Most of the success literature talks about setting goals. How important they are. How you will never succeed without them. To which I say “Hogwash!”

Don’g get me wrong Goals are good and fine, but for some of us they are a double edged sword. Most success literure and “gurus” talk about some version of SMART goals (Specific, Measurable, Acheivable. Relevant. And Time-bound.) It’s that last one that is a double edged sword for some of us.

We set a goal, say we are going to be making x number of dollars by this date. It can be all the SMART things, but perhaps it does not happen by the specified date? I can tell you what happens or a fair percentage of my clients over the past decade or so – They get discouraged. Some even mark themselves as failures, even if they have made huge progress. In their minds they missed the goal, so they are failures. Particularly if they miss a couple (or more) of the deadlines.

We call themselves a failure, even if we have met 90% of the goal. Don’t ask me why we do that to ourselves. I am not a therapist. But I know it happens. What’s a success hungry person to do?

The solution lies in looking at progress not as goals, but effort. Measure the time spent each week working towards your dream. Because, let me tell you this – If we spend time every day, every week, working on the steps to success, it comes. It always comes. Time, regular amounts of time, is the secret sauce in reaching our dreams.

How much time? It varies. But if we commit to an hour a day for five days a week, you’d be surprised how much progress you make. And you may not do it an hour a day, but mix up the times you spend reaching and doing the work of your dream, and you will see progress, real progress, sooner than you might imagine.

I actually use a calendar to help me with this.

Like many of us, I use a planner to keep myself on track. My particular planner is the “This Is My Era” planner, but there are plenty of them out there, and all of them have a calendar element. Most of us use the calendars to mark our appointments and such. But what I do in addition, is hughlight the time I spend working towards my dream. Most times I also write down what I did.

Being able to go back a week or a month and see the work and the progress lifts me up. I don’t have to worry if I met this goal or that goal. Just do the work and things fall into place. It does not matter what pace you work at. Just that you work.

So if goals don’t work for you, consider this way of measureing yourself and your progress. You will be surprised, I promise you.

Be well. Travel wisely,

Tom