals and focus every time they see a new “shiny ball” of potential. Have you ever met those people who have a new life plan every time you speak to them? As i’m sure you’re well aware, accomplishing any significant goal requires focus, energy, time and commitment. Changing your direction every time you see something that looks better is a sure way to leave yourself confused and walking around in circles, as you don’t give your original plan the time and energy it needs to become reality.
The truth is, at one time your original goal consumed your thoughts day and night. It was everything you wanted. The fact that you can drop the idea and move on to something else so easily isn’t because you’ve found something better, it’s because you were never really committed to the first goal. 9 times out of 10 shiny ball syndrome is a result of a personality trait, not because the people have somehow found a magical vault which feeds them bigger and better ideas every few weeks. If you find yourself constantly changing your goals and direction, be very careful not to make it a life long pass time. You will fool yourself into thinking you are inspired, motivated and goal driven when in fact you are just chasing your tail, making a lot of noise and going nowhere.
If you don’t build strong walls of commitment, you are likely to shoot off course as soon as you find another shiny ball that appeals to you.
Those who are susceptible to shiny ball syndrome should be especially careful not to adopt other peoples goals. Sometimes you see someone who is succeeding in a certain area of their life so you decide in your head that you would like some of what they have! Your own goals then fall by the wayside as you alter your course towards someone else’s. You then spend years of your life chasing a shiny ball that was never even yours to begin with. The worst case scenario is if you actually succeed, because when you arrive, you will most likely realise that it was never what you wanted anyway, and you’ll have to start all over again. You may be successful in achieving the goal, but if it’s not what you really want, you will never be truly fulfilled. I see this happen all the time.
“Success without fulfilment is failure” – Anthony Robbins
In this day and age there are more opportunities and options than ever before. Every day new products, services, food, ideas, programs, books, courses, jobs, careers and education are being marketed to you through the internet, television, radio, news papers, billboards and posters. Advertisers and salesmen are becoming extremely efficient at grabbing your attention and planting a seed in your mind. Although the options are forever growing, one thing remains constant – you can’t do everything. If you don’t stand up for your own goals and dreams, you will be swept away and distracted by the never ending field of shiny balls being angled in front of your face each day.
If you don’t stand for something, you’ll fall for anything
My Personal Goals
To show you that setting goals and writing them down actually work, let me explain one of my life goals. Since an early age I have always been obsessed with cars. My first word was car, and every since I turned 17 and I started to learn to drive, I said to myself one day I will own a supercar. It wasn’t until an entire 11 years later that I decided to do something about it. Like most people out there, they have a goal and vision of their perfect life, but rarely do anything about it. However at 26 years old that all changed. I decided I needed to achieve my goals, so I mapped out a plan and set out to achieve them. I was that confident at 26 that I would finally achieve my goals, I wrote myself a letter.
The Imagine above is me when I was 26 years old. I’m holding a letter that I wrote to myself which I then put into a safe and locked away until a certain day had arrived. The letter said..
Dear Jamie,
I want to say thank you for believing in yourself and chasing your own dreams.
Today is the day you collect your dream car.
Thank you for never giving up on yourself!
Love Jamie x
The Imagine above is me 7 years later after I wrote that letter to myself. I’m standing next to my new car. A Lamborghini.
This is why I’m a big believer of setting plans and goals, because I generally believe they come true if you put the work in to achieve them.
The reason why I’m telling you is this because this is proof what writing your goals down can do to your subconscious mind. In fact its well know that if you write your goals and tasks down, you are more likely to achieve them, than something who does not write them down. I have this conversation every time I ask a trader what they want to achieve from trading, and they normally answer with the saying ‘ I want to be a fulltime trader’. My next question then is always how much do you need to achieve to be able to become a fulltime trader? There answer is normally a confused one because they don’t actually know. I can tell you when I wrote my goal down of owning my first supercar, I knew how much it cost, and what I needed to make on the charts to achieve it.
Download Goal Planner
Above for you to download is a Goal Planner to help keep you on track on achieving your goals. This is a free planner from a website called WiseGoals, but the one I use, I bought from Amazon. Once I filled it out, I kept it on my wall next to my trading desk, and I would always remind myself of the reasons why I was trading. Something so simple as this, will keep you focused on your desired goal.