HARD TIMES MAKES FOR STRONGER BONDS

You’ve heard it before: Going through hard times is one of the things that can create bonds between people. In fact, the more difficult the experience, the more bonding that may occur. And a global pandemic certainly qualifies as a condition for strengthening bonds. The good news is you can look forward to greater connections and new levels of closeness with your people—in all aspects of life and work.

But why is bonding so significant during hard times? What it is about shared experiences of pain, that links us so powerfully with others? And how is bonding so critical to our fulfillment and happiness? Understanding these can help you build bonds, leverage bonds and maintain them over time.

Bonding Is Based On Shared Experiences

By definition, we have deeper engagement when we go through tough experiences. We have to consider the conditions we’re in, think through our response, consider impacts on others, solve problems and improvise. All of this causes a significant involvement of multiple thinking processes from gaining awareness to building understanding and fostering empathy.

This deeper mental engagement tends to make hard times more memorable—and our memory is linked with the people with whom we went through difficulty. We remember the friend who stayed in touch. We hold close the colleague who needed our support when she was struggling. Pain is a shared experience and it is the combination of deeper processing and more memorable circumstances which tend to link us with others.

Bonding Is Based on Solidarity

Research at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology shows going through crisis causes us to release greater amounts of oxytocin. The brain chemical has an interesting effect on groups and relationships as it tends to make us feel good, connected and concerned for others. Research at the University of Amsterdam shows a lesser-known aspect of oxytocin is that it can cause aggression toward those who aren’t part of our group. With the release of oxytocin, the bonds within the group are strengthened causing a protective response, including the desire for our people to be happy and prosperous—and the desire to ensure that no one from the outside causes a threat to this positivity.

Oxytocin can also motivate action—to protect and support group members. This feeling of closeness and protectiveness with your people is part of what creates strong bonds. Researchers at the University of New South Wales believe it creates a ‘social glue’ where we want the best for the group and will take action to try and get it. Consider the example of team members who band together to solve a tough problem threatening to derail a project or the example of heroes in Texas who were working together to obtain vaccines for elderly members of their group struggling to navigate the online registration and appointment processes.

Bonding is Based on Reciprocity

A fundamental part of being human is the dynamic of reciprocity. When people help us or give us something, it is natural to want to give back—returning the favor or doing something good after someone has done for us. Going through difficult times causes greater levels of need and this sets up for the human dynamic of reciprocity. We could use support from our friend when we’re feeling down, or we want a colleague to do the presentation for us when we’re sick. We need a neighbor to pick up groceries because we’re so busy facilitating our children’s at-home learning. When we open ourselves to help from others, we build the relationship because the conditions motivate reciprocity. Others have helped us, and we want to help them next.

Openness and vulnerability also tend to build relationships. When people see that we’re in need, they have the sense that we’ve opened ourselves up to them, and have been authentic and vulnerable. This too, tends to foster bonding. When we are vulnerable to others, it shows we trust them. And when someone helps us, it is proof they care enough to pay attention and take action. We—and they—obtain “affinity proof”—a signal of trust and evidence the relationship matters.

Bonding is Based on Post Traumatic Growth

We’ve all heard about post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), but a lesser known circumstance is post traumatic growth in which difficulty creates the conditions for people to grow, stretch, learn and become even better. Post traumatic growth says that going through hard times can have benefits.

• First, it can help us clarify our priorities. Many people report going through really tough times made less significant issues recede, and created a laser-focus on what really mattered most.
• Another element of post traumatic growth is that we can learn about our own capabilities. People report when they go through very difficult times, they tap into reserves they didn’t know they had—and their ability to survive is evidence of a new set of competencies or coping strategies.  
• A third benefit of difficulty—and a condition of post traumatic growth—is knowing who your friends are. You learn whom you can count on and who is willing to go out of their way to help. You discover who you can call in the middle of the night if you’ve hit rock bottom. This too creates strong bonds. When you’re in real need or pain, the person who came when you really needed help is a relationship you’ll cherish for the long term.

Supporting Each Other

Bonds are strengthened through difficult times—and we can learn how to support each other through it all.

