What are your New Year Plans?
I’m posting this the afternoon after New Year’s Eve, so this is not a post asking about your celebration plans, but I hope you had a good New Year’s Eve all the same. :)
Instead it’s a post about what your plan is for 2017. Two members are having an interesting discussion about the value of New Year resolutions in the comments of two different blog posts. Here’s the links to both of them. I’d suggest reading the top one first only because they kind of make sense in that order even though the second one wasn’t actually a reply to the first.
https://my.wealthyaffiliate.com/everisingsun/blog/do-you-have-any-wa-new-year-resolutions
https://my.wealthyaffiliate.com/daniel-euergetes/blog/why-i-dont-do-new-years-resolutions
While I wouldn’t call the discussion a debate, I thought I’d weigh in with some middle ground because it relates to a point I keep hitting home in my posts, that as a business owner your job is to build and improve systems within your business. I actually ended up wanting to make three separate points and that got kind of long so I’m going to divide this into three separate posts and post them over the next three days.
The Danger of Unrealistic Goals
In the blog posts above Everisingsun posted his new year resolutions and Daniel explained why he doesn’t do new year resolutions and what he considers to be the negatives of doing so. I’m going to hit on some of Daniel’s points in the next two posts, but I want to hit on something related to Everisingsun’s original post that has to do with goal setting in general.
I frequently see new members here on WA posting their plans or goals for their future here at WA. They often go something like website up in a month, making money in three months, quitting my job and doing this full time in six months. When I see these posts, and I don’t think it’s just me, I kind of cringe a little.
I really don’t want to rain on their parade, but at the same time you can just see them running right at a frustration brick wall. I’m sure there are people that can see that kind of success that fast, but anyone that has been around internet marketing or business in general for more than five minutes knows that the people that achieve that kind of success are the very rarest of exceptions. Here are a couple of my favorite quotes on this:
Most overnight successes were ten years in the making.
There are no unrealistic goals, only unrealistic timelines.
Focusing on Inputs Rather than Outputs
The thing is that these goals are a lot like the people making the new year resolutions to lose 40 lbs (or whatever that is in in kg). These are goals focused on the output not the input. There are all kinds of problems with focusing on the outputs when setting goals. To name a few:
- Studies have shown they tend to lead people to have unrealistic expectations about how easy the goals will be to achieve.
- We only have a limited amount of control over the things that effect us achieving our desired results.
- We may not actually know what we need to do to achieve our desired results even if we think we do.
- Pursuing specific results can cause us to only focus on that one output and ignore any other benefits we may be receiving from our inputs.
- We may realize part way through pursuing a goal that it’s not what we actually want after all.
When setting goals, whether they are new year resolutions or any other time, don’t set goals for the output you want to achieve, but rather the input you’re willing to put in. If you look at Everisingsun’s resolutions that’s what all of his are. He’s focused on his inputs. Granted he could probably be a little more specific about them, but the point stands.
I’m not saying completely ignore the pursuit of specific results. You can have, and there are benefits to having, specific results in mind when setting your goals. However, use these more to guide the direction of your goals rather than having them be the goals themselves.
For example, maybe your long term goal here at WA is to make $4,000 a month from your sites. That’s a good result to head toward. However, don’t focus on that when setting your goals. Instead your input goals should be along the lines of writing one blog post per week, trading comments with ten people each week, contact one website a week about guest blogging, or whatever else it is you decide you need to do to make your site as successful as possible.
Setting input goals sets you up for success, because your success is entirely defined by actions you’re in control of. At the end of the year, maybe you hit your $4,000 a month goal or maybe not. That will be the topic of my post tomorrow. However, whether you hit that goal or not, if you succeeded in following through with the actions you set for yourself that is being successful. After that it’s just a matter of tweaking your inputs until you get the output you want.
You can continue to Part Two at:
Recent Comments
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This is an awesome cap to both our discussions on the other blogs. Interestingly, someone in my blog brought up the definition for "resolution." Rather than elabourate on it again, folks should visit the other blogs and check out the threads.
