Book SummaryGoals!, by Brian Tracy

1-Page Summary1-Page Book Summary of Goals!

In Goals! How to Get Everything You Want—Faster Than You Ever Thought Possible, motivational speaker Brian Tracy shares the mindset and the steps that will help you reach your goals in the shortest amount of time. As we’ll explore, he believes that goal-setting requires changing your mindset, being clear about what you want, using visualization, and keeping track of your progress.

Tracy was a high school dropout who did odd jobs to make ends meet. While working in sales, he made it his goal to earn $1,000 a month. He wrote down his goal, got to work, and hit his target, but it wasn’t smooth sailing from there—his fortunes still waxed and waned over the years. When he was once again down on his luck, he decided to consolidate everything he had learned about goal-setting into a proper system.

Tracy’s life changed dramatically within a year. Seeing the true power of goal-setting, he researched the subject...

Goals! Summary Pre-Goal Setting: Change Your Mindset

Before you start setting goals, get into the right mindset. Tracy claims that many people approach goal-setting with the wrong mentality: They might have only vague wishes like “to be happy” or “to get rich” instead of having specific goals. (Shortform note: The open-endedness of vague goals can hold you back significantly—most people, when faced with an overwhelming number of ways to move forward, experience decision paralysis and don’t move forward at all.)

Or, Tracy, notes, they might not set goals at all because they’re afraid of failing and, consequently, being criticized or ridiculed. (Shortform note: Being afraid of failure is normal, but feeling more strongly about avoiding failure than becoming successful can hinder your growth. You can manage this fear by confronting your feelings and discussing them with people you trust, and by [thinking about past...

Goals! Summary The 12-Step Process to Achieve Your Goals

Once you’ve gotten into the right mindset by taking responsibility, clarifying your values, rejecting self-limiting beliefs, and visualizing your future, you can start setting and achieving your goals. Tracy breaks down the process into 12 steps:...

Goals! Summary Step 1: Figure Out What You Really Want

According to Tracy, the first step to setting goals is to determine what you actually want. This is important because knowing what you want keeps you from wandering aimlessly—when you know where you’re going, you can move forward purposefully and decisively. (Shortform note: While you shouldn’t formulate goals based on what others want, instead focusing on what you want as Tracy suggests, copying other people’s strategies to achieve goals is effective. Research suggests that emulating other people’s successful tactics to reach similar goals can increase your confidence.)

Use this step to figure out what you want and set the direction for every area of your life: finances, career, relationships, and health. To avoid coming up with vague wishes, make sure that your goals are:

1) Clear and Quantifiable

Tracy argues that having clear and quantifiable goals allows you to measure your progress. (Shortform note: Tracy writes that it’s important to be specific and have an unambiguous target; however, being too specific can be detrimental—when...

Goals! Summary Step 2: Believe You Can Achieve It

If you were honest about what you want in Step 1, you might now have a list of goals that seem unattainable, from the amount of money you want to earn to the kind of relationship you want to have. Instead of doubting your ability to achieve your goals or being intimidated by the time and effort required, have a strong conviction that you can do, have, or be anything that you want.

To foster this sense of confidence, Tracy recommends avoiding goals that are outrageously ambitious, because you’ll only feel discouraged or defeated if you don’t hit these goals right away. Instead,...

Goals! Summary Step 3: Write It Down

Once you have a strong conviction that you can achieve whatever you set out to do, it’s time to commit your goals to paper. Tracy says that the simple act of writing down your goals is transformative, and he cites a Harvard study to back up his claim: In the study, Harvard MBA graduates who had written down their goals after graduation were later found to be earning 10 times more than those who hadn’t written down their goals. (Shortform note: The Harvard study that Tracy mentions here is widely cited in books and articles. However, there is no record that this study ever took place. Still, other studies...

Goals! Summary Step 4: Assess Your Starting Point

Once you’re clear about your destination, the next step is to determine your starting point. Tracy says that you should be brutally honest about your current circumstances and how you got there. Reflect on the people or behaviors that have led to your current situation and that may continue to hinder your progress and prevent you from reaching your goals. Not having to deal with these barriers will save you plenty of time and effort in the long run, so think about how you can be free of...

Goals! Summary Step 5: Find Your “Why”

Once you’ve figured out what goals to pursue and where to start on them, turn your attention to why you want to achieve them. The road to your goals can be long and arduous, so reminding yourself of the reasons you want to achieve them can keep you going despite the obstacles. To this end, Tracy says to list all the reasons you have to pursue each of the goals on your list. Write as many reasons as you can think of—having more reasons increases your motivation, persistence, and...

Goals! Summary Step 6: Determine the “When”

After writing down your reasons for wanting to achieve the goals you’ve chosen, turn your attention to setting deadlines for each of them. It’s okay if your progress isn’t perfectly aligned with your predicted timeline—Tracy says you might achieve some goals earlier and others later than planned. What matters is that you have a target timeline to aim for.

