Your goals and the foundations of your business.

Your success in MLM is a domino effect. Each block building on the preceding block and a foundation to the following one. If you are anything like I was when I first joined the industry, you are saying to yourself "Why doesn't he get to the meat already?" Believe it or not, this is the meat.

Not dissimilar to a skyscraper, your MLM business is built slower at first (the basement) and grows quickly when the structure reaches the first floor and beyond.

One of the foundations to your success is what you want out of your Network Marketing career, and more importantly, why…. Goals are the driving force behind your actions. Without a goal you would not get out of bed in the morning. Goals define what we do and why we do them.

What if you knew that five years from now you could be self-employed, working out of your home (your dream home of course) and driving your dream car? You had a huge stock portfolio, lots of cash in the bank and NO DEBT. Good goals to work for!!!

Now, let's define a goal. I have always taught, "A goal is not a goal unless it's written, specific and has a deadline". Anything else is a wish.

Now you may say to yourself "I have goals, why do I need to write them down?" The reason most people don't write down their goals is that it is work. Something more to do, in your already busy schedule. If you already have goals in your head, why should you write them down?

Number one, it feeds your mind positive affirmations. Let me ask you, do you think the mind can make you sick? Can it make you healthy again?

Hence, it can make you wealthy……………….

Research has shown, that the human mind is so powerful that indeed it can cause and cure illness. In the same way, it can cause prosperity and make you rich, successful, positive, etc.

How can we harness that phenomenon, you ask?

WRITE IT DOWN!

What ever you want in your business, you life or material things, write it down. Write it in the present tense. The sub-conscious mind does not comprehend past or future tense. It only understands present tense. Write it as if it is already done. In other words, let us say you have a volume goal of $10,000 for the month of January. You would write, "It is now, January 31st 20__ and I have done at least $10,000 of group volume." Now you put those words in large, clearly written letters on three to four pieces of paper. You then put a copy of it on your fridge, your bathroom mirror and the dashboard of your car. (You can also put one on your computer screen if you have one.) Now, every time you open the fridge, brush your hair, drive the car, etc, you will see your goal and your mind will begin to follow through.

Written, believable goals create results beyond what most people believe is possible. If someone had said to me when I first started in this industry, "Bill, if you work really hard for the next four or five years, you are going to live in a 5,000 sq. ft. home on 300 ft. of lake frontage in the summer and split your winters between Hawaii and Florida homes," I just would not have believed it. There is no way anyone could have done that in four years. Yet, that is exactly what happened, and it all started with written goals.

Well-defined goals are like a magnet.

The goal must be visualized as if it is already done.

So imagine this, I wave my hand over your head and I make you a multi-millionaire.

I make more friends this way.☺

Think for a moment, what are you going to do now, that you could not do before? Are you going to travel? Where? Where would you like to go? How long would you go there for? How about your dream car? Have you driven your dream car yet? How about that dream home? Ever think about having more than one home? Folks, the lid is off. You can have anything you want, if you want it bad enough.

Think about the mighty elephant. Ever see them at the circus or the zoo with that tiny rope around their leg? Ever wonder why the elephant doesn't just pull the rope up and walk away. In a way they are a lot like us.

When he was a baby, they tie a chain to his leg and secure that to a stake driven into the ground. Try as he might, he is incapable of moving. By the time he is grown, he "knows" that when the chain is around his leg, he can't move. As an adult, being conditioned as he is, his keepers need not put a chain around his leg and stake it into the ground. A rope tied loosely around his ankle and left lying on the ground is all the elephant needs to "know." He is stuck.

Many of us are not that different than the mighty elephant. For most of our formative years we were told either directly or indirectly, either consciously or sub-consciously, that a life of total prosperity, total freedom and fun is not available to us.

Along comes Network Marketing. The vehicle for anyone that is willing to work to make their dreams come true. Let me ask you a question. When you think about your future, your success, do you agree that your attitude is everything in life?

Yes? Well, you are wrong…

You can have the best attitude in the world and be in the wrong vehicle and feel like you're on life's treadmill. It is not until you get in the right vehicle, that your attitude becomes everything. Network Marketing can be that vehicle. If you follow the steps. Why not stop right now and take the time to lay out this important fundamental?

Write down a paragraph on why you are committed to the top three goals you have in your life and the top three goals for your business.

