Goal setting and growth - A contrarian view

Based on what I’ve read from other business owners, the most important transition period for any entrepreneur is not setting up shop as your own boss. It’s not obtaining your first client, or making your first sale. It’s not even having a year where you earned enough to cover all the bills and moved into profitability.

The most important transition period is escaping the thinking that confines you to small successes.

There is an entrepreneurs “wall,” it seems. Just like a distance runner, one either breaks through it or is never able to improve performance.The wall in this case, however, isn’t caused by dehydration, muscle tone, or breathing difficulties. It’s caused by lack of confidence, inability to let go of small successes, and a sudden urge to conserve that’s caused by having money in the bank for the first time.

Your continued growth is essential if you’re going to help your clients or your readers in better and more sophisticated ways. Make no mistake… if you see success as the level ground you’ve finally reached, it’s only a matter of time before that ground erodes into a decline. The only way to prosper is to climb. Plateaus are meant for a brief breather, nothing more.

You’ve got to have a strategy for growth… people have asked me before if I have a monetary goal that I’m striving to reach. I don’t do this because I think that such tactical goals are extremely self-limiting. For example, if your goal is to make $100,000 and you work hard, take some risks, and hit it, is that good? Maybe you should have made $250,000, but you were so transfixed on the original goal that it became a self-fulfilling prophecy that actually limited your growth.

I’m a big advocate of having a plan to get to where you’re going… but sometimes the worst thing about having a plan is that you actually hit it.