Bob's Home Business Blog

You’ve decided to create an online home based business and you’re in the process of creating your business plan. One very important section of this forecast should be dedicated to listing both your short term and long term goals. According to entrepreneur website, goal setting is defined as: “Establishing short-term or long-term objectives, usually incorporating deadlines and quantifiable measures.”

“If you really want to make a success of your business, it’s important to define your business goals, especially before you get started. For some people, the goal is the freedom to do what they want when they want, without anyone telling them otherwise. For others, the goal is financial security.”

Goal setting is a fundamental requirement or strategy which can determine the ultimate success or failure of your home business. People who take the time to document and plan on how to achieve their objectives are generally more successful in the long term than the people who don’t. You may encounter many road blocks when trying to achieve your goals but sometimes no deterrent can be greater than us. We are our own worst enemies.

Procrastination, distraction and self doubt are probably the three biggest hurdles we must over come within ourselves in order to become as successful as we want to be. The old saying never put off until tomorrow what you can do today is very applicable to the home business owner’s situation because it’s very easy to avoid something you don’t necessarily enjoy doing by procrastinating.

One way to avoid this is to consciously practice doing what needs to be done on a daily basis by writing a to-do list at the end of each work day for the following work day. Concentrate on completing each task on your list before moving on to the next chore and before you know it you’ll have completed your short term goals for that day.

All of us are easily distracted and this problem can be compounded because of the environment we are working in on a daily basis which is, in our case, our homes. Whether it’s the sunny weather outside, our wives, our kids, our friends dropping by, the telephone or our email account, these situations all have to be eliminated from our work environment for a specified amount of time each and every work day.

The best way to remove these disruptions from the equation is to create an office or work space in a quiet area of your home. Remove televisions, radios, home telephones and any other diversions you possibly can from this area. Instruct your family that you aren’t to be disturbed for any reason other than an emergency during regular work hours. After all this is how you support your family and pay the bills; it isn’t a hobby and shouldn’t be treated as such or your home business career will be short lived.

As we mentioned as with any business, be it a home based venture or a major corporation, there will always be road blocks, set backs and failures. How we deal with these situations will help determine our ultimate success or failure. Self doubt or a loss of confidence in the belief that we can do it can sometimes be the ultimate set back and can often seal our fate.

A great way to move past these pitfalls is to never lose sight of your ultimate goal. On a daily basis you have to remind yourself why you’re doing this in the first place. After you document your goals you should revisit them every day to make them a part of your daily routine. Look at all the positive results you achieve on a daily basis at the end of every day and feel good about what you’ve accomplished.

Never lose faith in yourself and never let the feeling of self doubt creep into your psychic. When ever you begin to think in a negative fashion remind yourself of where you are now as compared to this time last year or the year before and where you’re going to be this time next year. Visualize where you want to be, internalize your goals and your belief that you will accomplish them and work your ass off and success will happen for you and your home based business.

Bob Withers

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When most people decide to start a home based business online they usually do so with the intention of being successful by making a lot of money so they can quit their full-time jobs and work from home. It would probably be safe to say that 90% of so called newbie’s on the web have these goals in mind when they begin. If this is the case then why will 95% of these new enterprises fail and only 5% achieve their objectives?

It may be the case the reason the success rate is so low is because people don’t set shorter term goals to help them achieve their longer term objectives. It’s great to start a home business with all these pie in the sky dreams of success and online riches but if you don’t sit down and document what you want to accomplish in smaller increments then your longer term goals will begin to seem more and more unattainable with each passing day.

You must sit down, with pen and paper in hand, and write down what you want to accomplish by the end of your work day tomorrow. Then you can expand on this and document what you want to achieve during the next two or three months. From there you can set your long range aspirations by stating where you want to be this time next year and then two years from now. When you write down your objectives state them in a confident and affirmative manner.

For example, don’t say: “I would like to have my website built by the end of this month.” Rather than writing this wishy-washy statement be affirmative and say: “I will have my website built by the end of this month.” You must feel as though you’re going to achieve what you’ve set out to accomplish or you’ll be defeated even before you begin. Thinking about what you want isn’t good enough, you must consciously and physically do something about it.

Your goals must be specific to performing a certain action. From our previous example, building your website would be the specific act to reaching your achievement of having a finished home business web page. You must state a specific time for accomplishing this feat; again from our website example we stated by the end of the month we would have our website built.

Your goals and their benefits must be quantifiable or measurable. In this way you can set daily objectives for reaching your end result in the longer term. With regard to our website example you could set a daily goal of having completed a web page per day which is measurable and specific toward finishing your website.

Don’t set unrealistic objectives. For example, don’t document that you will be a millionaire in six months time. The odds are certainly stacked against you from the beginning and you’re setting yourself up for failure even before you begin. Therefore, your goals must be realistic given your knowledge and experience as well as the financial resources you have at your disposal.

Finally your goals should be achievable given the time frames you’ve set for yourself and this goes hand in hand with being realistic. Don’t set unrealistic time periods for reaching your objectives or, once again, you will be doomed to failure even before you begin.

After you’ve documented your goals you should revisit them on a daily basis to record your completed and successful daily achievements while tracking the progress of your longer term objectives. It’s important to reinforce your daily accomplishments which will further motivate you toward accomplishing your long term goals and dreams.

Goal setting is a vital component of your online home based business strategy and will go a long way toward helping you achieve the financial success you desire on the web.

Bob Withers

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