In the 1920’s, he began selling paper cups and playing the piano to support his family. He worked hard and he did well. In fact, he became one of the top salespeople for the Lily Tulip Cup Company after 17 years of hard work.
But then he set a goal and he did REALLY well! He set the goal of going into the milkshake machine business, selling machines that could mix 48 shakes at once, selling machines that would revolutionize the restaurant world and his life.
He convinced two brothers, who owned a small restaurant, to buy his machines. In fact, he went into business with them, until sometime later when Ray Kroc bought out his brothers.
Ray decided to keep the brothers’ name on the restaurant; however, “McDonald’s” had a nice ring to it.
Indeed, it did. During the next 20 years, Ray turned McDonald’s into a multi-billion dollar empire. He achieved in 20 years what it took IBM 46 years to do and Xerox 63 years.
Ray Kroc was successful but he did not become wildly successful until he set a specific goal. The same is true for you. There’s tremendous power in setting specific goals.
Unfortunately, very few people are very good at setting their goals and reaching their goals. Oh sure, they experience some success but nothing close to what they could experience if they really knew what they were doing when it comes to setting goals.
So what’s the problem and what’s the answer?
1. People get tripped up by their lacks.
They fail to set any goals, let alone set truly exciting goals, because they lack one of three things.
Most people lack awareness. They just plain don’t think much about “setting” goals. They just think about going to work and doing their jobs.
That’s okay–to a point. If you know how to do something, you will usually have a job, if you choose to go and get one and you will usually have a degree of success. But if you set a specific goal to go further, you dramatically increase your chances of becoming highly successful.
Other people lack purpose. They may not have a why that drives them. And so they go through life and work thinking, “Another day, another dollar” or “I’ve just got five more years and three months and I’m out of here.”
Still other people lack wisdom. They spend too much time on activities that are tension-relieving instead of goal-achieving. In other words, they focus on getting by instead of getting ahead.
If you’ve read this far, you probably agree with me on the importance of goal setting. Indeed it is one of the critical skills I teach in a step-by-step fashion in my new program, UP Your Attitude: 6 Secrets That Turn Potential In To Payoff.
To get you started,
2. Ask yourself, “What goals would you set for yourself if you could not fail?”
Don’t ask if it’s possible or impossible. Don’t worry about failing. Just focus on what you want and let that be your guideline for setting your goals.
That’s what winners do. Winners would rather attempt something great and fail than attempt nothing and succeed.
And then…
3. Visualize your goal.
Practice it in your mind as though it were already accomplished. The clearer your picture and the more often you view it, the easier it will be to accomplish your goal.
It’s like the legend of the prince with the crooked back. He asked a sculptor, “Make me a statue of how I would have looked with a straight back. I’d like to see myself as I might have been.“
When the statue was finished, the prince put it in a secret place. Month after month, he would slip away to look lovingly and earnestly at the statue. And people began to notice the prince’s back was not as crooked as it used to be.
Still the prince continued to look at the perfect statue. Each time he did, the sight of it set his blood tingling and his heart throbbing, until one day he realized his back was straight.
Just like the prince, we all have faults. But you start the process of achieving your goals when you visualize your goals.
Of course, that may sound a little too touchy-feely or woo-woo for some of you. So listen to what Kayla Hermann, a Program Coordinator at Community Options and Resources, had to say after learning this process at my Journey-to-the-Extraordinary program.
Kayla wrote to me, saying,
“I discovered something quite amazing after I wrote down my goals and filed them in my subconscious mind … just the way you taught us at the Journey. Two of my goals were having a deeper relationship with my husband and the other was to be self-employed.”
“Then one day I looked around and saw what was happening. I started to see the results of a deeper relationship with my husband. We are spending more time together and I am making a conscious effort to listen to him with my full attention. He can tell something has changed and he likes it.”
“Then another amazing thing happened with regard to the self-employment goal I’ve had for years and years. I was approached to buy a business that I occasionally work at as a hobby. Because I had written down that goal and because I had been using the mental programming techniques you taught us, I believe that I unknowingly attracted this offer.”
“I thank Dr. Zimmerman and his ‘Journey to the Extraordinary’ experience for helping me turn my goals into reality.”
Quite simply, the process I teach works! And if you want to grab one of the last remaining seats at my Journey to the Extraordinary program coming to St. Louis, MO on November 12-13, 2015, click here.
Finally,
4. Accept the unpleasant necessities.
Many people don’t. As David Ulrich asks in his book, Human Resource Champions, “What percentage of people on Weight Watchers reaches their target weight? The answer? 5%. What percentage of people maintains their target weight? 0.5%. What percentage of people stops smoking and never starts again? 17%. And what percentage of re-engineering efforts is judged successful? 25%.”
His point is obvious. People often refuse to accept the fact that they will have to do some unpleasant things in the process of achieving their goals. After all, goal-setting and goal-achieving are all about a method that works, not a miracle that happens.
You can say that’s unfair. You can say you don’t like it. But that’s just the way it is. So get over it.
It’s like the story one of my audience members related to me. She said her teenage daughter had just received her first paycheck, but her daughter was complaining that it was less than it should have been. The mother carefully explained how the state, federal, and Social Security taxes were subtracted from the gross pay. But her daughter only complained more vigorously. She said, “Mom, you don’t understand. I didn’t give them permission to take those things out of my check.“
No young lady, you don’t understand. The good things you want, the good things your paycheck will purchase, is almost always preceded by unpleasant necessities–such as hard work and taxes.
As Winston Churchill said, “It’s no use saying you are doing your best. You have got to do what is necessary.“
Final Thought: Some people dream of worthy accomplishments while others stay awake and do them.