“If You Don’t Know Where You Are Going Any Road Can Take You There”

Now is a great time to write down your dreams and goals for 2017 and beyond. Anyone who has ever attended our Plan 1 Practice Development Seminar knows of the tremendous importance we place on having a defined set of goals with timelines for achieving them.

Would you try to build a house without architectural plans or make an exotic meal without a recipe? If you did, do you think the house or meal will turn out as envisioned? Probably not and life is a whole lot more complicated and messy than building a house or making a meal.

Yet most Americans do just that; they run their life and business on the fly, often spending more time planning a two week vacation than their next year or five. Numerous studies have shown that those who set their goals down and regularly revisit them are substantially more successful than those who do not.

If that’s the case, why don’t more people have a written list of goals? It falls under the characterization of a task that is easy to do but also easy to not do. One big reason people are resistant to the idea is that by listing what you want to achieve with a deadline, you run the risk of not getting there, thus exposing oneself to failure syndrome.

Most people fear failure and for good reason. No one likes to fail at anything, but the reality is that failure is a huge part of success. As the saying goes, “shoot for the moon, even if you miss you’ll land amongst the stars.”

Everyone fails, the key is to learn from the failure and try again. Here are some tips to help you get the New Year off to a great start and to help you develop the very powerful habit of setting goals.

•  Don’t think it, ink it. Write your goals down, if it’s not written down, (whether on paper or in your phone) it’s not a goal.
• Break goals down into four main categories—personal, business/financial, physical and emotional/spiritual.
• Put a lot of goals down on each list, remember that those who expect little get little.
• Have a goal to at some point in your life be able to live from your own financial resources.
• Have a long term goal and deadline to become debt free.
• Keep your goals where they can be viewed and studied at least once per month.
• Share your goals with someone you trust who believes in you.
• Set goals you have to stretch to achieve, not necessarily for what you get for accomplishing them but for how you will grow during the process of attaining them.

My wish for you this year is for you to develop the all empowering habit of goal setting and personal development. As my favorite success coach, the late Jim Rohn has stated, “work hard at your job you’ll make a living, work hard on yourself and you’ll make a fortune.”

To Your Success

Bruce J. Clark, CEO Author, NCI Effect, Explosive Client Growth Plan for Accountants and CPAs Beyond the NCI Effect, Sales Strategies That Matter to Grow an Accounting Practice www.ncieffect.com