Think about it. What drives you? How much money do you want to earn every month? I have always found that you should make a monetary or business goal one that you have to reach for, but not so unrealistic that the sub-conscious mind won't reject it as too far-fetched.

Consider this: the largest one-month check you can realistically imagine your name on. Imagine it's the day your company pays you… you open the envelope and there it is.

Now…imagine that it is actually happening. Remember this, make plans and goals like an adult and believe in them like a child. That is one of the secrets of successful goal setting.

Unfortunately, most people spend more time planning their vacations than they do planning their lives. Can you imagine going up to the ticket counter at the airport and telling the clerk, "Ok, I'm ready to go," and the clerk will say, "Where would you like to go?" and you will say, "I don't know, but I am ready." That is exactly how most people go through life. Not you!!! You will set your goals with a passion, with direction and follow through.

Part of goal setting is to have written affirmations. Literally deciding where you would like to be in the short-term, medium-term and long-term. Affirmations without action are the beginnings of delusion. It is important to write you goals with a specific intent, in the present tense. In other words, it is now (the date of the goal) and I have achieved (whatever your goal is).

One of my first written affirmations was a credo I decided to live by. Remember, I had never been in business before and didn't have a lot of sales experience, so I had to change my habits, through thought patterns. I learned that a new habit takes 21-days of repeated affirmation to make it yours. Since I knew I had little more than my own internal fortitude to rely on, I put on my refrigerator, in as big letters as I could,

I MAKE NO PROVISIONS FOR FAILURE.

I lived by those words every day until failure was just a memory of an unrealized fear.

I believe everyone was put on this earth to prosper. Part of the reason most people don't believe they can become wildly successful is the public school system.

It really isn't the teachers' fault. There they are in a classroom of 20, 30 sometimes 40 or more. Teachers cannot teach creativity and freethinking, it would be chaos. Can you imagine teaching a room full of students where creativity was encouraged? For the kids, it would be great, for the teacher, crazy. Instead, kids are taught mediocrity and conformity.

There is a school of thought that says, that the better the student is, the less entrepreneurial they are. i.e.

The A students, learn how to conform, tow the line. The B students, are not as conformist and have a little more of that creativity and of course the C students (and below) are often the ones who have the creativity. In life, it is not surprising to find, the A students working for the B student, and the C students own the company. Those C students became the entrepreneurs. Not because they were necessarily smarter, but because they kept their creativity and learned to follow an unbeaten path. The road less traveled. You might say that the C students had to become entrepreneurs; they couldn't get a good job. That could be true. It could also be that, for whatever reason they did not have their free spirit drowned. They still had their dreams intact.

At home our parents want what is best for us. As children we are always out there trying new things, like the jungle gym, and getting hurt. To protect us from pain, even thought they may not know that they are doing it, they tell us, go the easy route. If you take a chance, you might get hurt. Again, we hear, conform, don't take chances, and don't go for the gold.

With all of the institutions of greater learning in the world, of all the colleges and universities, there isn't a class or even a course that teaches the principles of goal setting and striving for success. Certainly we don't get success tips from our bosses. Often they figure, if he or she gets too good at their job they will want a raise or will leave. That is why, we rarely hear what a good job we are doing.

By the time we reach adulthood, our habits are intact, and we are creatures of habit. Look at all of the things we do, just because we are used to doing them that way. Ever go to a hotel or friends home with your spouse overnight? One of you is bound to say, "that's my side of the bed". Why is it your side? It's not even your bed. Because of habit.

What this article is all about is about creating new habits. Habits of success. Part of those new habits is writing your goals. Written, specific, with a deadline and in the present tense. The subconscious mind is at work here. The subconscious mind doesn't understand past or future. It only understands present tense. When you write a goal as if it is already done (in the present tense) the mind sees it as a reality. When you marry that thought with the appropriate action, success is often the birth child.

Treat you MLM business like a real business. It is your choice, it can be an expensive hobby, or it can be a lucrative business.

Luckily, SUCCESS IS NOT AN ACT, IT IS A HABIT!!!

The pursuit of success in MLM starts with the discipline of self-employment. Believe me when I tell you, I did NOT have these skills when I started. It can be developed. I used to sing songs to myself that would help create a new mindset. My affirmations were all over the house, and my goals where everywhere, in the present tense as if they were already done. Whatever success means to you, you must be reminded of it everyday. Whatever gimmick, mental images, songs, whatever you need to do to program that phenomenal computer you have between your ears.

