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Goals stem from desire. Goals are the conceptual manifestation of desires. When you put goals into your world, you have made a commitment to get somewhere. What you must do also is make the commitment to do what it takes to reach your goals. It is easier to first describe not having goals. Not having goals means not having direction or purpose; the proverbial ship without a rudder. Therefore, having goals means having a purpose and a direction.

Goal setting is the commitment; strategic planning is understanding the rules, mapping the plan, and employing discipline. This is what gets and keeps you there.

The Process

1. Start by describing what you want. Do you wish to be a successful entrepreneur, wealthy, healthy, self-sufficient, a Vice President, or a good husband/father’? Whatever it is that you want, write it down (and be specific). Next, list the benefits to you that will result from achieving your goals. List the benefits to others that will result, as well (this will be important when reviewing).

2. Place specific time frames on goals. The reason that people resist this is because they are afraid of disappointment. Non-achieving the time frames does not mean failure. It means either your expectations were out of reach or you need better efforts.

Efforts are as important as goals; achieving goals is a result of successfully directed efforts. They also create a form to channel energy in a (optimally) constructive way. Remember, you didn’t fail if you missed, your plan did. But, you can’t change anything that you can’t measure. Monitor how things are proceeding by watching timed goals. The only failure is failing to try!

Long Range - 5 year List what you want to achieve in that time, e.g. ownership of 3 offices, etc.

Intermediate Range - 1 year List same, e.g. one office with sustainable profits.

Short Range - 1-3 months List tasks to be accomplished, e.g. consistent sales

Near Immediate Range - 1 week List duties, goals, e.g. run ads, hire 2 people, train 2 people.

Immediate Range - 1 day List all automatic daily requirements, e.g. make coffee, pay bills, answer the phone calls, see potential customers.

Next, set up a way to monitor the results of all efforts. For example, what is our cost of each type of lead/sale, what is our response rate (how many leads can we get from that lead type). Then, you will have a framework. Look at each goal and determine what you have to do to get there, and what means you have with which to do it.

Finally, list a contingency plan (”Plan B”) for action, in the event that any step does not go as expected.

3. Are you willing to pay the price to get what you want? “No pain, no gain”, is as true as, ‘You don’t get something for nothing.” To get something that you currently do not have will mean giving up something, as well. If you keep doing things the same old way that you have been, then things will stay the way they are.

For example, more income than out-go. All of your time is now somehow booked. Some or most of your available time from that portion of your life must be sacrificed for the sake of a goal. Look at the ballerinas who give up their time and trivial pursuits. It takes discipline to achieve. Discipline entails persistence, patience and faith. Balance is necessary to accelerate achievement.

Don’t lose sight of your other needs, like recreation and family. You can see sacrifice in the life of any successful person.

Daniel Wadleigh is a nationally published marketing consultant and has programs for start-up and existing businesses including effective web sites, e-mail/database, other non-internet ways to drive them to your website, and low cost ways to get more new customers.

Go to: http://www.more-new-customers.com to get free copy of “Marketing to Men vs. Women- the 8 different responses” and a Free copy of “Market Research- 7 Questions to Ask to Start-up and 7 to Ask to Improve Any Business.”

Passover and Thanksgiving holidays really should be merged. Passover got its name because the Angel of the Lord “passed over” the houses of the Israelites and spared them from the unimaginable plagues endured by Pharaoh and the Egyptians. But God didn’t stop there. Through a series of spectacular miracles, he arranged for Moses to lead the Jews out of Egypt, through the desert, to eventual safety and survival. Each year, Jews marvel at this deliverance and symbolically recount it. We pray for those who are still in bondage and invite those less fortunate to share our Passover meal. It’s a political statement as well as a religious one.

Thanksgiving likewise re-enacts an historical and even political event of gratitude. Paradoxically, it commemorates a joining of two peoples, white and Native American, which eventually became the latter’s undoing. While Passover celebrates the ending of the disentanglement of Jews from Egyptian oppression, Thanksgiving heralds the beginning of an entanglement.

