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Moving From Goal-Setting to Goal-Getting

SUMMARY

In this session of The Entrepreneur’s Solution show, we’re going to talk about moving from goal-setting to goal-getting using something called The Achievement Ladder. If we are not focused on achievement and goal-getting, we end up with spotty success, we have a complete lack of drive and we start to stew pessimism. When we get it right, we will walk through the success gateway, we are hyper-driven and we approach things with a knowing.

Here are the 3 things that you need to know:

  1. Micro-successes are key
  2. Blame builds walls
  3. Positive expectancy

The Achievement Ladder

Goals are useless unless they are energized by emotion. They should be aligned with your vision and purpose. This ladder of achievement is meant to infuse you with the energy so you move from goals to success.

Personal Growth: At the very bottom of this framework is personal growth. In order for you to succeed, you need to be willing to do things and have that inherent desire to grow.

Perseverance

  • Purpose: Why are you doing this? Why do you want this goal? Write it down because purpose is effectively your emotional why.
  • Passion: What is the passion you bring to it? You got to have strong emotions behind it so that you and your team will get behind the mission.
  • Patience: Have the patience to continue on the path to build things. You can’t control everything but you need to have the patience to deal with the setbacks and move forward.

Practice

  • Plan: What are the bite-sized action steps that you have in place? You need to plan out the resources, people and help that you need in your journey.
  • People: Who are the people you need? Success is never a solitary pursuit. Think of the people you need like employees, team and customers.
  • Positivity: Have positive expectancy. Be idealistic as well as realistic. Come up with 2 to 3 emotionally compelling positive statements to bring you back to the center.

— Begin Transcript —

Hey there, Mel Abraham here, the author of the #1 bestselling book, The Entrepreneur’s Solution and the founder of Thoughtpreneur Academy where we teach you how to brand yourself as an influencer so you can have more impact, more income and more freedom.

And welcome to this episode of The Entrepreneur’s Solution show and in this episode, we’re going to talk about something that I think a lot of people talk about but don’t do and that is they think that goal-setting is actually goal-getting and I want you to focus on goal-getting and not just goal-getting. So, I’m going to give you the steps to build what I call Your Achievement Ladder in this episode.

And in this episode, again, there is an action guide that comes along with it. It’s called The Achievement Ladder action guide. If you want to download it go to MelAbraham.com/session088 and you can download that. If you’re not by your computer, you happen to be driving; don’t do anything that’s unsafe but if you happen to be driving make sure you can text me MYLEGACY one-word no-spaces to 38470. I will send you the download link so you can make sure you have the tools, templates and the worksheets that will make this stuff come to life in your business and in your life and to make a huge difference.

So, we’re going to jump into this. I’m going to give you kind of the process that I think moves you from goal-setting to goal-getting. Think about the last couple of sessions that we had. We spent a bit of time talking about productivity, then success. Now I want to talk about achievement. So, let’s jump in.

All right, so as I said, what I want to do is focus in on goal-getting not just goal-setting and give you the process that I call the achievement ladder process. You know, why is that? Why is that so important?

Because I think the reality is, is that if we don’t get this right, if we’re not focused on achievement, if we’re not focused on goal-getting, we don’t understand how to get goal-getting what we end up with is spotty success.

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  • We become short of that hole.
  • We get short of the goal.
  • We get short of the homerun.
  • We get short of the success, the finish line.

And so, what I don’t want, I don’t want spotty success. I want consistent success. I want you to know that you’re crossing that goal line, that finish line each and every time. So, we need to move from goal-setting to goal-getting. The idea is this: Is that setting a goal, putting it up on the wall, doing all of that is meaningless. It doesn’t start to really drive things and we will talk about why and what and what I think is missing in the process.

I think that when we don’t do this right, we find that we have a complete lack of drive.

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That if the goals aren’t done correctly, they’re not drawing us, they’re not pushing us and they’re not pulling us. And so, we get complacent, we get apathetic and we don’t do anything.

And ultimately, what ends up happening is that we start stewing pessimism.

