The Good Karma Of Goals And Focus

If you don't know where you are going, any road will get you there.

Lewis Carroll

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This article, like the majority of my articles, is inspired by my clients. Mr. Oyelami and Mr. Nwosu are two of my amazing clients who shared their spectacular stories with me. Mr. Oyelami and Mr. Nwosu, being very good friends have always been very competitive. They usually set goals on what to accomplish together and often compete on who will complete the goal first.

 

I assisted Mr. Oyelami purchase a home in May 2013 and I assisted Mr. Nwosu purchase a home in July 2014. Well, come December 2014, Mr. Oyelami and Mr. Nwosu, decided to pay off their mortgages as their new year's resolutions, and they gave themselves two years to accomplish this goal. Well this goal became so competitive that even though they gave themselves two years to complete this goal, Mr. Nwosu had secretly decided to pay off his mortgage within one year in order to beat Mr. Oyelami. Upon, Mr. Oyelami finding this out, he secretly moved his goal up to November 2015. Obviously this is a very daunting task, since Mr. Oyelami had over $150,000 left on his mortgage and Mr. Nwosu had over $250,000 left.

 

These two gentlemen, became fierce and worked like hell to reduce their daily expenses and to ramp up their income. Their entire focus was on getting this one task done and beating the other party. Unbelievably, both friends paid off their mortgage in June and July 2015. Just a few days apart, which they agreed that the bet was a tie and they were both winners.

 

Neither ever thought that it was possible to pay off a mortgage within one year for Mr. Nwosu and two years for Mr. Oyelami. This competition showed them the power of setting goals and staying focused. Along the way, they said they sold cars, set goals to increase their income, delayed major purchases, etc. Karma also helped them by blessing them with random unexpected windfall of funds. This underscores that saying, "Diligence is the mother of good luck".  

 

These are the 4 steps that they took to accomplish this goal. 

1. Set a goal. To generate extraordinary results, you have to have goals, you just cannot drift along and expect to have extraordinary results. This goal has to be a written goal, not just in your head. You must have it down in a place where you see it multiple times a day. It must taunt you. There must be a constant reminder that you have to keep working on this goal.

2. Set a tracker. You have to have what we military guys call a POAM. Plan Of Action and Milestones. You need to breakdown your goals into actionable pieces of task. Like the old adage, How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time. If you focus on eating the whole elephant you might never even start. But if you made a plan on how many bites you need to have daily, in order to finish it in one year. And then begin. For example, if you would like to save $120,000 in one year, you have to have a tracker that shows you saving at $10,000 per month, and then break it down to a weekly amount. You need the progress chart to keep you motivated.

3. Compete. You must have an accountability partner or a competition partner. "If you want to win forever, you've always got to compete," said Pete Carroll.  Most people or companies that succeed at a high level either have a nemesis or created a fictitious competition to propel and motivate them. Creating an accountability partner / competition partner, keeps you focused on the prize.

4. Focus. Reduce your goals to one or two at a time. You can't do 5 things well, if you try to do it all at a time. You have to focus on the "one thing". Mr. Oyelami and Mr. Nwosu, had to put several of their projects on hold to complete this goal. If they had try to complete four or five financial goals at the same time, they probably would have never completed either. This philosophy is at the heart of the Dave Ramsey's baby steps. Which is in order to be debt free, you have to focus on one debt at a time, while just paying the minimum payments on the others.

Gratefully,

 

Victor Lofinmakin