If you don’t have clear written goals that you work on every day, you may be a victim of competing priorities and on your way to failure instead of success. If you want to get ahead faster and start making more money sooner, then you need to read this article.
In 1979 a study was initiated using graduating students from the Harvard MBA program. The students were asked, “Have you set clear, written goals for your future and made plans to accomplish them?” Only three percent of the graduates had written goals with specific plans; 13 percent of the students had goals, but they were not in writing; and 84 percent had no specific goals at all.
Ten years later, the members of the class were interviewed again, and the findings were quite revealing. The 13 percent of the class who had goals were earning, on average, twice as much as the 84 percent who had no goals at all. The three percent who had clear, written goals were earning, on average, ten times as much as the other 97 percent put together.
One of the biggest pitfalls of running a local business is losing sight of your goals. Every morning the local business owner is besieged with issues. Every issue is demanding attention, right now! Without some discipline, it is easy for the local business owner to become distracted and lose their focus on the major goals of their company.
All of these issues are important. Some more than others. They are competing priorities.
The competing priorities must be ranked in order or priority and dealt with accordingly. Without clear, specific and written goals, it is easy for the local business owner to lose their way, drift off course. In a short span of time, that local business owner could find themselves and their business headed in a completely different direction than the original course.
But they wouldn’t know it because they are dealing with a priority that seems to need their attention at that very moment. They are busy responding so they don’t perceive how far off course they have drifted.
Setting clear written goals for a business is just the first step. Many local business owners set goals and still struggle. There must be a specific plan to achieve those goals. Many local business owners set goals and make plans to achieve those goals and still struggle.
It is the very successful that come in to work every day with an undying passion to work on those plans with everything they have until their business dreams come true.