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We start looking at it and saying, “I can’t accomplish this. I can’t do this.” How many times have maybe you’ve seen it or you’ve seen it in another people or maybe you’ve felt this way? I know with me at times that I, if I didn’t recognize it and I didn’t shake myself out of this, I started to get pessimistic and down on myself and say, “This isn’t going to work” and that’s not the space to be.

When we get it right though, it’s a different ball game because what ultimately happens is that we will walk through the success gateway.

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We literally get a trail of successes along the way. We start to see that we’re making progress and we’re able to start doing things a little differently.

What ends up happening is that when it’s done correctly, is that we’re hyper-driven.

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We’re literally hyper-driven for the outcome. I mean we are focused, we are accelerating and we’re going towards the finish line in that process.

And ultimately, we approach things with a knowing and what I mean is that there is a level of certainty.

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I’m going, “I may not know exactly how I’m going to get the outcomes. I may not know exactly what I’m in store for. But I do know that the outcome is given.” There’s this confidence, this certainty, a knowing that you’re going to move forward because you’ve got a system, a process, a framework of achievement that’s going to make that happen.

And so, those are the things I think happen when we do this right, or we do this wrong and I think if we understand that then what’s left? We got to understand the process. We got to understand what you need to know. So, let me touch on, I think, the couple of things that you need to know to really bring this to life and the first thing is this, is that we got to look at the micro-successes along the way.

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It’s easy for me to sit back and say, “I want to make a million dollars next year.” That’s great. But it’s such a distant goal and it may be such a big goal or it may be something that I want to build a whole new house and it’s going to cost whatever or I want to build a whole new business or whatever it is. The question is what are the milestones? What are the mile markers every step of the way?

  1. That you can celebrate.
  2. That indicate that you’re on the right path.
  3. That start to accelerate.

Because I look at this whole process as a in effect a relay race. So every micro success is passing baton to the next runner, the next runner to the next runner to get that micro success. So, I want to break it down into micro successes along the way. That’s the key to keep you moving in this process.

The second thing is this. Is to realize that when we blame the lack of success, the failures, the problems, the challenges on people outside of ourselves, we build walls.

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We build walls against progress in doing that. Now, I’m not talking about beating yourself up and taking all the blame but until you take responsibility for how you got there, you cannot be responsible for how you get to the next space and granted things happen.

Listen, as many of you know, I had one-third of my wealth in my net-worth wiped out in a Ponzi scheme. Now, it’s really easy for me to point the finger at the guy who is sitting in jail right now and say, “He did this to me” and blame him. But in that process of blame, I don’t take responsibility and I don’t find a vehicle and a way for me to grow and become better out of it. So, what I needed to do is look at it.

Yes, he did something but I contributed to it. So, I have to take responsibility for the process that got me involved, kept me involved and lost me the money. Not from a critical stand point to beat myself up but from a learning standpoint to grow and learn from it and to know that I can do something different and it was that process that allowed me to not only recover what was lost but surpass it and recover not only what was lost but to rebuild to three times where it once was in 18 months and that’s the key to doing this and when we start blaming things, we put walls up from our own progress and doing that. So, I don’t want to do that.

And then, to live in a place of positive expectancy and what I mean by this is that remember I said there is a knowing, is I want to have this positive expectancy.

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In other words, I expect good things to happen and to live there like this picture of the dog just watching the owner come home and that excitement. That’s the way I want. That’s the energy I want to bring to my achievements, to have that positive expectancy instead of the hesitancy that comes into play, the negative hesitancy of going, “I hope this works out.”

I mean, if you approach things to this, “I hope this works out.” People feel that and that doesn’t come into play. When you step out on stage, when you get in front of a camera, when you go to a meeting to approach it with that positive expectancy as if it’s already happened to come at it with that positive energy because it is contagious if you do that, that way.

So, that’s the three things that I’d love for you to really start to understand is:

  1. Micro successes are the key
  2. Blame builds walls, and
  3. Live in a state of positive expectancy

So, if we know those things and we know what happens if we get it wrong and what happens if we get it right, how do we get this done?

And it’s something that I call The Achievement Ladder. And once again, we’re going to jump to the iPad and we’re going to draw this out for you so you understand how I look at this concept called the achievement ladder. We’re going to just build this out for you in this process. So, let’s just jump over to that.