If you can think of it as reprogramming your mind, that would be helpful. Why? Because most of you will be like me, in the mindset and habit of, shall we say less than full-blown success? Once you have the realization that some work needs to be done, on your attitude, your mindset and your habits, the process is eased and the time it usually takes is lessened.

I love Network Marketing and you must too, or you wouldn't be reading this. However, you must treat it like a real business. The steps that I am talking about here are the beginning of doing just that. One of the things that I like most about MLM is how inexpensively you can get into it. After all, most companies cost less than a few hundred dollars to start. One of the things that I HATE about MLM is how inexpensively you can get in. Because it is so easy to get in, it is also easy to get out. If your MLM business cost you $200,000 or even $300,000 to start, I would bet you would be taking these steps toward success and your business, much more seriously.

THE BOTTOM LINE IS, THAT YOU WON'T GET FIRED FOR NOT DOING WHAT YOU NEED TO DO IN YOUR NETWORK MARKETING BUSINESS, YOU WILL HOWEVER, GET PASSED BY.

The beautiful thing about Network Marketing is that it is your business. Sooooo, if you are not doing what you are supposed to be doing, you can fire yourself today and rehire yourself tomorrow. WHY NOT START TODAY AND MAKE THE NECESSARY CHANGES. NOTHING IS GOING TO CHANGE UNTIL YOU DO!

All of these changes, writing goals, changing habits and thought processes can be scary, sometimes very scary. After years of facing these fears, I can tell you what I have learned.

DO WHAT YOU FEAR, UNTIL YOU FEAR IT NO MORE!

Then you will find that it's not so scary or uncomfortable after all.

More than anything, this is a learning process. Actually, the whole business is a learning process. MLM may be one of the finest personal development courses available. Your goal should be to really learn and

TRUE LEARNING IS MEASURED BY CHANGED BEHAVIOR

What that means in plain English is, that if you learned something today it is proven by doing something different as a result. Believe me, the results are worth the effort.

Ever do the rocking chair test? Imagine that you are 90-years-old and you are sitting in your rocking chair, looking back at your life. Ask yourself, what are you glad that you did, and what do you wish you had done? Usually, it is what people didn't do, that holds the most regret. Is there pain in that realization? Tony Robbins teaches that everything we do is motivated either to avoid pain or to gain pleasure.

To help this, learn the power of the spoken word. You are what you think about and you are what you verbalize.

If you verbalize your goals, over-and-over they are more likely to come to pass than if you do not. Often, no matter what you say, if you say it often enough, it will materialize. Think about the person who always says, "I can't afford this or I can't afford that," and they are always broke. Or the person who verbalizes that all the people they do not like are a pain in the butt and they end up with hemorrhoids. Get phrases like I can't afford out of you vocabulary. You can choose not to spend that money, but you can afford it.

EVERYONE READING THIS CAN AFFORD A ROLLS ROYCE…
YOU MIGHT HAVE TO LIVE IN IT, BUT YOU CAN AFFORD IT!

Hence, watch what you say, because you just might get it. Remember the movie La Bamba? Richie Valenz would carry his guitar with him all of the time. When asked why, he would simply say, "that's my life." Visualize it and it will be.

I can tell right away by the way people greet you whether or not they are going to be successful.

WHEN PEOPLE ASK ME "HOW ARE YOU?"
I ALWAYS TRY AND ANSWER,
"I'M FANTASTIC, BUT I'LL GET BETTER."

Why not jump out of bed and say, "Man it's going to be a fabulous day." Verbalize it and it will be. It is almost impossible to have that kind of attitude and direction and fail.

You have to organize your goals. In other words, prioritize them. What are you doing every single day that is going to get you closer to the achievement of your goals?

Then you need to become accountable for your goals. That's easily done if you will just stick to it. Break your one-year goal into 12 monthly goals. Break your monthly goals into four weekly goals, and then break your weekly goals into five or six daily goals.

ONCE YOU BREAK YOUR GOALS INTO DAILY GOALS,
JUST MAKE SURE EACH DAY TAKES CARE OF ITSELF.

If every night you go to bed with your daily goals accomplished, your weekly goals will automatically be done. If your weekly goals are done, your monthly goals will automatically be done and therefore your yearly goals will become a reality.

During my seminars I teach a mathematically guaranteed method of turning your goals into success. Using the method above, you cannot fail.