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Do you want to know how to write goals that can help you achieve incredible success? What mindset do you need and how should you frame your aspirations?
In The 10X Rule by Grant Cardone, learning how to write goals is essential to achieving success. When you’re formulating goals, you shouldn’t limit yourself in an effort to be “realistic.” Instead, you should try to set big goals.
Keep reading to learn how to write goals according to The 10X Rule.
Writing Goals: Think Big
Have big goals and aspirations: Set “unrealistic” or 10X goals; small goals won’t inspire you or make you stand out. If you don’t set and focus on your own goals, you’ll spend your life working for the objectives of others. That’s how to write goals for big success.
Break with tradition: Challenge traditional thinking. Don’t be concerned with the way things have been done in the past; find new and better ways to do them.
Take risks: Many of us are taught to avoid risks and play it safe; to never really go big. Take enough risks daily to create success. Life is a lot like Vegas: you have to put something significant in the game to get a return.
Create your reality: Create your own reality by accomplishing your dreams. Don’t let anyone else set limits for you or define your reality.
Have a can-do attitude: Tackle every task with a can-do attitude. Use phrases like “we can do it” and “let’s make it happen,” which assume there’s a solution.
Be on a mission: Treat your work as a mission, not a job. Approach every call, email, and presentation with your mission in mind. Otherwise, your work will be just a job and probably unfulfilling.
Create wealth: Successful people aim to generate wealth (not income) through ideas, products, services, and solutions. Unsuccessful people work to make money, then spend it on unimportant things or protect it. Also, poor people spend money on the things affluent people use to create wealth (rent, interest on loans, credit).
How to Write Goals
- Set goals that encourage or require you to live up to your potential. Approach goal setting with a 10X mindset (big goals, followed by big action equals big success). Remember, the bigger the goal, the more motivated you’ll be to overcome resistance. Further, only big goals generate so much success that they can’t be scuttled by unexpected problems, such as financial or health emergencies.
- If you want to know how to write goals, you should word your goals as though you’ve already accomplished them. Here are examples of Cardone’s 10X goals:
- I’m in great physical shape.
- I have a net worth of $100 million.
- My income is over $1 million a month.
- I own a home with no debt.
- I create unique programs that improve people’s lives.
- I have a top-rated TV show.
- Align your goals with a larger purpose to generate additional motivation and energy. To do this, you must be clear about the reason for each goal. For example, if your goal is to save $100 million, include what you want to do with the money, such as financing a dream like post-graduate education, buying a ranch, or helping your community.
- Align your actions with your goals and purposes. When you need to be taking 10X action to achieve 10X goals, don’t spend your time doing unrelated things. For example, when Cardone worked at McDonald’s as a young man, he hated the work because it wasn’t helping him achieve any significant goal (he didn’t know what his goals were). But a coworker loved the job because it aligned with his goal—he wanted to learn the business and open his own franchises, which he eventually did.
The bigger (and further from average) your goals are—and the better they’re aligned with your purpose and duty—the more they’ll energize you and drive your actions.
Elevate Your Thinking
People often set only modest goals that they think are realistic. However, you can’t achieve extraordinary success without setting extraordinary goals.
- What are your current goals and why?
- How would they change if you applied 10X thinking (set goals 10X higher than anyone else’s)?
- What’s a past goal you reached, but that left you feeling dissatisfied? Why?
- How about when you accomplished a seemingly unrealistic goal? How did it feel to reach it?
How to Write Goals For 10X: Reject ‘Realistic’ Goals
Many people set average goals based on what others think is possible. Others encourage us to be realistic and avoid setting goals that are too high, so we limit ourselves to doing what others do. If you want to know how to write goals the 10X way, you have to reject realistic goals.
- What are your current goals? How was your choice of goals affected by your upbringing or by those around you?
- Which of your goals would be considered average or ‘realistic’ by most people? How can you reframe them as (10X) goals?
- What goal could you align with a purpose to motivate you to achieve it?
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Here's what you'll find in our full The 10X Rule summary :
- How to set goals that are 10 times bigger than average
- How to use extraordinary thinking to achieve extraordinary results
- The 3 myths that will sabotage your chances of success if you let them