So here’s the thing. Let’s just talk about goals in general for a moment as we look at this. I think that goals in general for many people are just part of the expression, they’re impotent. I mean, they’re useless because they haven’t been energized by emotion. They haven’t been electrified with a process to bring them to life inside of you. If the goals don’t feel viscerally and emotionally compelling, they’re not going to get accomplished and so, what we end up going into is looking at things and you hear this, this thing of smart goals.

Smart goals and I’m telling you, ugh it’s just awful to look at that. Now, I like some of the concepts of smart goals in the process but here’s the problem with smart goals. One of the biggest problems I think with smart goals is that they’re left brained. I’m going to write them down.

  • They’re Specific
  • They’re Measurable
  • They’re Actionable
  • They’re Results-driven
  • They’re Time-driven

Okay great. I can check the box and they work but where is the emotion that drives me forward to go and do the things that I need to do because in order for those goals to become a reality, I got to take action and if I’m not going to take action because it doesn’t stir me emotionally inside, we have an issue. So, the goals become goal-setting that sit up on a wall. They are something that you say, “Yeah, I set goals” but you’re not going after them. You’re not goal-getting them and I want to create goal-getting and so, what I want to do is if I’m going to use the SMART acronym which I will use in this case for a moment.

I want to make them ASMART goals. In other words A, if you look at it here; I want to use the term ASMART because if I’m going to use SMART goals, they need to be aligned with something and that’s what the A stands for.

  • They got to be aligned with my purpose.
  • They got to be aligned with emotions.
  • They got to be aligned with my vision, with my mission.

Until they are aligned with that, they don’t have any emotion or electricity to move you forward. They got to be aligned and we sit back and create goals that are not necessarily to the emotional side of our being and now, I know this is kind of crazy that this CPA is a left brain thinker’s talking about the right brain emotional side but I can tell you this, those that are uber successful, those that are super successful are those that have connected the right and the left, the emotional with the logical. So yes, we can set goals but until we infuse them with energy, you’re never going to make them; you might but the reality is that you’re, the likelihood is that you’re not going to get there.

So, one of the things that I want you to do is to consider that and that’s the part of what this ladder of achievement is meant to do is to infuse with them with the energy to move from goals to success. All right?

So, let’s jump into this. The first stage or the first piece of this is really this, is that at the very bottom of all of what we’re trying to deal with is that we need to be focused on Personal Growth in the process. Here’s the thing is that personal growth is going to, we got to be bent on the reality is that in order for me to succeed, I need to be willing to grow. I need to be willing to do things. So at the foundation of achievement of goals needs to be my desire, the inherent desire to continue to grow.

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Once we’ve got that, there’s two other macro kind of things that we want to look at is that if I have personal growth, I need to have Perseverance. I will give you the things that you need to make that come to life. And then, I need to make it a Practice.

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In other words, I got to have emotions. I’m going to have thoughts but now, I need to have actions in order to go from goals to success. It’s not about money alone in this process. And so, one of the first things that I want us to do, it’s a cliché term but it’s really important for us to analyze, to really start to understand this, the first part of perseverance is to make sure that we know what our Purpose is.

  • Why are you doing this?
  • Why do you want this goal?

And if it’s about money in a bank account or some big house or some car, I got to tell you, it’s not enough to move you through the challenges, the obstacles and the things that may happen along the way and so, the key is what is the purpose, the why behind it as Simon Sinek says or I talk about in Business Breakthrough Academy in my analyst model is that we need to look at that, what is driving you to really make that happen? And here is what I invite you to do.

What do you think that is? Write it down.

Use the action guide because it walks you through this to really define this in a way that start to really drive this home. Not drive it home intellectually but to spiritually, emotionally to put it into your heart and soul to make that really come about. Purpose is effectively your emotional why and that’s what we need to build it and that’s the foundation.

First the desire for personal growth then what’s the purpose, what’s the emotional why that’s driving you forward to really make that happen?

Then, from there it becomes a Passion because it is related to your purpose.

  • Whether it’s in life
  • Whether it’s in health
  • Whether it’s in business
  • Whether it’s in relationships

What’s the passion you bring to it?

