By Will Robertson

Another interesting article about self development and setting goals taken from the website http://www.sellingpower.com/ - enjoy

"If only I could have seen my goal in front of me..."

There's a story about a woman who decided to break a record by swimming from Catalina Island off the coast of Los Angeles to the California shore. She trained for months for the event. She even raised sponsorship money to assist in the costs of renting a large boat and employing a few professional coaches and athletic medical personnel. When the big day came, she slipped into the icy waters and began her slow, rhythmic motion practiced to utilize her energy to the utmost.

At first she felt extremely confident, taking time and water conditions into account. But as time elapsed she began to weaken in the cold water, and fog began to make conditions worse. Finally the fog was so thick she had to get directions from the crew on board the yacht that was only a few yards away, monitoring traffic as well as watching her very closely in the event something went wrong. "A little to the right!" the man on the boat yelled through a hand held loud speaker. "A little to the left!" he shouted when she was off course again. This went on for what seemed like hours when she finally begged to be pulled out of the freezing water...only one mile from breaking the standing record!

After a few cups of hot tea, she explained that she would have continued "if only I could have seen the shore line. I just could not keep on when there was no goal in sight."

This same principle applies to a professional sales representative. Without a goal, a sales rep is like a ship without a rudder. All the right conditions may be there: the best tools, a ready market, a great product or service, a price which is just right. But without a purpose, the rep is no better off than a well provisioned ship with a full fuel load and a complete crew but without a destination. When the ship's engines start, how well they run and when they're shut down is of little consequence if there is no destination. It's the same way for the sales rep.

Without a clear-cut, well-defined objective to begin with, even the result is no indication of real progress. How can you know where you've come to when you have no idea where you started?

In Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland, Alice finds herself at a crossroads not knowing which way to go. As she ponders the situation the smiling Cheshire cat magically appears on a tree branch and asks what the trouble is. "I don't know which fork to take," she explains. "Well," the cat replies, "where do you want to go?" "I don't know," answers Alice. "Then either fork will take you there," replies the cat with a broad grin. And so it will.

The problem with this attitude is the cost of it. If you took an inventory of all the elements of your career that are the most valuable to you, what might you come up with? Your briefcase, made of hand-tooled leather from the far reaches of the orient? Your well-fitted wardrobe made of fine wools, cottons, silks and linens? How about your car? Your gold pen set? That expensive watch? What about the computer you bought to help you track your production and create financial analysis sheets? All these and more would qualify for the list. But there is one consideration that outweighs all the rest...your time.

What income would you like to earn in the next 12 months? $30,000, $40,000, $50,000, or perhaps $70,000?

Let's take a person who wants to gross $50,000 in the next 12 months. If you only work 40 hours a week at selling and you take a total of two weeks off, you'll put in 2,000 hours. That makes each one of your hours on the job worth $25.

Have you ever noticed how much time you waste when you don't have clearly defined objectives accompanied with a well-thought-out strategy to accomplish them? How much time would you suppose you waste per week under these circumstances? Eighteen hours is the national average. At $25 per hour, you're sending $450 per week times 50 weeks per year right down the drain. That amounts to $22,500 lost, resulting in a gross income of $27,500 or about $13.75 for the same hour another person will sell for $25.

This is the main reason why one person will earn $50,000 in a year while another person in the same industry will earn $20,000! It all comes down to the proper use of your most valuable commodity...time. If you budget the expenditure of your time as well as you might budget a large sum of money, you'll see far better results than you could possibly imagine.

So now that we understand the problem, what is the solution? The solution is deciding what you want, then letting go of everything except what you've chosen for yourself. After all, if you can see your goal clearly in your mind, you can achieve it. If this weren't so, you would never have been able to imagine the goal to begin with.