Lessons from the dynamics of bonding suggest we can strengthen relationships by seeking shared experiences, banding together with our people to help and support them, opening ourselves authentically to others and focusing on the learning that can result from challenges.

In Sum

Overall, the pandemic has provided new intimacies with others, new appreciation for our people and deeper-than-ever bonds with our friends and colleagues. Strong relationships are fuel for our own growth and the health of our communities—and this bodes well for the future. We’ll survive the pandemic and we will thrive—with a little help from our friends.

 - Tracy Brower, PhD, author of The Secrets to Happiness at Work

KNOW THESE LEADERSHIP STYLES IN MANAGEMENT

The job of the leader is to get things done by leading others to success. It is important to develop leadership styles that suit different situations. The style used depends on the needs of the team.

Great leaders choose leadership styles based on the circumstances and the end goal. Here are the 5 leadership styles you should develop to inspire your team to deliver their peak performance.

Leadership Style 1: The Structural Leader

The first leadership style is Structural.

Everyone knows exactly what needs to be done, why it needs to be done, and to what standard. You accept complete responsibility for your staff. You choose them, you assign them, and you manage them with the expectation of excellence.

This style allows you to make quick decisions without the input or challenge of others.

The structural leadership style can allow for more transactional activities to occur. For example, rewarding or punishing team members based on their performance of your goals.

Use this style when your team is already motivated and are experts who need little direction.

However, using this style does not leave much room for flexibility. Using it too much or on a team that isn’t already motivated can lead to them to feeling overwhelmed or stifle innovation.

Leadership Style 2: The Participative Leader

The next leadership style is Participative.

You make your team feel that you really care about them by putting them first.

You practice the “Friendship Factor” with them, which is made up of three components: time, care, and respect.

You treat them with the same respect, patience, and understanding.  The same way you would treat a family member or friend. You express care and concern for them and their problems. This fosters a feeling of bonding, belonging, and ownership to the organization.

This style boosts your team’s morale by allowing them to take part in reaching a consensus on decisions and goals. Their opinions and voices feel heard, which will help them buy into changes easier. It also works best when you need fresh ideas or new perspectives.

Use this style during stressful times or when trust needs to be built. Excessive reliance on praise can cause mediocre performance and a lack of clear, strong direction for the company.

Leadership Style 3: The Servant-Leader

The third leadership style is Servant.

This makes the Participative style more one-sided, where you see your job as a means to serve your team just as they are there to serve you and the company.

You practice the Golden Rule — you manage other people the way you would like to be managed. You ensure everyone understands their job fully and has all the tools they need.

If they don’t, you offer plenty of learning, training, and improvement opportunities.

This style elicits peak performance because your employees are learning vital skills that will both improve their performance and character. Their participation, ideas, and feedback truly feel like they matter.

Use this style with a diverse team, where personalization in management is required for each member. Servant leadership is a great style to start off with to gain a great deal of respect, trust, and loyalty. The style also builds a strong culture since it tailors to the team’s needs.

But if you don’t balance this style very well, this could lead to your team fully running the show.  It could create a lack of authority and limit direction and vision.

Leadership Style 4: The Freedom-Thinking Leader

The next leadership style is Freedom.

You give your people the freedom to perform. Once you assign a task, you try to stay out of the way only to comment and help when needed.

You take on more of an authoritative role by pointing the team towards a vision or goal. However, similar to the Servant style, you leave the means up to each member.

This style inspires an entrepreneurial spirit with a clear goal in your team members. Especially if they need a new vision due to changes within the company.

Use this style when you have tremendous expertise and have a team of highly experienced employees who don’t require a lot of supervision.

The freedom style won’t work best when your team members are better experts than you or need more supervision. This can lead to poor production, lack of regular feedback, and lack of control.

Leadership Style 5: The Transformational Leader

The last leadership style is Transformational.

This one is my personal favourite. Transformational leaders affect people’s emotions by painting a big, exciting picture of the future.

You transform people by tapping into their hopes, dreams, and ideals. You motivate employees by motivating yourself. You enhance productivity through high transparency and communication.