Passion is contagious.

Have you ever been in a situation where someone is talking like this? You’re just not a lot there and it’s not contagious, it’s not exciting but I want to, in order for me to succeed and get my goals and a lot of times, I need to instill and enroll other people in the process and the way that happens is that they understand the why the passion behind it, the purpose behind it, the emotions behind it that they’re willing to get behind the mission.

My team understands why I do what I do is to serve and to help people grow to be better, to have better lives by their own design to do all of that and they get behind the mission because of the passion I bring to this.

And then, this last piece of perseverance is Patience. Now remember, I was in a program and talking with Gary Vaynerchuk and here he is talking in front of, talking in front of 20,000 people and he says, “The reason you’re not going to be successful, most of you, is got nothing to be what you think it is.”

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And this really kind of solidified this because I had put this, this achievement ladder was done well before I have even heard this but he said the reason is because of patience. Most of you are not willing to do the work that is necessary to be successful. You don’t have the patience to do it. And that’s what he said to everyone.

And I tend to agree. I said, “The fact is, is that I need to have the patience to continue on the path to build things. To realize that I cannot control everything, I’m not going to control everything. I’ve got to stay on purpose. I’m going to deal with challenges and obstacles. I have the patience to continue on that journey knowing that it’s tied to my purpose, knowing that it’s tied to my passion, knowing that it’s tied to an emotional why that moves me from goals to success.”

That’s really the key as we move forward. We got to have the patience. We can’t rush it and I think that we can be assertive, but realize that when there’s setbacks, it’s just a setback and be patient with it.

Which then, which is really the recipe for perseverance for me is this whole concept of purpose, passion and patience to really build that but that then takes us to this next piece of practice. If we really want to do now you see what we’re doing is we’re instilling the emotions into the goals to move us into that place of success and if these things are not high on the ladder when you go through the rating and the ranking systems and you’re not at 8s or 10s on these then guess what? It’s probably not a goal that is really compelling enough that’s going to get you to do the things that you need to do to make it happen.

When we go to practice though now what we need to do is really start to understand this next piece is really the Plan. Okay? The Plan. Practice is about your discipline in action. You know a lot of people, I have said this a number of times before is that people will look at success. They say, “Well they’re gifted.”

Yeah, they’re gifted. Most of them though are being gifted with the gift of discipline to do the work that other people won’t do and so, if you’re going to take and build something from a practice standpoint, practice is another way of saying I’m going to be disciplined enough to do the things that I need to do each and every day, each and every hour, each and every quarter, each and every year to get the goal to move from goal-setting to goal-getting.

To become a success, I’m going to do what it takes and if we’re going to do that, that becomes a problem and really starting to build it. So, now the question thought is:

  • What’re your plan?
  • What kind of plan can you put in place?
  • What are the bite sized little action steps or projects you can do to move these things forward?
  • Who are the people that you need on your team, on your side?
  • What are the resources that you need to make it happen?
  • How are you going to get those resources?
  • Do you need a mentor?

Remember, this is a relay race.

What are we going to do to really make that come alive?

And then, once we have a plan, as I said, who are the people you need?

Your success, your ability to achieve your goals is never going to be a solitary pursuit and I don’t agree with the whole term of self-made millionaire, billionaire whatever because no one’s self-made. Everyone has had help. Whether it’s employees, team, customers.

I mean, I look at my success, my success is the sum product of all the people around that have surrounded me and supported me, that have energized me, that have coached me, that have mentored me, that have spurred me along, that have kicked me in the butt, that have done all of that. My success is a result of the people around me.

  • Who do you need around you?
  • How are you going to get contact with them?
  • How are you going to engage them in your journey?
  • How are you going to enroll them in your mission?

List them out. Get in touch with them. Engage with them. Tell them what you’re trying to do. Get them in the process to help you out with your plan to make it come to life.

And then, the last piece is this: Positive Expectancy. This is about how you think about it. If you come into this and say, “Here is some goals and these are really good goals” and you go, “But I hope I get them”. No, it’s probably not the way you’re going to achieve it. I want you to have this positive expectancy as if it has happened. I don’t want you to be idealistic; I want you to be realistic at the same time because there is some things that need to be put in place for it to happen.

