| Earl Nightingale said that "Success is the progressive | | | | of a dinner cruise yacht, Mr. Smith actually decided to |
| realization of a worthy goal." Because he was | | | | look into how yachts were constructed, how they |
| instrumental in the realization of my success through | | | | were sailed, how dinner cruises were run, how to get |
| the many books and tapes he produced (and that | | | | chefs onto the boat to cook, etc. In other words he |
| my successful father encouraged me to read and | | | | broke down his goal as best he could and then got |
| listen to), I wanted to dedicate this first of the | | | | to work. As he learned more about the various bit |
| Achieve Master series of articles. | | | | and pieces of his goal, he further broke them down. |
| In this article we will continue to look at the part of | | | | Sometimes, the things Mr. Smith thought were tasks |
| Mr. Nightingales quote "the progressive realization..." | | | | turned out to be very large, they were actually more |
| So...how do you break down a goal into a set of | | | | like "mini-goals" or "sub-goals". They could not be |
| steps or tasks that you can begin doing immediately | | | | done in a simple one day task, so they needed to be |
| so you are always moving towards that goal? | | | | broken down further. This is what Mr. Smith did, |
| I the last article we discussed "Backwards Planning". | | | | revising his "map" from where he was to his goal. |
| This is essentially breaking down a goal into individual | | | | And every day he got closer, every day the path to |
| steps or tasks by starting from the goal and working | | | | the goal got clearer, until one day Joe Smith was |
| backwards to your current state. | | | | "Captain Joe Smith" happily serving his guests as he |
| To help you understand this process, think back to | | | | plied the inter-coastal water ways...and as he began |
| the last thing that you were intensely interested in. It | | | | planning his next achievement. |
| needs to be something that got you going in the | | | | Unfortunately, Jack Sprat just kept dreaming about |
| morning, and kept you awake at night thinking about, | | | | being a yacht captain, and after a few years, lost |
| something that grabbed your attention every time | | | | interest in the dream. He moved on to other things |
| anything remotely to do with it falls into your field of | | | | with equal success. |
| vision. Something that forces you to research it on | | | | You see, full immersion into your goal will keep your |
| the web or go to the library and check out books... | | | | interest long enough to achieve it. Dreaming about |
| That should be the way you feel about your worthy | | | | your goal is important, but not enough to keep the |
| goal, because you need to research it, and you need | | | | dream alive! You need to put those dreams on paper, |
| to understand everything about it, you need to | | | | you need to think about them, research them, |
| mingle with other like minded people. At this point | | | | noodle them in you mind. You need to see yourself |
| you may even want to seek out a mentor (more on | | | | already having achieved the goal. |
| that in another later article). You certainly need to | | | | You must discover how to break your worthy goals |
| know how others were successful doing what you | | | | down into tasks, put those tasks into some sort of |
| want to do (or at least something similar). The fact | | | | priority, and then do them in order. You must |
| is, to do a backwards break down of your goal into | | | | constantly update your tasks and your roadmap to |
| steps; you are going to have to understand as many | | | | your goal as you learn more about it. This can all be |
| details of it as you can. Start by imagining yourself | | | | done on paper(and has been done this way for |
| already having achieved the stated goal. | | | | countless centuries) by the most successful people |
| In our earlier example of Jack Sprat and Joe Smith, | | | | on earth. Today's technology makes it even easier to |
| both who claimed a goal of wanting to be a captain | | | | track and update your success plans. |