Nevertheless, on both holidays we express appreciation for what we have and the abundance in our lives today. Matzoh sustained the Jewish people in the desert, our new home. Life-giving corn seeds from Native Americans ensured the survival of European settlers in the new land. In both cases, we received just enough. Just enough to live. Perhaps in these times of terrorism and rising anti-Semitism, we should have a larger perspective. We should redefine abundance to mean just enough. Just enough may be all we have one day. And we should be grateful for all that we have, grateful to be alive. Beyond religious significance, cultural rituals, and historical observances, we are all the same. Perhaps all holidays should add the word “Thanksgiving” after them.

Renée M. Sussman
Certified Life, Business, and Executive Coach
http://www.reneesussman.com
http://www.bethedriver@blogspot.com

Background
For the past 20 years, Renée Sussman has helped individuals and companies clarify the change they desire, adapt to it, and transition smoothly. Currently, she is an Assistant Director and Advisor Coach in the technology communications and learning division of a global accounting firm. In her private coaching practice, Renée focuses on empowering women in transition and at life’s crossroads who want to excel at what comes next.

Email and document security is no longer just an option for companies, it is a necessity. Couple that with the costly user licensing of most enterprise software solutions and many small business operators can be locked out of taking advantage of Best Practice strategies that ensure the privacy of intellectual property and communication. Setting rights permissions to documents and encrypting email will be essential to future security practices for all businesses.

Common knowledge has been that the less sophisticated small business operates on a pricing sensitivity and is more apt to take advantage of promotions, whereas the more sophisticated make security decisions based on perceived business necessities. Overall, small businesses tend towards waiting to implement internet security measures until after suffering an email breach or informational leak. By this time privacy and accompanying monetary loss may have already done irreparable harm to a company’s intellectual property and reputation. Large enterprise solutions make it necessary to adopt complex IT infrastructures and processes that are usually dependent on an IT staff – a solution that does not fit well into the budgets of most small businesses.

According to published reports in PCWorld.com, there are nearly 70 million small businesses worldwide and over 20 million in the U.S. alone. Small business is a major part of the global economy - that means it’s time to replace a general passivity towards the possible threats from email and document theft with a look towards initiating security measures as a business standard. The increasing level of security risk due to email and intellectual property theft make it imperative for small businesses to raise their level of security knowledge and investment.

Recent studies show that although information security is a high concern for small business owners, lack of actual knowledge and awareness of the economic impact of security incidents is equally high. Imparting an awareness to the small business community of the real threats in regards to security vulnerability should be top priority. Through education in this arena, small businesses can better enable them to not only determine their own level of risk but also choose the necessary email and document security solutions.

The responsibility of raising awareness of security provisions needs to come not only from governing agency reports, but also from security solution vendors. Providers of business tool solutions are better equipped than any other entity to position themselves as leaders in educating businesses on not only the dangers but the appropriate basic security measures to complement a small company infrastructure. Especially here, being informed on which internet security products best suit a company need is important as the needs of small businesses are vastly different than that of enterprise businesses.

Look to numerous market survey and analysis reports that specialize in studies on information security and small business. A little research will show they repeatedly state the same warning to small businesses - they need to change their attitude towards security and begin adopting a security plan.

Taking the time to gather information on creating good internet security practices will lead to a decrease in the future cost of lost productivity, and by educating your workforce you create an even wider prevention of productivity loss.

Nan Schwarz, Director of Corporate Marketing
http://www.essentialsecurity.com

Schwarz is the director of corporate marketing for Essential Security Software and is responsible for worldwide creative marketing strategy and execution, corporate branding, and public relations.

Essential Security Software (ESS) is a provider of document and email security solutions. ESS has developed a premier, easy-to-use, peer-to-peer content protection and user rights management solution that enables small business owners and individuals to securely distribute sensitive email messages and documents while protecting the privacy, integrity and authenticity of their intellectual property. ESS believes that people have the right to affordable security software technology that is powerful, flexible, and easy-to-use.