Chapter 3

Linking Time Management to Life Goals

Today, more than at any time in history, you have limitless opportunities, especially if you're living in the United States. However, having so many choices can lead to confusion, distraction, and wasted time. Achievement in anything in life takes focus, diligence, and patience. So the question arises: Can getting a handle on your most precious lifelong dreams and desires help you get more done on a day-to-day basis? Absolutely! Say, for example, you and your spouse have always dreamed of taking six months to travel the world while you're still young enough to hoist a backpack. Such a focus may motivate you to put in extra hours or accelerate your sales quotas at work to build up the necessary funds and time for that adventure.

Even long-range goals can shape the way you use your time in the here and now. Suppose your goal is to retire to a modest cabin in the Smoky Mountains and spend the rest of your life writing the Great American Novel. Even if that goal is 30 years away, your priority now is more likely to be on investing your income and perhaps taking some writing courses rather than on building a 4,200-square-foot home and learning to ski — or it should be, anyway, because the preparations you need to make first and foremost are the ones that'll enable you to build that cabin and have the money and time to write.

Everyone has dreams and goals for the future. But in order to accomplish more in less time, to create a sense of urgency and command efficiency, having a clear sense of goals and purpose is critical. In this chapter, I guide you in the process of committing your goals to paper; categorizing, balancing, and breaking them down into manageable chunks; and allowing that powerful action to spur your productivity.

Understanding Why You Need to Put Your Goals on Paper

Some studies calculate that only about 3 percent of goal-setters document their aspirations. And I can assure you that these folks are the ones who have the most money, influence, power, prestige, freedom, and time to work toward their dreams. Why? Because, as numerous studies suggest, people who clearly define and write down their goals are more likely to accomplish them — and in a shorter time frame and more direct fashion. People who don't clarify and write out their goals invest more time and accomplish less.

When you take the time to write down your goals, you clarify them and sharpen your vision for attaining them, which allows you to do the following:

Establishing Your Fabulous 50

As you put together your list of goals, you need to consider the five core aspects of wants that I cover in this section. My mentor Jim Rohn taught them to me when I was in my 20s. These five questions dramatically reduced the amount of time I needed to achieve many of the goals that are now crossed off my goal sheets, and these same questions can help you expand your thinking so you can have more, be more, and achieve more.

As soon as you finish reading this section, read no further until you get your goals on paper. Your task after reading this section is to come up with at least 50 goals that you want to accomplish within the next ten years. As you brainstorm your list of goals, keep a few points in mind to make your goal-setting effective:

As you identify and record 50 goals you'd like to achieve in the next 10 years, contemplate the following five core questions to guide your goal setting.

What do you want to have?

The question of what you want to have focuses on material acquisitions. What possessions do you yearn for? A swimming pool? A sailboat? Do you fantasize about owning a sports car? Do you dream of a formal rose garden landscaped into your backyard? Someone to cook and clean for you? Your own private jet? Winter vacations in the Caribbean? If your home environment is a priority, imagine the place you want to live. An expansive ranch overlooking the Pacific Ocean? A Fifth Avenue penthouse? An off-the-grid abode that runs on solar and wind power? A villa in Tuscany?

Although possessions are important to consider, they're typically a means to an end: They enable you to create the lifestyle that you want to have.

One of the best goals I set and achieved was to own two houses, one as my primary residence and one to which I could retreat. Achieving that goal also motivated me to better invest time during work hours so I could enjoy spending long weekends at my second home. Our second home also created an opportunity to become involved with a church that connected us with two birth mothers we would not have otherwise known. I'm a father because of divine intervention — because of the original goal was simply to have a vacation home.

What do you want to see?

When you ask yourself what you want to see, think experiential acquisition. Travel is likely to be a key focus. I'm certain you can easily come up with at least ten places you want to see. Have some world wonders fascinated you? The Pyramids of Egypt? The Great Wall of China? I travel internationally a few times a year on business, and it only fuels my desire to see more parts of the world and expand my awareness of how other people live.

Your desire for new sights may lean toward unfamiliar geography — the desert lands of the Southwest if you're a New England native or the Rocky Mountains in winter if you hail from a lowland home. Perhaps your see goals are more personal. You may have always wanted to visit the country your ancestors came from or even visit the small town in the Midwest where your great-grandparents met and raised a family.