This style uses vision and the future to get your team excited and committed to a project. It doesn’t only require the ownership of your team to accomplish goals, it also requires your involvement as a leader. You lead by example by being excited and committing yourself to everything you say and do.

Use this style to focus on building lasting personal strengths. These strengths make your teammates more successful and confident in you, themselves, and the company.

Unless you lack proficiency or your team is defiant and unwilling to change or learn, this style will inspire work, alleviate fears, and help you overcome obstacles together.

STOP KILLING TIME, WHY?

Organizational skills and time management are essential to your success.

Time management is a choice, how you decide to spend your time is very much up to your own discretion.

We kill time by procrastinating and doing unproductive activities to ignore what is really at hand.

Killing time may work for a few minutes, but it adds up when things need to get done. 

You can increase your productivity and move closer toward your goals just by managing what you are doing and when you are doing it.

The very act of taking a moment to think about your time before you spend it will begin to improve your personal time management and increase productivity immediately.

Why Do We Kill Time?

Why, then, do people choose to kill time? This is quite literally letting time pass you by, instead of taking advantage of it.

Killing time is a vicious cycle. What starts as a short break browsing online, can turn into hours wasted.

It feeds your lack of action and interrupts your workflow.

When you find yourself in one of these situations, scrolling the internet aimlessly, stop for a second and think about what you aren’t accomplishing.

The more you procrastinate, the longer it will take for your task to get done.

Sometimes a task seems so daunting you don’t want to get started.

You come up with random things to do, wasting your time, instead of knocking this one task out. I’ve been there, too.

Want To Stop Killing Time?

The more productive you are, the more motivated you will be to get things done and you will manage your time better.

However, don’t confuse being productive with being busy.

Here are 3 helpful tips to stop wasting time and get your tasks accomplished effectively.

1. Get The Hard Stuff Done First

Tackle the hardest thing on your to-do-list, or the thing that is hanging over your head, and get it done.

It takes discipline to accomplish the hardest task first, but it is a habit that will increase your levels of performance and productivity.

Sometimes you have to ignore how you feel, and just get started.

Nobody wants to start a difficult task, but successful people put their heads down and do it.

2. Make A To-Do List

It is also helpful to get your hardest “to-do” out of the way first thing in the morning because this is often when you are most alert.

After lunch, midday, you’ll be less motivated to get started on a tough project.

Once that’s checked off the list, make a plan for the rest of your day.

I recommend listing items in order of urgency or importance.

Making a to-do list is an effective way to put your organizational skills to work and prioritize tasks to save time.

What should you complete today?

What things can you put off until later?

Even more specifically, what needs to be done before a certain time today?

Start with that item first, and move down the list until you reach the non-urgent list items.

Now that you’ve gotten the ugliest frog out of the way, your list does not seem as difficult to complete.

3. Take Short Breaks

Make sure to set aside time for short mental breaks. I’m talking 10 to 15-minute time blocks.

Scheduling a block of time to relax for a moment is not the same as aimlessly scrolling the internet when you could be getting something done.

Mental breaks are valuable and actually jumpstart your productivity.

Choose something that shifts your mind away from what you are working on for a brief moment.

I usually do this by stepping away from whatever I’m doing.

Close your eyes and be still for a moment.

If that’s not your style, recharge by being social for a couple minutes. Talk to your co-workers about something non-work related.

Just make sure not to interrupt their workflow.

Stop Killing Time!

When you kill time, you are killing your opportunities to do more and be more.

Successful people make the most of each hour of every day, using every moment to their advantage.

Learn to get a handle on what is distracting you from accomplishing your tasks each day.

Remember this:

Effective time management is a habit that can be learned.

It starts with your decision to invest your time into what is important.

TRAITS OF THE BEST BUSINESS LEADERS

Business leaders and entrepreneurs have the potential to radically improve the world on multiple fronts.

Not only can they meet economic needs and please customers, but they can also help their employees achieve their full potential.

If you dream of making a difference in this way, you just might make a great entrepreneur.

To know if entrepreneurship is right for you, consider if you have these traits of business leaders.

1. Have A Passion For Your Position

One of the most important elements of successful entrepreneurship is loving what you do. This means not just a love for doing business, but also a passion for your specific field.