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But if you look at the plan, if you sit back and go, “I’m looking at the plan and I’m looking at the people” and it’s in my purpose, in my passion and if all those things can come true, yeah, I will make it. Now, you can approach it with a positive expectancy but look at that and do it that way. And here is what I would invite you to do at this stage, is to look at it and say, “What are 2 or 3 positive emotionally compelling statements that you can make that will bring you back to your north star, bring you back to center?”

  • If you start to get knocked off, or
  • If you start to feel challenged, or
  • You start to feel that it’s not working for you.

To turn around and say, “What are the statements, the emotionally compelling statements that will drive you?”

I know that I have some stories that I tell; not that I tell myself that I’m aware of, the story that you guys have heard me talk about Kyle is really important to me because I realized that the reason I’m doing what I do is not for the masses, it’s for the one. It’s for the one that needs to hear the message that’s going to bring them off the cliff, that’s going to bring them off the edge to give them avenue to do some things differently.

And so, what are the 2 or 3 things that really start to drive you?

And then, here is where I would really be careful because this is where blame starts to come in and so, what I want to do is rather than think about blame, to consider about responsibility.

So, how can you take responsibility for the things that happen and what you’re going to do about them?

  • Not beat yourself up because things happen.
  • Not blame someone else so you don’t take responsibility to build those walls up like we talked about.

But really what are the things that you can do to take responsibility? Watch the blame game because that’s going to build a wall to your progress and it’s going to put a wall up between your goals and your success and building that. I’m not saying that other people may not impact you or affect you or infect you if you will. We just need to be aware of it and then, take responsibility for what we had to do and what we need to do to move forward because I look at responsibility as two words—response ability. My ability to respond to the things around me and that’s the key to all of it.

And this is really how I look at the achievement ladder. When you turn around and you say, “All right, I’m going to do goal-setting” and then you infuse it with purpose, passions, patience, plan, people and positivity; when you infuse it with that and you’ve got perseverance, and you bring it into practice and build it in that way, now you’ve infused it with this emotionally compelling alignment with what your mission is, what your vision is and that’s what’s going to drive you to success; that’s the achievement ladder, that’s how I turn around and say, “I may start with some goals but I’m going to infuse it with the emotion to drive me forward” and that’s what’s going to drive you to success.

So, I hope that you found this of value to you. I hope that you start to realize the importance of what is your doing in your life and that’s it’s not about goal-setting, it’s really about goal-getting. It’s about driving things in a way that really start to achieve things. It’s not about a checklist. It’s not about putting something on the wall. It’s literally about instilling you with the energy and the electricity necessary to move you forward and make your goals a reality in your life and not some wish list. Okay?

Hope that serves you. I hope you found this of value. If you haven’t done so already, download the action guide and do the work and you will thank me for it. Go to MelAbraham.com/session088, you can download that. Or text me. MYLEGACY one-word, no-spaces to 38470. I will send you the download link.

If you found this of value do me a favor. Would you share this with someone? There is a lot of people out there that are struggling to achieve things. This is a tool that may help them. Share this, share it as much as you possibly can, subscribe, stay with me on this journey, leave me your comments, let’s have a dialog, let’s have a conversation, let’s continue on this journey of success and achievement together as much as I possibly can, I want to be your back pocket mentor in doing that.

If you have a question, or you have a challenge or you just want to talk about something, go to AskMelNow.com, leave me your note and we will turn around and either use it on one of the upcoming episode of The Entrepreneur’s Solution where I will make sure that we get a chance to answer it and help you out. So, hope that you found this of value. It was great spending time with you. Remember to go back to the last sessions because I think they all build on each other—productivity, success and achievement in that process and I look forward to seeing you in the next session. Until then,

May your vision be grand, your journey epic and your legacy significant!

See you soon. Cheers. Bye!!

— End Transcript —

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Like this? Please share it and help a few more people bring their dreams out of the darkness and give life to them again.  Cheers, Mel

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Mel is one of the smartest business people I know. I don't make any decisions without him! "

Brendon Burchard
#1 New York Times
Best Selling Author

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