Dreaming is wonderful, goal setting is crucial, but action is supreme!

Goal setting is a sharp and powerful secret weapon that professionals can use to transform their business. Choosing a goal and sticking to it changes everything.

Savvy and smart professionals agree that one reason for their success is the practice of goal setting in their personal and professional lives. Their goals keep them motivated and focused. Setting goals is the first step in manifesting a desire or dream into a reality.

A goal is not the same as a desire. The difference between the two words is significant. You can have a desire you don’t intend to act on, but you can’t have a goal you don’t intend to act on. Action, to be effective, requires direction with a clear end in mind. Goals give you reasons to wake up, and goals keep you motivated every day.

“A good goal is like a strenuous exercise—it makes you stretch,” says Mary Kay Ash.

You must stretch constantly if you want your dreams to come true. Goals are only a list of bold wishes and good intentions until you move them forward into action. Sometimes it takes a gentle nudge of encouragement to awaken the dream; but when it comes to full engagement and total deployment of a goal, it’s up to you.

You step on the gas and get the wheels in motion. No one can move your feet for you, except you. It’s the difference between being a spectator and playing on the field. You choose to sit in the stands and watch or decide to suit up, jump in and participate.

Some people avoid goal setting because they fear failure. If they have a goal and share that goal with others and that goal fails, they feel like a failure in business. Failure only means that you have to go back and evaluate what went wrong and do it again. To do and fail means you learned something. It also means you’re not a failure. Just do it again, using another approach. 

Goals act like stepping-stones on your path: each one a signal to guide you where to step next on your journey to success.

We all have goals, dreams and visions of what we want to accomplish, what we want to achieve or attain and how we would like our lives to be. What transforms those goals, dreams and visions into reality is the willingness to chart the course, take the specific actions and stay committed to making them real. The size of your goals is not important; they can be small to significant. What matters most is that you take the time to define them.

Goals stashed away in your mind have no chance of becoming a reality. They’re not on paper, documented or placed anywhere they can be seen. They’re in your thoughts, and there’s no accountability. When setting goals, you must have an intense desire to achieve them. Write your goals on paper. Work to bypass the obstacles and have a good plan with achievable deadlines.  

The evidence is compelling: setting goals works! Without goals, you find yourself wishing and hoping things will happen. Instead of dreaming, take action and make the goals happen.

Dreaming is wonderful, goal setting is crucial, but action is supreme!