What do you want to do?

Most likely, many of your goals are connected with the question of what you want to do at some point in your life. Whereas the possessions you want to acquire help create your lifestyle, the action-oriented question you consider here focuses more on bigger events and feats outside the daily realm. Because this category is vast, I have my clients consider three main aspects of this question:

What do you want to give?

Andrew Carnegie, the great steel entrepreneur, met his goal to amass a fortune in the first half of his life. His goal for the second half was to give it all away. Many of the public libraries in the United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom exist today because of his philanthropy.

An important way to balance all the want, see, and do items on your Fabulous 50 list is to include give goals as well. What are you willing or interested in giving back? How do you want to share your good fortune with others? Which causes are near and dear to you?

Your give list may include specific monetary goals — “give 10 percent of my income to charity” — but you may find more fulfillment by tying in your giving goals to your other interests. For example, if your career aspirations involve writing a bestseller, supporting a charity that champions literacy, or volunteering to teach adults to read may be goals that touch a chord with you. If you dream of traveling to exotic destinations, you may participate in a humanitarian mission, bringing medicine and other important supplies to people in a developing country. If you care deeply about environmental initiatives, maybe you want to look into ecotourism or green volunteering opportunities.

Who do you want to become?

To a degree, what you want to have, see, do, and give determine the person you want to become. But you should still envision and write down how you see yourself developing while you achieve these goals. The real value of goals isn't what you achieve — it's in the accumulation of knowledge, skills, discipline, and experience you gain through learning, changing, improving, and investing yourself as you work toward your goals. Often, those newly discovered or carefully developed traits are the only lasting acquisition that stands the test of time.

Don't get me wrong — I'm not suggesting that you become someone other than who you are; rather, I'm encouraging you to earnestly and honestly evaluate the characteristics and disciplines best suited for your ambitions. To identify the areas you should focus on, take a look at all the goals you've written down so far (if you haven't yet read the preceding sections, complete them before moving on here). Then ask yourself the following questions when considering your goals as a whole:

If you're struggling to identify areas where you need to work on personal development, take at look at people who have achieved what you want; then evaluate your characteristics and disciplines as compared to theirs.

Labeling and Balancing Your Fabulous 50

After you draft a list of the 50 goals you want to achieve in the next 10 years, your next task is to assign a category and time frame to each of them. Creating categories for your goals and establishing time frames to achieve them sharpens your focus and increases your intensity, which can reduce the time required to achieve your goals. It also allows you to quickly and easily see whether your time investment to the various areas of your life as well as the size and difficulty of your goals are appropriately balanced.

The objective isn't to spread an equal number and depth of goals among the six categories; the aim is to identify whether one or two of the categories is light compared to the others and to determine whether you need to pay more attention to those areas of your life to develop them. In the end, the purpose is to create a well-rounded system of goals that addresses your whole person and that you'll have the motivation to actually work toward.

Assigning a time frame to each goal

I firmly believe you can have anything you want; you just can't have it all at once and all right now. Just because you establish a goal to lose 20 pounds doesn't mean you'll wake up tomorrow with 20 pounds missing from your body. Realizing your goal involves a process that requires specific activity and time.

The vast majority of people who set financial goals to acquire wealth or financial independence achieve those over time. In many cases, if the amount is comparatively large, it requires 20, 30, potentially even 40 years to achieve. It requires consistent application toward the goal.

I recently did a full review of my financial goals and the progress I have made toward them. It was gratifying in that review to know that in my present savings and investment return pace, I will cross the goal completion line in less than seven years, well within my plan. It's a wonderful feeling, knowing that financial freedom is within my reach.

There are no unrealistic goals, but there may be unrealistic time frames. The world is full of people who have accomplished great things with the application of extensive time. Edison, for example, was said to have failed in excess of 10,000 times in his search for the right filament for the incandescent light bulb. Imagine the time frame necessary to fail 10,000 times!

Remember that your Fabulous 50 list names goals that you want to accomplish within the next 10 years. That said, you may want to see some of them come to fruition much earlier. Some may be immediate — just a year away. Others may require you to first achieve some intermediate goals. For instance, say your goal is to double your income within three years. You know you're unlikely to receive anywhere close to a 100-percent raise at your current job, so you start exploring other options: a new job that pays more and has a fast-track career path, a second job, freelance or contract projects that you can do on your off-hours, or a real-estate investment that brings in rental income.