Not only does loving your work make it easier to carry out your daily duties, but it can make those actions seem like they aren’t even duties at all.

You are likely to spend your free time brushing up your skills or thinking of ways to attract more clients.

Those who love what they do are also more likely to deal with failure constructively, learning how to do better rather than getting discouraged.

2. Be Alert & Active

Effective entrepreneurs spend every moment of their time taking productive actions.

They constantly look for opportunities to enhance their business and act decisively whenever they find one.

Constant action doesn’t mean deciding without thinking; careful thought, after all, is a necessary action in business.

What it means is remaining productive at all times, so that all you do contributes to your goals.

3. Plan For Perfection

Successful entrepreneurs regularly define their business goals and come up with detailed plans to achieve them.

This allows them to focus their actions toward a consistent, positive outcome for the company.

A penchant for planning means you will always have a clear sense of what to do next, and can better assess individual decisions based on how they fit into your broader strategy.

4. Focus On Flexibility

As important as it is to make plans, commitment to a long-term vision or strategy should not come at the expense of flexibility.

Sooner or later, something will happen that you did not expect, and you will have to respond to it without hesitating.

A successful entrepreneur is able to adjust her plans when they prove impractical, quickly making the changes necessary to deal with any new development.

5. Tell The Truth

Honesty is not just a moral virtue; it is also a practical necessity in the business world.

Employees, suppliers, customers, and regulators all have to know that they can trust you.

If they learn that you misrepresented yourself, they will refuse to cooperate with you, dooming your business.

You thus have to have a reputation for honesty and integrity, and there is no reliable way to secure that reputation other than by actually being honest.

6. Engage With Emotions

Emotional intelligence is indispensable in the business world.

Your own emotions can easily get in the way of decision-making, causing you to view an incorrect choice positively or overlook a correct one.

It is also important to be sensitive to your employees’ emotions, understanding how your decisions impact them and striving to keep them happy and healthy.

TIPS FOR MAKING MORE MONEY ONLINE

For businesses, the digital economy is both a blessing and a curse.

The Internet, smartphones, and other digital innovations have given entrepreneurs unprecedented opportunities to reach customers, expand sales, and make money online.

If you seek a fortune through online business, it’s important to start with the fundamentals.

The following business basics will give you the foundation for success in the digital economy:

1. Solve A Problem

Customers don’t want to buy goods and services; they want to buy solutions.

The first step in building an online business is thus to identify a problem or set of problems that many people have and that you can solve. Any product or service you sell should be geared toward that solution.

Problem-solving is essential if you want to communicate why potential customers can buy from you.

Simply telling people positive things about your product or services isn’t enough if they can’t see how they would use those wares in their own lives.

But if you identify a real problem they have and offer a comprehensive solution to it, customers will have no trouble tying your offers to their needs, making them more likely to buy.

2. Stay Focused

Once you know what problem you’ll be dealing with, you need to come up with a comprehensive list of steps that you must take to solve it.

For online businesses, such steps generally include…

• Setting up a website
• Creating social media pages
• Hiring staff with the requisite skills

Figure out the order in which you need to do these things, and then follow that order.

It’s important that you focus on one step at a time rather than trying to do everything at once.

Set goals to stay on track.

If you are new to setting goals, use this SMART goals template to help you set good goals.

This lets you make sure that you get each step done right and can build on it.

It also ensures that you do not become overwhelmed by the sheer amount of information and responsibilities you have, and can continue to make steady progress.

3. Learn From Your Mistakes

Oscar Wilde once said that experience is just the name we give our mistakes.

This is especially true in business…

While trying to establish a company online, you’ll likely do lots of things wrong.

Perhaps you’ll post a picture on your company’s social media page that is misinterpreted to mean something inappropriate, or you’ll pursue a customer for so long that you annoy them and harm your reputation.

When these things happen, don’t get discouraged. Just ask yourself what you could have done better, and then apply that lesson in future endeavors.

4. Continue To Learn And Innovate

No successful business can stand still, especially not in the digital age, when you have to compete with new, insightful entrepreneurs from all over the world.