The article above is an awesome discourse on how to go about the planning aspect for goals, whether or not they are done or started on the first of the year.
There is a lot of confusion about what resolutions actually are, such that they result in the very small percentage rate of actual success. Much of what happens in these things are a result of failing to do what's discussed above.
I didn't exactly create my blog as a reply to Everisingsun's as you have rightly stated, but having gone there first did influence me to write mine.
No output should be drawn up until all the realistic sub-goals within the goal (and possible falling through cracks) have been considered. Failure to do this usually results in unattainable and unreasonable goals.
It's a good idea to have an output projection, but many times, there are so many variables that can effect this outcome, I don't include this and just focus on completing each segment.
Example: I keep a Journal and have since 1973. In 1993, this Journal made its way onto computers, from hand-written documents. Eventually all the previous writing were typed out and made into DOC files. For lack of space, I did away with the physical, hand-written notebooks.
BAM! I had a major data loss almost immediately after joining Wealthy Affiliate, when my hard drive failed. I had backups, but they were on floppy disks. The later backups were on CDs. It is without note here that these mediums have both deteriorated and I had a hell of a time trying to get data off the CDs.
When I got my floppy disks back (they were in a barn in Massachusetts) you can just imagine. A little over a month ago, I began working on these. This is the second round now that I have more powerful software to extract data from stubborn floppies! I had no idea what I was going to run into. All I could do with this project is start, but having planned out the execution, I had a system for doing each disk with the use of recovery software and a hex editor. It's time consuming work! This project took, to date, one month and 10 days to do about 200 floppies. Some were fast and easy and others took hours to get my Journal data off them. This results in just a partial restoration but it's better than nothing. I carried on with the input and did not worry about the output. I'm about 15 disks away from completion!
I used WordPerfect when I created these files. Being a word processor, there's lots of code in the RAW data format. I had to go through a couple documents to figure out what the code means (this one means "hyphen" and this one means "tab" and that one means "hard return" no space between two words means "soft return" etc.) and have successfully restored one of the documents to its original format!
In big business, this definitely gets far more complicated and those outputs are expected. People WANT to know when you will complete the work. This can only happen with lots of experience and knowing what's involved.
This is one of the things on my mind when I wrote my blog. On top of this, I've learned more about resolutions after writing, so today, if I were to write it, it would be somewhat different but still have many of the same elements in it.
Something I've actually had to deal with when trying to give other people advice, is realizing how differently people work. That's why I originally wrote: Before You Take Advice From Anyone You and I, for example have some of the same mentality, but also do things very different in some respects. Writing a blog post here every day is the first time I've successfully done that for so long, let alone doing it for 20+ years. And if it would have all been lost, there's a good possibly I would have just written it all off. :)
I really appreciate your critical analysis of things people often take for granted. At the same time I definitely realize that some of the things that work for me almost definitely wouldn't work for you and vice versa. I thinks cool that we can recognize this and still take the opportunity to learn from each other. Thanks for all your input.
Very nice pointers! - I made my WA resolutions to be attainable goals for me to achieve throughout the year. As Mickeyb123 said below, most people write goals that are totally unrealistic and end up being despondent from the results. Having these goals set for myself just gives me a plan to utilise the knowledge here in Wealthy Affiliate and be a more active member, and as you say, have more input within the community!.
Have a massive year everyone!
Thanks. My goals for 2017 here on WA are actually pretty similar to yours so I'm looking forward to seeing what we both produce in the coming year.
Quite reasonable perspectives there, Cory, to be as honest as possible with myself, and strive to take meaningful actions.
First off, I love the Avatar's new look!
Second, I have done more than just "cringe a little" when reading some of the Money Goals. But I also take into account that for many people, this may be their first time running a business. Or maybe, they don't really "get" that this is a real business, that will require serious time and effort. I loved what Kyle said in his live training: If you approach this business as something you're just going to "try", you may not succeed (not his exact words).