Before you head to the next section, go back through your list of 50 goals (which you create earlier in “Establishing Your Fabulous 50”) and write a 1, 3, 5, or 10 next to each goal to indicate whether you want to achieve that goal within 1, 3, 5, or 10 years.

When you start thinking about the time you need to attain your goals, make sure you're being reasonable. Whether or not the time frame for your goals is reasonable depends entirely on your situation. To help you stay on track, follow these steps:

After you label each goal with a time frame, tally up the number of goals you have for each time slot and record those totals in Figure 3-1. Then assess the spread of your goals across those time frames to see whether they're well balanced.

Especially when finances are involved, keep in mind that you should enjoy the process of working toward your goals. Although planning for the future is important, you're guaranteed only the present. You don't want to rob yourself of all enjoyment now — better to live a balanced life while you implement your plan and adjust it as needed when circumstances throw you for a loop.

Categorizing your goals

After you assign a time frame to each of your 50 goals, your next step is to assign a category to each one. Typically, your goals fall into one of six categories:

When determining which category each goal falls under, you'll find that some goals fall naturally in one specific category. A goal to get be promoted to supervisor at work, for example, is an easy C. Other goals, however, aren't so easy to peg. Going back to school to earn an MBA may be a C for career, but it also may be a P for personal. Place the goal in whichever category you most closely associate with it or feel free to place some goals in multiple categories.

Now go back through your list of 50 goals and write the appropriate category letter next to each one. After you label each goal with a category, count the total number of goals you have for each category and record those numbers in Figure 3-2. Then assess the spread of your goals across those categories to see whether they're well balanced. Are you light on health goals? Should you pay more attention to your spiritual life?

Targeting 12 Goals to Start With

At this point, you should have a list of 50 goals you want to accomplish over the next 10 years, all labeled according to the time frame you want to achieve them in and the aspect of your life that they fall under (see the preceding section). A large list ensures you have new goals to move to when you accomplish your first goals. However, concentrating on all your goals at once leads to frustration, distraction, and ultimately, failure.

The next step is to break down your list of 50 into some manageable chunks, which helps you focus your energy where you need it most. You won't allow others to interrupt you as frequently, and you'll work with a greater sense of urgency because you have things to do, places to go, people to meet, things to see, time frames in which to accomplish them, and goals to cross off.

Narrowing down your list

To whittle your long list of goals down to a manageable size, choose the three most important goals within each time frame: three that you want to achieve within one year, three before the three-year point, three within five years, and the last trio within ten years.

As you accomplish goals on your top-12 list, revisit your Fabulous 50 and recalibrate your top 12, adding new goals and crossing off the ones you've completed. Keep reviewing your goals on at least a monthly basis. You want to see the progress you're making. With your increasing confidence, you're likely to feel more comfortable with more daring, bolder, and challenging goals. And by resetting your goals, you continue to stoke that momentum.

Noting why your top-12 goals are important to you

Too frequently, people fixate on how they'll accomplish or achieve something. However, the real magic to achieving goals is contained in the why. If the why is large enough, the how becomes easy.

It's been nearly 25 years since I first read Napoleon Hill's landmark book, Think and Grow Rich! He guided me to delve deep within myself to explore the whys of my aspirations and motivations — and so much more. I'm now known worldwide for my success in real estate sales and my ability to sell 150-plus homes a year on a four-day work week. That was no accident — it was a goal of mine from the start, and I'm certain I've succeeded because I had a clear understanding of the why behind it.

Here's my story: My dad worked a four-day week when I was growing up. He was always around on Friday when I came home from school. But the biggest benefit came in the summer, when we left Portland every Thursday afternoon to spend three days at a second home on a lake near the Oregon coast. Some of my fondest childhood memories are of swimming, sailing, waterskiing, walking the beach, and playing at our lake house. I wanted to replicate that life exactly. As I built my real estate sales business, that desire drove my success. It led me to build a vacation home in Bend, Oregon, where Joan and I spent three days a week for more than five years. We enjoyed the lifestyle so much that we eventually moved there and made it our home.

