Entrepreneurs are dreamers. If we weren’t we wouldn’t be silly enough to take something as ethereal as an idea and turn that idea into reality and revenue. Turning big, crazy dreams into goals is simply a way of giving your dreams deadlines.
In my work as a Fairy Godmother, I have helped many people and businesses get clear on their dreams and goals, and I am often asked what the key traits or characteristics are that define whether entrepreneurs achieve their business goals.
These are the four things that I believe are pivotal to reaching your goals and being a successful entrepreneur.
1. Have a clear vision (that inspires the hell out of you!)
Create a WIG. WIG stands for Wildly Improbable Goal. This is a goal that ignites you, delights you, excites you and terrifies you all at the same time. A Wildly Improbable Goal is something that takes you to the boundaries of possibility and impossibility. It is a goal that stretches you. Takes you out of your comfort zone and helps you to create a phenomenal business and extraordinary life.
Step 1 in achieving your business goals is to get clear on what you want for both yourself and for your business. Knowing what you want is the biggest factor in being able to achieve it.
Once you get clear – Write it down, cut out pictures of it and stick it up everywhere as a reminder. Tell your friends and family about it, but most importantly share it with your team and get them excited about it.
2. Overcome your Fears
Once you are clear about your big business goals, it is easy to listen to the inner voice that tries to talk you out of it. Those whisperings in your inner ear are simply fear. Fear is what stops us from taking actions on our goals. Fear is what makes up excuses rather than just doing it. Fear is what makes us procrastinate, feel lethargic or tempts us to distract ourselves from the task at hand. That ‘busyness’ that you get into is just your fear distracting you from taking the necessary actions to reach your goals. The only way to get over your fear is to take action.
3. Persistence
Even when you are struggling and facing huge obstacles never, ever, ever, give-up!
There will be times on this entrepreneurial journey where life is smooth-sailing and fun and there will be other times when you experience challenges. This is all part of the adventure of being an entrepreneur and living a powerful life. Persistence is what differentiates the truly extraordinary from the ordinary.
We are never able to dream up a goal that we can’t accomplish.
When I want to give up (and believe me there have been many ‘quitting moments’ along this path of being a Fairy Godmother), I remind myself that ‘It is always darkest just before the dawn’ and that while things may seem bleak right now, I am on the edge of a breakthrough. And, of course, I do breakthrough into the next level of business success.
4. Faith
Faith is the ‘power-tool’ to call on which activates your ability to persist.
Elizabeth Gilbert, in her book ‘Eat, Pray, Love’ writes it perfectly:
‘Faith is to pre-accept the terms of the universe and to embrace in advance what I am presently unable to understand…Faith is belief in what you cannot see or prove or touch. Faith is walking face-first and full speed into the dark…’
Faith is knowing that even though you are experiencing an obstacle or challenge right now, everything is happening perfectly and everything is going to be okay. Faith is giving up your necessity to control every outcome and surrendering yourself to the greater plan of the divine.
Faith is realising that you are not the sole creator but the co-creator of your world. And that omnipotent knowledge and the ‘grand design’ are far more powerful and magnificent than your own ‘worms-eye-view’ of the world. Where your will and the will of the Divine meets, is where magic and miracles happen.
Faith activates magic.