Many people think that having a clear goal and being positive and optimistic about accomplishing it is all they need to do to be happy and successful. However, choosing your destination, although vitally important, is just the starting point. Now the real work begins. Now is when you demonstrate to yourself and to others that you are really serious about your goal.

The fact is that only 3 percent of people have clear, written goals with plans to accomplish them. Only about 3 percent of adults work on their most important goals each day. Only the top people think about their goals most of the time.36

Instead of goals, the great majority have wishes. They have hopes, dreams, and fantasies. They have what I call “cigarette smoke” goals. They dissipate quickly and fade away in the imagination, providing no clarity of focus and direction.

Your dream house, your dream business, your dream relationship, or your dream job remains just that, a dream, until you put some “meat on the bones.” Only when you thoroughly plan and prepare every detail of your journey can you be assured of reaching your destination on schedule.

You Need Both a Measure and a Method

Define your goals both qualitatively and quantitatively. When you define a goal qualitatively, you determine how you will think and feel as the result of having achieved that goal. You imagine the feelings of pride, satisfaction, joy, happiness, love, peace, and pleasure that you would have if you achieved the perfect goal for you, as you have defined it. You create those feelings within yourself by imagining that you have already achieved your goal.

You define a goal quantitatively by attaching specific numbers to it. This gives you a target to aim at and allows you to track your progress. If you can’t measure it, you can’t manage it.

For example, all people say that they want to be financially independent. But when you ask them what that means, the best they can usually come up with is “I want to be a millionaire.”37

But this goal is too vague. “Financial independence” means that you have enough money so that you never have to worry about money again. So the question is, What is your number? How much will you actually need?

Goal Setting Made Simple

Before you actually “take off” toward your destination, you can take a series of planning steps to dramatically increase the probability that your trip will be successful.

1. Decide exactly what you want in each area of your life. Be specific. Define your goal so clearly that a child could understand it and explain it clearly to another child.
   
   For example, instead of saying, “I want to make a lot of money,” you must be clear about exactly how much “a lot” means. You can’t become motivated and determined to accomplish something that is unclear or fuzzy.
2. Write down your goal and make it measurable. A goal that is not in writing is merely a wish, “a goal with no energy behind it.” When you make it measurable, you create a clear target to aim at.
3. Set a deadline. Be absolutely clear about when you want to achieve this goal. Your subconscious mind loves deadlines. They activate your mental powers and drive you forward.38
4. Identify all the obstacles that you will have to overcome to achieve your goal. What could possibly go wrong? What stands between you and your goal? Why aren’t you at your goal already? What is holding you back or could hold you back?
   
   Think on paper! The more clearly you identify all the various problems and difficulties you could experience, the better prepared you will be to solve or remove them, should they occur.
5. Determine the additional knowledge and skills that you will require to achieve your goal. Remember, to accomplish something that you have never achieved before, you will have to learn and practice something that you have never done before. Whatever got you to where you are today is not enough to get you any further. Every new goal requires the acquisition and application of a new piece of knowledge or a new skill. What is it for you? Clarity is essential.
6. Determine those people whose help and cooperation you will require to achieve your goal. To accomplish large goals, you will need the help of many people. The greater clarity you have about who those people actually are, the more likely it is that you will take the steps necessary to earn their cooperation and support.39
7. Make a list of all your answers to the above and organize them by sequence and priority. What do you need to do first? What is most important? A list of activities organized by sequence and priority is a plan, a step-by-step series of tasks that lead you inevitably toward your goal, your destination.

By following these seven steps, you can accomplish almost any goal that you set for yourself. Following is a simple formula that you can use to determine your most important destination, your number one goal.

The Guaranteed Success Formula

With this formula, you can transform your life and reach your most important destination on schedule. It consists of four simple steps. People all over the world have told me that these four steps have enabled them to accomplish more faster than they ever dreamed possible.

Step One: Use the Ten-Goal Method

Take a clean sheet of paper and write the word “Goals” and today’s date at the top. Write down ten goals that you would like to accomplish sometime in the future. Use the “magic wand” technique and imagine that you have no limitations of any kind. Write down ten things that you would like to be, have, or do in the future as if each one of them were guaranteed to happen:40

Here are a few guidelines:

1. Write in the present tense, as though your goal had already been achieved. Instead of writing, “I will earn $XXX each year,” write, “I earn $XXX each year.” Your subconscious mind can register commands that are phrased in the present tense only.
2. Write in the positive tense. Instead of writing, “I will quit smoking” (negative), you would write, “I am a nonsmoker” (positive).
3. Write in the personal tense. For this exercise, and for the rest of your life, begin each goal with the word “I.” You are the only person in the universe who can use the word “I” with reference to yourself. When you begin a positive affirmation for a goal with the word “I,” it is immediately accepted by your subconscious mind and your superconscious mind as an important command coming down from the “head office.”

Each of your ten goals should begin with the word “I”; be in the present, positive, personal tense; and end with the deadline words “by __________.”

Step Two: Select Your Most Important Goal

Once you have written out your goals, imagine that you will achieve all of them, sooner or later, if you want them long enough and hard enough. But also imagine that you could choose any one of these goals and have it come true within twenty-four hours.