To stay competitive, it is essential that you update your products and services on a regular basis.

Pay attention to new software, equipment, and other technologies that could solve your central problem more effectively than your current methods can.

Then adopt this new tech as quickly as you can.

Staying up to date doesn’t just mean updating your products and services; it also requires that you expand your own knowledge.

Whether by reading books and articles, going to conferences, or attending continuing education classes, you should take advantage of every opportunity to expand your skills and gain new insights.

Only then will you be prepared for any contingency that may arise in an evolving economy.

Reading inspirational quotes is a great way to stay motivated while you learn.

5. Learn About Your Competitors

Learn and improve on your competitors.

As soon as possible once you’re in business, learn as much as you can about your competitors.

Visit their websites and social media pages and find out what specific products and services they offer, as well as what their customers are saying about them.

Repeat this research on a regular basis or any time that a new company enters the market so that you are always up to date.

Researching your competitors allows you to find out what they are doing better than you and improve your business accordingly.

But even more importantly, it lets you figure out their biggest weaknesses and use that information to gain market share.

Say a competitor is known for having poor customer service.

If you offer the best possible customer service and promote your company on that basis, you can capture many of their customers who were dissatisfied with them for this reason.

In this way, you can expand your market share and establish yourself as the most valuable player in the industry.

OWN YOUR CUSTOMER?

Not literally, of course, as that would be both unethical and illegal. But, this is a useful framework for how you can best understand how to maximize your earning potential. The more hands that a process has to pass through, the more hands it has to pay. If you can eliminate as many of the middlemen as possible without tragically destroying the overall experience and final product, it can be a very fruitful and profitable endeavour indeed.

In the context of blogging in particular and online content creation in general, you can think about this “own the customer” mentality on two fronts. This is because, depending on how you look at it, you have two customers: the advertiser and the reader. Let’s dive in a bit deeper.

Own Your Advertiser

As much as you may have other motivations behind running a blog, like how it might be something you just enjoy doing or you want to have a platform to voice your opinion, let’s be perfectly honest with ourselves. We want to make money doing it too, and that means you need to have some sort of monetization model. This typically involves advertising.

Stop running Google Adsense on your blog. While it is true that Adsense is easily one of the easiest and most accessible ways for anyone to monetize practically any webpage on the Internet, it necessarily means that Google is taking a cut of the profits. When you cut Google out of the equation, you can take the whole pie for yourself, at least in theory.

Even if you do decide to keep Adsense running, you may not want to run Auto Ads. The autopilot setup may sound appealing, but it inherently comes at a cost, both in terms of money and in terms of control. To this end, you should work toward “owning” the advertiser as your “customer.”

This could mean working directly with companies on sponsored or branded content. It could mean selling your own products and services. Whatever the case, you’re taking the middleman out of the equation and owning a more direct relationship with the advertiser who’s actually paying for the advertising space.

Own Your Reader

You may have seen some variation of this message before. As a Facebook user, you are not the customer, because you’re not the one spending the money. Rather, you are the product, and your attention is being sold to the advertisers who actually pay to be on the platform. On some level, this is true. But, at the same time, it’s important that you treat your readers (and followers) as if they were your customers, because that’s a relationship worth nurturing too. No readers, no advertisers, no money.

This isn’t necessarily to downplay the value of social media — it pays to be where your readers (customers) already are — but it’s also true that you are not at all in control of what happens on Instagram, Facebook or Twitter either. You’re just renting the space.

At the end of the day, you’re at the mercy of their algorithms and your organic reach could evaporate into nothing tomorrow. The same is true when you put too many eggs in your SEO basket. Whenever Google decides to update its search algorithm, your search rankings could plummet, taking your page views and ad revenue with it.

More and more, it’s becoming increasingly important to own the customer in terms of owning the relationship you have with your readers. This might mean setting up some form of membership or login system. This might mean putting more resources toward building and nurturing a mailing list. Maybe you have some other means of direct communication, like notifications. Either way, that connection needs to be more direct if you want to reap all of its benefits. 

Own Your Business

It’s your blog. It’s your business. So, treat it accordingly. While there will always be value in utilizing third-party services and third-party platforms, it may be even more valuable to have more control over the relationships you have with both your advertisers and your readers. 

