Something different today but very important. If you are blogging because you want to develop a blog income, it is that time of year to review your current situation and set goals for the coming year. In corp speak that would be working on your business plan.
Why is goal setting important?
The most obvious reason is that it gives you something to work towards, a destination that you want to reach by the end of a certain time line and it must be committed on paper.
Why on paper?
One, the very act of writing something down has neurological implications. There is a connect between the brain and the writing, a greater commitment and a message to the brain that this needs doing. The goal is then accepted and submerged into the sub conscience.
Two classical studies underline this importance of writing down your goals. The first dates back to the 1953 graduate class of Yale. Armed with impressive degrees the graduates were eager to take on the world, to redefine the meaning of success. Twenty years later the graduates were contacted as a matter of interest to measure their level of success. While most were found to be doing well, a small group stood head and shoulders above others – a mere 3% had achieved enormous financial success, more than that of the 97% combined. When interviewed further one commonality was found amongst this elite 3% group: each one had written down their goals, something none of the others had done.
A subsequent study at Harvard had similar results. The year 1964. Once again all graduates stated that they had lofty and clear goals to achieve. Only 5% took the trouble to write down their goals. A follow up twenty years later showed that of the 5% who wrote down their goals, 95% achieved their goals, while of those who did not write down their goals, a mere 5% did.
Goals can have different time lines: lifetime, 10 years, 5 or maybe just one. Daily factor in as well. Goal experts recommend 5 year goals, with checkpoints along the way, usually at the 3 year mark and 1 year mark. They can be complex or simple. I like simple.
Set a goal for each area of your life for 2010. Make it doable but not a gimme – it needs to be something that you have to stretch for. Start with the current situation, and end the year with where you want that situation to be.
In terms of blogging my goal for Blog Income Life for this year was to be at a four figure income at the end of 2009. I had nothing to base this on. It was a figure I thought would be nice to achieve. It’s not going to happen. What I have achieved however is a stronger understanding of the business of blogging. On review I know the mistakes I made, I know what works, I know what I need to concentrate on to make the desired income. I now have a base from which to work for my 2010 goal.
Perhaps the biggest lesson learned is that an income goal is not the best to get started with, I would leave the income goal to a longer term. Here are some benchmarks that may help you with your goal setting
- frequency of posting: 3 times a week or more
- first 100 visitors
- first 1000 visitors per month
- first 100 subscribers to your newsletter/email list
- backlinks: 1000 backlinks
- first $100 from adsense
- first affiliate sale
- first affiliate campaign
- first 1000 Twitter followers
- first e.book written
There are plenty more but the above should get you started. Begin with where you are right now and determine where you want to be on December 31, 2010. If your current situation on traffic is an average of 5 visitors per day, you may want to look at an average of 100 visitors per day. Now make a plan for achieving that.
What will it take? What do you already know on generating traffic? What more will you need to learn? Where can you get that information? Is there a Traffic Generating course that you can buy?
I subscribe to The Goals Guy to plan the year ahead and to keep me on track with my goals. When you draw up your plan for achieving your goals for 2010, make sure you set up review dates, I make mine quarterly. It is a good practice to see what is working and what is not. For that which is not working identify, correct and take action.
Here’s to great goals and great achievements!
Happy Blogging!
Valentina
The cheese is in the goal.
