Anyone that is interested in finding true success throughout their lives can do so, with the right tools, the right amount of ambition and the knowledge to make it all happen. Yet, the entrepreneur, no matter which business he is in he must plan ahead and find success through much more than just these things.

To be an entrepreneur, you are not just looking for benefits right now. While you are sure to want your business to truly take off and do well in its first year, its infancy, it is just as important, if not more so, that the long term goals that you have match the need that you have as well. In the long term, the entrepreneur’s world is much different and much more unique. To find true success, he needs to think of today as well as tomorrow-two fold.

As a new or aspiring entrepreneur, you did not think about what the future would hold because only today mattered. Yet, now is the perfect time to step back and to find out just what the best way to manage your business sin the long term is.

Today Isn’t Everything

As an entrepreneur, your job is very detailed. You need to be the creative one. You need to be the boss. You need to hold the vision of your business at the head of each and every thing that you do for that business. But, today isn’t everything.

As a business owner, you must remember the fact that the long term goals and process of your business can only happen if you plan for it now, not in the day. You have probably heard people tell you that you need to; “Live in the day!” As an entrepreneur, this is not possible and should not be the way that you hold your business agenda.

But, why not?

Most of the time, we would like to think that all we really need to do is to put together a plan and hold onto it. Somehow, things will fall into place. It has to. That’s all it can do.

Yet, from a business standpoint, there is much more to think about.

For example, you may have employees that need the funds that come from your business for their day to day expenses.

You may need to take into consideration the overall benefits that you have in keeping your business going. What about your assets? Will they make it through the process? How about your cash flow? What will happen if something does go wrong?

All of these things are really only the tip of the iceberg when it comes to ruining a business in the long term. The bottom line is that you need to consider what your business will be like today as well as ten, twenty and more years down the road.

Think About This

Before we get started, it is essential that you understand two concepts of your business. When you make a decision in your business, ask yourself these questions first and foremost.

1. When I make this decision, what is the short term and immediate effects of doing so? How does this affect my business today?

2. When I make this decision, what is the long term effect of making this choice? How will this decision affect my business months and years from now?

When you take the time to carefully consider decisions that happen in front of you, you put yourself in charge of your destiny.

If you allow the cards to fall where they may, you may not be in business six months from now. Ask yourself what steps you can take right now that will better your overall business in the short and the long term.

Of course, we should mention that there is never a for sure way to know what the future holds. There is no way to know if you are really making the right decision or not. But, what you have to do here is to insure that you give tomorrow the best possible chance that you can.

Don’t let it just happen, make today count for tomorrow and tomorrow’s tomorrow too.

Planning For The Future

No matter what aspect of your life you are talking about, goal setting is a crucial factor throughout it all. As you will see, each of the decisions you make as an entrepreneur will affect your overall goal of being successful with your business. Yet, there is more to it than just that.

You should also set goals because they can help you to make the right decisions throughout the process of getting to the level of success that is coming. By investing the time and energy that you have in setting goals now, you help yourself for each decision it takes to reach the end result you are hoping for.

In other words, if you set some overall goals today, you can help insure that your business will be there and be prosperous throughout the future of the business. Goals now, count.

While we all have the same goal of finding success in the future, we still need to set goals to help us to get to that point. It doesn’t happen overnight!

How To Set Goals Successfully

When it comes to setting goals, there are not many of us that are very good at doing so. There are plenty of opportunities for mistakes to be made, but the real problem comes in how we set them as well as what we do once we set them.

For starters, it is essential to know what your goals are. Take a few minutes right now to figure this out. Simply sit down with a blank sheet of paper (yes, you can use your computer too!) and avoid all distractions for ten minutes.

Write down anything and everything that comes to your mind in regards to your goals.

What are they?
Where do you want to be in a year?
Who do you want to have with you?
Where do you see your business in five years? 20?
What dollar amount of sales will make you happy this year?
What do you need to make in profits to reach a new level of satisfaction each year?

All of these things may be things to spark your mind. Determine where your business will be within the next years. Look long term for starters. Then, follow these tips.

1. Write down your longest term goal. This is the place that you want to be in a number of years, or the place you need to be to be as successful as you plan to be.

2. Give yourself a time frame for making that happen. You may want to say that you want to make your first million in two years. Or, it may take many more for that to happen. Giving your goal a timeframe helps to get your mind set in how to make that happen. If you leave it open ended, the long term goals are not benefited by your actions each day, as they would be here.

3. Give yourself smaller goals to reach as steps up to the larger one. For example, the new entrepreneur may be able to say that he wants to be in an office, set up and running within a month’s time. In six months, he plans to be running into profit, after expenses have been paid down. Determine what your steps are to reaching your goal. Make sure that you write them with time frames attached too.

4. Now, write them by hand on paper in the following manner. “Within six months, I will have paid off all debt that I owe and be running in the clear. I will do this by pushing sales and not pushing any new expenditures during that time.” In this manner, you have listed not only what the goal is and the time frame to have it done, but also how you will get there.

5. Take this piece of paper and place it everywhere and anywhere that you will see it at least several times per day. Seeing it will allow you to think it. Thinking about it makes it happen. Success through goals is the only way to find it.

Now that you know what your goals are, it is essential for you to make sure that they do happen.

You will need to read those goals each day, at least one time per day. When you think it, see it, feel it, you make it happen.

When you go through each step, determine your goal for it. How will you implement it into your current work day and how will you insure that it will happen?