Although my why happened to come from a positive childhood experience, keep in mind that reasons can just as easily come from a negative place — either way, they're motivating factors to keep you pressing on. Thousands of success stories have germinated from the seeds of abject poverty or personal tragedy. My father's why, for example, was born out of his love for my mother, who was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis when I was 3 years old. By the time I was in the second grade, she never took another step. My father's goal was to earn enough income as a dentist to provide my mother with the most extraordinary life possible: to travel in a wheelchair to Mexico, Asia, Hawaii (annually), and many other locations — always with three sons in tow. But mostly, he wanted to be able to care for her in her in the home where she raised her children and to give her the best quality of life imaginable for someone in her condition.

As a coach, I can only ask questions and guide you to your unique whys, regardless of whether they come from happy memories, adversity, or the love and commitment to another. After you determine which 12 goals you'll start on, evaluate why each one is important to you and write it down. Why did you choose these 12 goals over the others? What will these goals accomplish for you? What are you going to feel like when you accomplish them and cross them off your list?

Reading your goals list aloud is a great way to assist your subconscious processes. This action reinforces the message in your brain. Regular repetition and review, coupled with your solid grasp of the whys, keeps your goals front-of-mind — even when they're at the back of your mind!

Pinpointing Your Resource Needs

Achieving your goals requires resources, be they money, contacts, knowledge, skills, time, and so on — or all the above. Some fortunate folks may have an abundant supply of all resources, but most are short on at least a couple. I may have the income to allow me to train to become a world-class figure skater, but because I lack the skill, I'm unlikely to have enough time to become good enough to achieve the goal of qualifying for the 2018 Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang, South Korea.

Even if you approach your goals with an imbalance of resources, by carefully leveraging those that you have at your disposal, you can overcome many shortfalls. If you're lacking in one or more resources, you may have to invest more of the resources you have. Take my Olympics example: I'm short on time and skill, so I may need to invest more money to devote myself to fulltime training, or I may have to borrow time and aim for the 2022 Olympics, instead.

As you read through the following sections, evaluate the resource requirements for achievement for each of the top 12 goals that you identify earlier in this chapter. When you complete this step of the goal-setting process, you'll have an effective set of goals that you can integrate into your time schedule, which I discuss in depth in Chapter 5.

Accruing funds: A capital idea

Most goals, if they aren't about money, seem to require money — building your dream home, taking a cruise, sending your kids to an Ivy League school, opening your own coffee shop. Even a goal such as landing a job at a high-powered corporation, which seems to be about earning money, may require you to get some additional education or purchase suitable interview attire.

If you find that your goal requires capital, do your best to quantify the amount. Then determine whether you have enough money to achieve your goal or whether you need more. Ask the following questions:

Expanding your knowledge

Knowledge can dramatically increase the prospects of attaining your goal in the time table you've established. Trial and error is a costly means to reach your destination — especially when it comes to time investment. So if you assess your success-list goals and determine that you need more information to succeed, ask the following:

Honing your skill set

For the fulfillment of many goals, additional skills are required. Don't confuse knowledge with skill. Knowledge entails the gathering and processing of information in a way that you can use to gain a deeper understanding of a subject. Skill involves putting that understanding into effective action. You can study the heart and understand how it works — even know how bypass surgery works to prevent heart failure — but you don't want to perform such a procedure without having the skill of an experienced surgeon.

Examine your success list again to evaluate where additional skills may be necessary:

Tapping into human resources

Most people have accomplished what they have because someone else helped them along the way, so don't overlook the people component as you tally up your resources. The right contacts can be valuable in helping you attain your goals. Consider that dream of working for the high-powered corporation, for instance. Knowing someone who works for the company — or who has inside connections — is one of the best ways to get your foot in the door. But people resources can help in achieving other types of goals as well, from buying that cabin in the woods (Uncle Sydney always believed that real estate is the best investment) to learning to play the saxophone (the waiter at the local coffee shop is only too happy to earn some extra money giving lessons). Here are some questions to ask yourself as you evaluate your human resources:

Think of ways that the people you plan to approach can benefit if you attain your goal. Can you compensate them monetarily for their help? Can you offer something in trade that has value for them? Even just asking for help and saying thank you in advance is enough for some people. (Though many times, people are more willing to help when there's something in it for them.)

If you can't find anyone to help, you're forced to take the personal education route. The good thing, though, is that lots of books, classes, and seminars are available to help you, so take advantage of them.