(Shortform note: Tracy doesn’t mention why deadlines are so important to goal-setting. Deadlines are necessary because they give you a sense of urgency, force you to think about how to move forward, and help you manage your priorities. Without deadlines, you procrastinate or spend...

Goals! Summary Step 7: Identify Challenges

Now that you have a comprehensive view of your goals and when you want to achieve them, the next step is to identify potential challenges. According to Tracy, challenges are inevitable and failure is part of the process of pursuing your goals. He writes that successful people understand that the only real failure is giving up. (Shortform note: Remove the stigma of failure by learning to see it as something positive: When you fail, remind yourself that it’s only a temporary setback and that the experience holds a valuable lesson. Then, reflect on how you can use the lesson to move forward.)

When you know the challenges and potential problems ahead of you, you can be better prepared to face them. Tracy...

Goals! Summary Step 8: Keep Learning

Once you identify your challenges, you’ll have a clearer idea of the skills required for you to overcome them and reach your goals. Tracy argues that if you don’t have the necessary skills or if you’re weak in some areas, commit to learning and strengthening those skills. Learning new things will not only help you reach your goals but will also increase your self-esteem and give you more courage and confidence to pursue what you want. (Shortform note: Additionally, research suggests that continuous learning offers advantages outside of goal achievement, such as keeping you agile and adaptable to change, helping you make new friends, broadening your perspective, and enriching your life.)

Career Progress Comes From Learning

Tracy says that learning new skills is especially important for your career goals because your skills are directly related to your earning ability—he writes that the more skilled you are, the higher your potential income. (Shortform note: Tracy associates career success with a higher income, so to him, the end goal of upgrading your skills is to make more money. However, some argue...

Goals! Summary Step 9: Build Connections With the Right People

After identifying the skills you’ll need to achieve your goals, assess what kind of help you need from other people to improve your skills and move closer to your goals. Tracy believes that other people are necessary to your success, whether their role is to open doors to opportunities or to provide emotional or moral support. The right kind of help can save you years of hard work and fast-track your achievements.

(Shortform note: You might think that building connections with others is unnecessary because some successful people are described as “self-made”—and, in misalignment with his emphasis on the importance of connections, Tracy himself has a book about self-made millionaires. However, some say that the self-made person is a myth. Even entrepreneurs who started their empires from virtually nothing relied on family, friends, financial backers, and customers to build their business.)

It’s therefore important to build and nurture your relationships in three...

Goals! Summary Step 10: Plan and Execute

Now that you’ve clarified what you want, identified the challenges, and determined the skills and people you need, Tracy says you’re ready to turn your goals into multi-step projects with deadlines. Even though circumstances are bound to change and not everything will go according to plan, the act of planning itself can better prepare you for the challenges that come your way. (Shortform note: Tracy outlines his basic planning tips, but there’s more than one way to plan. Look for a way that works for you, whether it’s an online planning tool, a detailed spreadsheet, or a simple to-do list on a whiteboard. The important thing is that you have a plan, any plan, in place.)

How to Come Up With a Plan

Tracy writes that you shouldn’t aim to come up with a perfect plan from the beginning. Instead, just aim to get started on working toward your goals—you can make adjustments to your plan along the way. Even if you don’t consider yourself a planner, he says it’s a skill you can learn, so practice the following basic steps:

1) Create a Project-Planning Sheet...

Goals! Summary Step 11: Stay on Track

Once you start executing your plan, the next step is to monitor your progress. Tracy says you can do this by setting daily, weekly, and monthly benchmarks and metrics for each of your goals. Numbers make it plain to see whether you’re moving closer to your goal, allow you to make corrections as...

Goals! Summary Step 12: Keep Going

With a clear picture of your future and a solid plan in the execution phase, all that’s left to do is to keep moving forward, no matter what challenges come your way. Tracy says that there are two qualities that you need to develop so that you can face the challenges you encounter: courage and persistence.

Courage

Tracy writes that you need courage to face what is likely your biggest challenge: fear. Being afraid of failure and rejection can make you indecisive and paralyze you. He suggests four methods to overcome the fears that are holding you back:

1) Increase Your Knowledge

Tracy claims that gaining more information and experience in the areas you’re afraid of can give you more confidence. He believes that the more you know, the more confident you’ll become. For example, if you’re afraid of losing money because you don’t know much about investing, read books, attend seminars, and talk to experts so that you can build up the courage to take informed risks. (Shortform note: Interestingly, Tracy’s claim that more information makes you more confident is at odds with the well-known Dunning-Kruger effect, which states that [people who know the least about a subject...

Shortform Exercise: Change Your Mindset

Prior to setting goals, Tracy says that you should get into the right mindset.

Take responsibility: Describe a time when you blamed your failure on external factors. What could you have done differently to prevent the failure?

Shortform Exercise: Become Better at Setting and Achieving Goals

Tracy says that you can achieve anything that you set your mind to, but that it’s best to start with smaller goals so you can gain more confidence and increase your belief in yourself.

List three of your goals. These can be personal or professional—just remember to keep them relatively small and manageable.