Third, I finished a book last week, "The ONE Thing" by Gary Keller which will significantly change how I set goals.
Looking forward to reading the other posts Numerous.
Thanks. I'm actually feeling a little over dressed. Like I showed up for a costume party, only to find out it wasn't actually a costume party. :)
You're right about people possibly not getting it. That's one of the things they used to say about MLMs. Because it was so easy to get started and required so little investment compared to a brick and mortar business, people didn't necessarily think of it like a business.
Thanks for the book recommendation. For anyone that checks this out afterwards, the book is part of Kindle Unlimited if you're interested.
That's a good idea. Use the results goal as the thing you're steering towards but really emphasize the inputs or actions you're going to take, and if you don't quite reach your goal in the end, figure out how to modify your inputs or actions. Thanks. By the way, my result goal happens to be to make $500 during one month in 2017. I'm not setting a deadline to meet the goal by December 2017, but to have one month in which I make $500 (so that could be in December 2017 or it could be in October 2017 and I might make $300 December 2017). If I don't make it, I'll have to tweak the input or actions.
Awesome. That's a great application of the idea. I'm glad you like the post and are putting it into action. My next two posts build on the goal setting idea, and the last one specifically addresses using accountability. There's a cool tool I'm going to recommend, but posting your goal here works too. Now we can come back at the end of the year and see how you did with the inputs. :)
Right. Looking forward to your upcoming posts, and it's nice that WA blog posts allow us to be accountable to each other.
Most goals nd up being unrealistic, however they seem sooooo good when they are made.
Mickey
LOL oh I know that feeling Mickey. That rush of learning something new or getting some new inspiration. "I'm going to be a Millionaire!!" :) Another one of my favorite quotes is, "Even the best laid plans fall apart moments after meeting the enemy." :)
So does that mean you are twice as likely to have your plans go awry? That sucks.
Here's an interesting twist. I actually butchered the quote, by combining to actual quotes. The one I was going for was "No battle plan survives contact with the enemy."
The one you're referring to comes from a poem written by Robert Burns called To a Mouse. The interesting part is that I just ran across Robert Burns yesterday while writing my Here's to 2016 blog post and researching Auld Lang Syne, which Robert Burns also wrote. The universe seems to be running me in circles these days. :)
Thank you for all of the nice comments about plans, and the fact that the quote about battle plans was a big issue for George W, back in 2003.
Mickeyb
Got to say, this post really resonated with me. I'm guilty of setting some unrealistic goals for myself, and I only recently understood that.
the thing is, the minute I did, the pressure of reaching those goals, and the frustration of not doing "enough" to reach them, completely vanished and allowed me to really enjoy the process.
So yes, take stock of your goals, and think about the timeline. Don't change the goal, just think if the deadline is something you can manage. If not postpone and keep on moving forward.
Thank you for the uplifting post.
Yeah, I used to do that for years in the worst way, and because I got into studying business and mlm and everything so young, other people used to feed into it. I was at one fairly large event at about 18 where the guest speaker that I had met the night before pointed me out and said I'd never know the crushing feeling of having to work for someone else or something like that. I spent years beating myself up because I knew all this stuff other people didn't and still hadn't "made it". Once I cut that loose, life was sooo much easier to live with.
Glad you're able to enjoy the process now yourself, and that you enjoyed the post.
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Thankyou Numerous this has come at a great time for me. I have been with WA for 8 months and haven't done much. Had been focusing on my other businesses. However I have been revisiting WA in the last few days and getting excited about what I can achieve. So yes I need to break it down and make some attainable input goals...as yes I was one of those newbies that had set goals that weren't attainable and then did nothing.
Thankyou have a great year. I am looking forward to a fantastic year of learning.
Excellent. Glad it came at a good time for you. It's a common mistake people make in their enthusiasm. The main thing though is that you came back with more experience and can get even better results moving forward. Best of success in the coming year.