Internet Business and Personal Success

Set specific, measurable expectations before proceeding.

It’s a simple concept. It’s easy to follow. So, why this post?

Because it’s exceedingly rare in practice. Oh… and it could mean the difference between success and failure.

People tend to follow the path of least resistance. Me included. Yet, with some quick adjustments, we could be making progress in leaps and bounds, instead of spits and sputters. All you have to do is clarify your expectations before doing something.

This is basically the Law of Attraction on a smaller, but exceptionally important scale.

An example of what I’m talking about…

You just got a great course on Internet Marketing. It has all the promise of taking you away from your day job and allowing you to earn a living from your home office. The first thing you do is open it up, and read interesting sections as you find them. You’re motivated and feeling good. Unfortunately, you do the same thing the next day. Maybe feeling a little less motivated and frustrated that your “study” hasn’t produced any results. This continues, with a few false starts at using the information, until you finally feel that you were ripped off, and cheated by the author.

Truth is, the product may actually contain all the promises that were made on the sales letter. It may truly unlock the “secrets” to wealth and happiness for you and your family. The problem is that you wanted a magic bullet and didn’t have a plan for success.

If your expectations for the course are something like “Learn how to make a fortune online”, then you are sure to fail. It’s like hailing a cab and asking the driver to take you home. Unless you tell him exactly where you live, you won’t get there. Vague goals and directions just don’t work.

On the other hand, if you set precise goals before you first begin the course, you may just hit pay dirt. What if you set your intention to make your first $100 online within a month using the information in the course. Then for each lesson you take notes, and act on the material presented. You set up your blog, website or email autoresponder. If you have questions, you find examples of the techniques in action (from the author perhaps), and dig for the answers. Trust me, you’ll learn a lot more from taking action on something than just reading about it.

After a week you’ll have made considerable progress, and not only feel motivated, but will have actually accomplished much more than ever before. If you can get to $100, you can get to $200, and as you reach each target it will become easier.

Making a bunch of mini expectations/goals has an exponential effect on your overall progress.

You can visualize this in many ways. For instance, take a staircase. If you want to get to the second floor, you’ll need to use it. One or two steps at a time. You couldn’t jump straight to any other floor above you. Your expectation is to move gradually up the stairs until you arrive at the top. If you try to jump in one bound and just “arrive”, you won’t make it.

One more very important point. The order in which you do something is as important as the setting your goals, and direction. You simply can’t start with the chapter on building traffic to your site if you haven’t even built your site yet. You must do things in an order that has a chance of working. Can you climb the stairs by starting on the 10th step, then the 3rd and then the 15th? No, you start at the bottom, and work your way up in an order that makes sense.

Where else does this work? Everywhere!

• When surfing the net (uhhh… I mean when doing “research” on the net–you know…)
• When attending a seminar (don’t let it be mindless entertainment)
• When dating (don’t skip ahead to the marriage proposal!)
• When taking a trip (don’t get lost)
• When performing a function at work
• When Training your pet
• When learning a musical instrument
• <your goals here>

Terry Dean’s post on 8 Steps to Create Your Internet Business is an excellent example of this concept, and was the largely responsible for the idea behind this post.

Now, how will you put this to use? What mind games can you come up with to help? Please share in the comments below.

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