Now ask yourself this question: What one goal on this list, if I could achieve it right now, would have the greatest positive impact on my life? Whatever your answer to that question, circle that goal. This now becomes your major definite purpose, your primary goal, and your most important destination for the next leg of your life’s journey.

Step Three: Make a Plan

Transfer this goal to the top of a clean sheet of paper. Be sure to write it in the present, positive, personal tense— describing it exactly as if you had already attained it—and set a deadline for completion.

Make a list of the difficulties you will have to overcome, the additional information and skills you will require, and the people whose cooperation you will need to achieve this goal. Organize this information into a plan, and then take action immediately to begin moving toward your destination.

Step Four: Practice Mindstorming on Your Goal

Mindstorming forces you to concentrate intensely on how to achieve your goal. Take a new sheet of paper and write your major definite purpose at the top of the page in the form of a question. For example, if your goal was financial, you could write, “How can I earn $XX,XXX by December 31, 2 ?”

Then discipline yourself to write twenty answers to this question. You can write more than twenty answers, but you must write a minimum of twenty responses to your question.

Your first three to five answers will be fairly simple. You will write that you could do more of this or less of that. The next five answers will be more difficult and will require greater creativity. The last ten answers will require incredible concentration and discipline. You will have to dig deep into the resources of your creative mind to reach your goal of twenty answers.

Take Action

Once you have generated twenty answers, select one of those answers and take action on it immediately. This is very important. When you take action on one of these ideas, you will unlock your inborn reserves of creativity. All day long, you will have new ideas to solve your problems and achieve your goals. You will start to perform at exceptional levels.

If you do not immediately do something with at least one of these ideas, the flow of creativity will slow down and stop. You will get little benefit. Nothing will happen.43

There is a direct relationship between how quickly you take action on a new idea and how likely it is that you will ever take action on any new ideas in the future.

When you develop the habit of intense action orientation, you will step on the accelerator of your own potential. You will begin moving rapidly toward the achievement of your most important goal.

Conduct this exercise regularly throughout your life. Whenever you are going through a period of transition or need to plan a new destination, make a list of ten goals, select the most important one, and discipline yourself to generate twenty ways to accomplish it. Then select one idea and take action on it immediately.

Back from the Future Again

Project forward in your mind to your deadline for achieving your goal. Imagine that everything has worked out perfectly and that you have reached your destination exactly as you planned and on the schedule you set for it.

Looking back from the perspective of success, from the future, to where you are today, complete this sentence with at least twenty answers: “I achieved this goal because I . . .” Write down everything that you can think of that you could have done to ensure that you were successful.

Next, take another sheet of paper and complete this sentence: “I failed to achieve my goal because I didn’t . . .” Make a list of everything that you could have done but didn’t do that caused you to fail to reach your destination.44

This combination of exercises forces you to think with greater clarity than most people have in their lifetimes. By completing these sentences with ten or twenty answers, you will immediately see things you should do or should not do to ensure your success.

Create a positive affirmation for your number one goal: “My major definite purpose is to earn $XX,XXX by December 31, 2 .” You then create a clear mental picture of how your life would be different when you achieve your goal. You imagine how you will feel when you achieve your goal. You think of all the reasons why you want this goal in the first place.

Finally, you resolve to do something every day, without exception, until your goal is achieved. You get going and you keep going. Remind yourself, with regard to your most important goal, that failure is not an option!

EXERCISE
Writing Your Flight Plan

Make a list of ten goals you would like to achieve in the next year:

1. _____________________________________________________

2. _____________________________________________________

3. _____________________________________________________

4. _____________________________________________________

5. _____________________________________________________

6. _____________________________________________________

7. _____________________________________________________

8. _____________________________________________________

9. _____________________________________________________

10. ____________________________________________________

What one goal on this list would have the greatest positive impact on your life if you were to accomplish it within twenty-four hours?46

________________________________________________________

________________________________________________________

________________________________________________________

What is your deadline for achieving this goal?

________________________________________________________

________________________________________________________

List three problems or obstacles that stand in your way of achieving this goal:

1. ________________________________________________________
   ________________________________________________________
2. ________________________________________________________
   ________________________________________________________
3. ________________________________________________________
   ________________________________________________________

List three additional skills or forms of knowledge that you will require to achieve this goal:47

1. ________________________________________________________
   ________________________________________________________
2. ________________________________________________________
   ________________________________________________________
3. ________________________________________________________
   ________________________________________________________

List the three most important people, groups, or organizations whose help and cooperation you will require to achieve this goal:

1. ________________________________________________________
2. ________________________________________________________
3. ________________________________________________________

Based on your answers to the above, make a list of seven steps you could take immediately to begin achieving this goal:

1. ________________________________________________________
   ________________________________________________________
2. ________________________________________________________
   ________________________________________________________48
3. ________________________________________________________
   ________________________________________________________
4. ________________________________________________________
   ________________________________________________________
5. ________________________________________________________
   ________________________________________________________
6. ________________________________________________________
   ________________________________________________________
7. ________________________________________________________
   ________________________________________________________

What one action are you going to take immediately to begin moving toward your destination?

1. ________________________________________________________
2. ________________________________________________________

Whatever your answer to the last question, launch immediately. Don’t wait. Move fast. Take off on your journey, and don’t look back.