What are you doing to own the customer?

FOR MORE CONVERSIONS: FOUR IMPORTANT WEBSITE DESIGN TIPS

Nowadays, no matter what businesses you are into, having a strong website has become immensely important. But simply creating a regular business website won’t help. It should be good enough to be able to attract visitors and then convert them to customers.

For that, one of the aspects that you need to keep in mind is your website’s design. Your design should be such that it not only looks visually stunning but also offers a powerful user experience to your visitors.

Some designers focus only on the website’s appearance. In doing so, they tend to forget about the user experience. When you do that, your site will definitely look good, but it won’t be successful in helping you convert your visitors.

That’s why it’s important that you know the designing trends that will help you achieve not just good looks for your site but also a strong user interface. So here are the latest design trends that you need to keep up with to make your website stand out and achieve more conversions.

1. Create Responsive Designs

One of the most important requirements for your website to be successful is to make it responsive for various screen sizes. Today people no longer use just the desktop to browse through the internet.

There are various other devices too, that they use for it. For example, according to Statista, 90% of the global population today uses the mobile phone to surf the internet. This means that a huge chunk of your users too may visit your site from a mobile device. So it’s important to prepare your site for these users.

Making your website responsive will let your site adapt to any screen size it’s viewed upon. This can be on a mobile device, a laptop, or even a tablet.

The website will automatically adjust to the screen size and offer the responsive layout it needs based on the size of the screen. This will help your users scroll through your website with minimal resizing. This means that your website will appear equally good on big as well as small screen sizes. It’ll also help you rank better on Google and attract more visitors.

2. Pay Attention to the Fonts

Sometimes you may be tempted to use different fancy fonts on your site to make it look appealing. But the problem is that in doing so, your text may become less readable. This will only contribute to increasing your bounce rate and decreasing your conversions.

So make sure you pick a simple and readable font for your site. The font and typography your want to use shouldn’t be an afterthought when you’re designing your site. Choosing the right font and typography can make a massive difference in the way your website appears and performs.

It can directly affect your user experience because of its capacity to establish the tone and mood of the conversation. It can also trick your users into the way they perceive your brand. So be very careful when choosing your fonts.

3. Improve User Experience Through AI

Another very effective and popular element to include in your web designing strategy is the use of artificial intelligence (AI). This feature is extremely useful if your business has a customer service section.

Most people reach out to you expecting that you’ll get back to them right away with a solution to their problem. But this may not always be possible, especially if your business is spread across different countries across the world that falls under different time zones. That’s where chatbots come in.

Using a chatbot for your business can be a brilliant way to improve customer engagement and boost your sales. Using them you can answer your user’s queries even when you aren’t physically available for them. Just add the most probable questions your users may have and preset the relevant answers to these questions. Your chatbot will automatically display these answers whenever it receives a similar question.

So now your visitor doesn’t have to wait for you to return and answer their queries. It’s a wonderful way to boost user experience and retain your customers. Not just that, using chatbots can also be more cost-effective compared to hiring a sales executive for your business, especially when you’re just starting out. And it saves your time too.

4. Avoid Stock Images

We all know how images and multimedia files can transform a website, not only in terms of its appearance but also in terms of user engagement. And in order to achieve both these factors, many marketers add stock images to their blog posts and pages.

While there’s nothing bad about this practice, stock images don’t really offer original content to your users. Due to its easy and free availability, these images repeatedly appear across the internet on various websites. So your users might have already seen them on another website before seeing them on yours. This reduces their interest and hampers user experience on your site.

But as marketers, you definitely don’t want that to happen. So instead of using stock images, try using real images that include your own products, your own workspace, your employees and teammates, etc., and offer a better user experience on your site. Doing that can quickly attract people’s attention because of the uniqueness it adds to your content. Such images can let your users correlate their own experiences with that of your products and services making them connect better with your brand. This in turn will help you convert your visitors more easily.

So these are some of the easy yet important web designing tips that can help you make your website stand out. So go ahead and use them in your design strategy for more conversion and quick growth.

