would buy five rental properties that fit your criteria in five years, your one-year goal should be to find one
them where you feel productive and relaxed is also a good idea. Here are some suggestions for places where you can post your one- year goals so you can review them and visualize achieving them. 1 Summarize them on an index card that you use as the book- marker in your physical weekly and yearly planner. Keeping your goals in the same place you organize your weekly and daily activities assures you that you’ll see them daily and creates an urgency for accomplishing them. 2 Write them on sticky notes you post on the wall next to the mirror in your bathroom. This is a good place to review your yearly goals because, again, it ensures you see them every day. A bathroom mirror is also mostly a private place if you don’t want others to see them on more pub- lic places, like your refrigerator. 3 Writing your yearly goals on a whiteboard by your work area is another excellent and mostly private place for reviewing your goals for the year. Obviously, these are just suggestions, and you can and should do what works best for you. The important thing is to keep your yearly goals where you can review them daily. ACHIEVING YOUR ONE YEAR GOALS Working on your one-year goals weekly is key to achieving them. The way to design your week to achieve your one-year goals is to make an activity dashboard that has all the activities you know you need to complete weekly to achieve them. You can track these activities in a Google
HOW TO WRITE YOUR GOALS To have any chance of being achieved, most goals must be writ- ten. Here are a few tips for writing them. Remember, keep the exercise simple. It should be fun. It may take you a few drafts to achieve clarity around your goals, but you should be able to review the finished prod - uct often to evaluate your progress. NO. 1 S tart with a blank piece of standard copy paper. Divide the pa- per into three sections down the page, from top to bottom. The top third is for your 10-year goals, the middle third is for your five-year goals, and the bottom third is for your one-year goals. Keep it simple, but it might take a few drafts to get it right. NO. 2 Consider your 10-year goals first. Get clear on no more than 3-5 goals that touch on different areas of your life (e.g., health, finance, business, relationships, and spiri- tual goals). Make sure you write goals that are as well rounded and inspirational as possible. Be de- tailed and specific. Again, your goals should seem exciting and even out of reach as you write them. NO. 3 Next, write your five-year goals. Each five-year goal should directly align and relate to one of your 10-year goals. For example, if one of your 10-year goals is to acquire 10 rental properties, each cash flowing a minimum of $400 a month after all expenses, including a property manager, then your five-year goal would focus on buying five rental properties that fit your criteria. NO. 4 Finally, write your one-year goals. Again, they should directly relate to each of your five-year goals. For example, if you said you
rental property that meets your criteria.
By writing your goals starting with the big picture and working backwards, you are essentially building the activity scaffolding necessary to stay ocused on your 10-year goals. Keep your written goals handy and review them once a week, preferably on a Sunday before the next work week begins. Plan to do this exercise every 10 years. Keep goals that are important to you or that you did not fully achieve in the previous 10 years. Some people say that the “thought” of attaining the goals is the most important thing to focus on to stay motivated to achieve them. However, if you really want to hit your goals, focusing on the work or activities necessary to turn them into reality is the most important thing you can do. If you do not consistently take action toward your goals each week, even when you don’t feel like it or when it is not convenient, you’ll find it hard to achieve your goals. The consistent completion of mundane but essential activities leads to the realization of your goals. It’s the secret to getting what you desire, but it’s not really a secret. A CLOSER LOOK AT YOUR ONE-YEAR GOALS Your one-year goals are the ones you can control most. They will be your most actionable in any given year. One way to keep them top of mind is to place them where you see them often, like where you do your planning for the week. Keeping
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