Planning For Your Online Success

Written by Susan on January 15th, 2009

Well, it’s a bit late to be bringing up New Year’s resolutions, here on January 15th (wow - 1/24th of the year gone already!). But if you’ve been busy tossing dried up Christmas trees, choking down the last of the leftover turkey shakes, debating just how lazy and trashy you’ll look to the neighbors if you keep the colored lights strung up around your porch, it’s only about now that you have a quiet moment to consider what you really want this new year to hold for you.

This post is to help you think about this very important subject. You know that without a plan, your efforts are doomed to failure. Having a vague idea of what you want will only get you vague results that don’t look at all like you imagined.

Below I have a video of my coach, Alex Jeffreys, reminding his students that planning for success is the only way to get it. While it is specifically targeted to those of us who signed up for his coaching program, and some of his calls to action won’t apply to the casual viewer, I’d like you to watch it anyway. He makes it clear that the progress he has made in earning an online income - from $0 to $500,000 in just 2 short years - could only happen by setting a goal, making a plan, and sticking to it. After you’re done, scroll down and read my take on what we all need to be doing to emulate his success.

Sounds Great! Um…So How Do I Do This?
Traditional goal-setting wisdom has taught us that a good goal must be a) written, b) challenging, c) believable, d) specific, e) measurable, and f) have a specific deadline. The problem is, it’s easy to come up with an infinite number of examples of perfectly earnest goals to which some of the above can’t be applied. “My goal is to become a wealthy Internet Marketer!” is just one utterly random example that just now came to me, who knows from where…(cough). How specific or measurable is that? And why would you even want to place a deadline on it?

The real question is: What Is A Good Goalplan? To my view, a good Goalplan is one that when followed, offers a reasonably high probability of success, given sufficient time.

Let’s take each of the traditional points one by one and see how they fit into the making of a workable Goalplan.

Writing Down Your Goal
It’s important to record your goals, whether you write them down with a paper and pencil or keep them on your computer. I recommend keeping them at least in an electronic format - either a word-processing program or a spreadsheet - as that makes for easier updating. Writing down your goal forces you to think about it, and gives you something tangible to look at when you get off-track and need reminding.

Believing In Your Goal
You’ve gotta believe that your goal is at least achievable, or you won’t be motivated to try. And remember, it’s you who need to believe it - it doesn’t matter if no one else you know gives your goals any respect. Ignore them. Remember too that believing you can achieve your goal doesn’t mean you have to believe that it’s easy, or even terribly likely. There are unrealistic goals - like reaching a 6-figure income inside of a week - that shady IM marketers would like you to believe is do-able so they can sell you their latest get-rich-quick product. But you know your own strengths, and if you do your research, you’ll find that anything you want to achieve you can - given the commitment, patience, and a realistic budget and timeframe.

Setting Challenging Goals
Don’t reach for the moon right off the bat. Set yourself some easy-to-reach goals to give yourself the feeling that you actually can get something done. When you feel ready, tackle the more challenging ones, when you can handle the frustration. Creating a habit of follow-through with the easier, shorter term goals will give you the chops to take on the biggies.

Making Measurable, Specific Goals
Don’t make your goals so vague that you have no way of knowing if you’ve even reached them or not. When you write down a goal, break it down into specific, individual tasks. Include the details. Add notes to it as you think of them. You won’t know if you’ve reached your goal of online success if you didn’t specify how much income you wanted to make, and by what time. Did your first sale of $4.97 constitute success? Were you happy that it took 6 months to get it? No? Then what did you expect?

Setting Goal Deadlines
You may be surprised to learn that not all goals need deadlines. Sure, you need to measure your progress by some defined timeline, but think about this: do you want to stop eating healthy and exercising just because you reached the goal of 40 pounds lost? Do you want to stop being a good parent because your kid just celebrated his 18th birthday? Of course not. The difference lies in goals that are short term, and those that are long term. You need to have both. The short term goals give you a sense of accomplishment and forward movement, and the long term goals serve to give your life greater purpose and meaning. It’s ok to readjust your goals as your circumstances and priorities change. Just remember to always be honest with yourself - don’t be changing direction so often you end up simply going in circles.

So get cracking and start seeing some of those changes in your life that you’ve been promising yourself! Make 2009 the year that it all turned around for you.

If you’d like a copy of fellow Alex Jeffreys student Gary Simpson’s FREE ebook on getting yourself organized, managing and keep track of your budding (or existing!) online business, just put in your name and email (no spam ever - I’m a vegetarian, you see) and download it for your use and profit.