CREATING AN ACTION PLAN

Everyone has goals, but some seem to accomplish them far more than others.

That’s because people who accomplish goals at a higher rate than the average person are those who use a systematic, proven method of goal setting and goal attainment.

The answer is simple — you need an effective action plan.

Here are 6 steps that you can take to create an action plan that works.

1. Seek Clarity

The first step in creating an action plan is deciding exactly what you want.

Clarity is the most important single quality of goal-setting and perhaps the most important single quality of success.

Instead of fuzzy goals like more money, better health and happiness, be specific about how much money you want to earn in a specific period of time or what level of health and fitness you desire.

You need to set goals that are multi-dimensional and for every part of your life so that you function like a well-oiled machine.

You need goals for your health, career, finances, relationships, personal and professional development, and your community and spiritual growth.

This will immediately put you in a separate category of people because most people have no idea what they really want.

Most people are unconsciously preoccupied with the fear of failure, which blocks them from setting clear specific goals.

If you don’t set clear, specific goals, then you can’t fail to achieve them because they’re so vague.

2. Write Down Your Goals

Only three percent of adults have written goals. Everyone else plans to write them down, someday.

Success begins with a pad of paper, a pen, and a few minutes of your time.

You can start with the Three Goal Method: In less than 30 seconds, quickly write down your three most important goals in life, right now.

Whatever three goals you manage to write down is probably an accurate picture of what you really want in life.

When you actually write a goal down, it is as if you are programming it into your subconscious mind and activating a whole series of mental powers that will enable you to accomplish more than you ever dreamed of.

You begin to expect to achieve the goal and you start to attract people and circumstances into your life that are consistent with the attainment of your goal.

3. Set A Deadline

The next step is to set a deadline.

If it is a large goal, set a series of sub-deadlines.

And what if you don’t achieve your goal by the deadline? Set another deadline.

Remember, a deadline is a guesstimate of when you will achieve it.

You may achieve your goal well in advance or it may take much longer than you expect, but you must have a target time before you set off.

A deadline acts as a “forcing system” on your subconscious mind toward achieving your goal on schedule.

If you want to achieve financial independence, you may set a 10 or 20-year goal, and then break it down, year by year, so that you know how much you have to save and invest each year.

There are no unreasonable goals, only unreasonable deadlines.

4. Make A List

Now, make a list of everything you could possibly think of that you will have to do to achieve your goal.

After having a written goal, one of the things that hold people back is not taking the time to lay out a list of all the little things they will have to do to get there.

Identify the obstacles that you will have to overcome; identify the knowledge, information and skills you will need; and identify the people whose help and cooperation you will require to achieve your goal.

The more comprehensive your list, the more motivated you will become, the more intense will be your desire, and the more you will believe it is possible.

Combine all these things into a plan organized by priority and sequence.

Priority is what is more important and less important.

Sequence is what you have to do before you do something else, and in what order.

List every single step that you can think of that you will have to follow. As you think of new items, add them to your list.

The 80/20 Rule says that 80% of your results will come from 20% of your activities.

The 20/80 Rule says that the first 20% of the time that you spend planning your goal and organizing your plan will be worth 80% of the time and effort required to achieve the goal.

5. Create A Plan

Now that you have this comprehensive list, schedule it into a comprehensive plan.

Plan each day, week, and month in advance. Plan each month at the beginning of the month; plan each week the weekend before; and plan each day the evening before.

The more careful and detailed you are when you plan your activities and tasks, the more you will accomplish in less time. The rule is that each minute spent on planning saves 10 minutes of execution.

Then as you go through each day of your plan, select your number one, most important task for the day. Again, you can set your priorities with the 80/20 Rule.

Ask yourself, If I could only do one thing on this list, which one activity is most important? Put a number “one” next to that activity. Then ask yourself, If I could only do one other task on this list, which one would be the most valuable use of my time? Then write a number “two” next to that task.

Keep asking this question until you have the top 20% of your tasks, organized by sequence and priority.

And now you have an action plan.

6. Take Action

Your next step is to take action, keep track of your progress, and make adjustments along the way.

Make sure you’re doing something every day to move you in the direction of what you really want in life.