One thing my mentor, Orrin Woodward, has helped me develop is the habit of setting goals. G-O-A-L-S, goals. Goal setting not only helps me structure where I want to go in LIFE, but it gives me a way to keep score.

Great goals only come out of great dreams, but once you have a big dream you’ll be more apt to get some goals together. Of course, there is more to goal setting then just sitting down and thinking them up. There is a little bit of strategy to it. Really great goals need to be three things: written, specific, and scheduled.

• Written – In Launching a Leadership Revolution, Orrin and his co-author, Chris Brady, underscore the need to have written goals. If they’re not written down we’re tempted to think that our goals are not important or we might even forget what they are. Write your goals down – that’s step one.

• Specific – Be specific about your goals, because when you focus on specific goals you tell yourself, “I am going to keep score.” When your goals are specific then you know exactly what you’re aiming for. This works for me and I’m sure it will work for anyone else. I perform differently when I am keeping score. Make your specific goals aggressive yet realistic. This is where a mentor can be a big help. Just like Orrin and I work together on goal setting, get with someone who can help you come up with some specific, realistic goals.

• Scheduled – Great goals are set on a time-line. There needs to be an end date set for getting things done, and it should be something that is sooner than 3012. Having a time-line in mind will get you moving rather than spending all your time planning. This makes all the difference in the world. As Stephen Covey says, “A mediocre strategy well executed is infinitely better than a well executed strategy that sits on the shelf.”

Now some people look at goals and say, “I don’t want to have a goal because what if I miss it and then I won’t feel good?”

If you have a big enough dream, then your goal is going to be something that will fire you up, even if you miss it. I don’t hit that many of my goals the first time I set them. I  still rarely hit them the first time. I think I’ve only hit one or two in their original time frame. That does makes me mad! But if I don’t hit it, I just say, “Here’s an opportunity for me to get better.”

You are going to miss goals along the way, but I can tell you this, if you have an expectation that you’ll hit a goal, then your mind will find a way to make it happen. So get with a mentor and set some written, specific, and scheduled goals – then get out there and execute them!

Starting this evening, Orrin Woodward and the leaders of the TEAM will gather in Columbus, Ohio to prepare for the launch of something that will change the face of our business for the better forever. The LIFE business is a merger of four difference industries. It’s community building meets self improvement, and  life coaching meets network marketing – all combined in a way that will bless and change the lives of those involved.

It’s history in the making this weekend in Columbus. Are you ready? Here we go!

In their book, Launching a Leadership Revolution, Orrin Woodward and Chris Brady write, “The right lane is never crowded. There always seems to be a shortage of leaders, but a plethora of people heading the other way.”

But why are all these guys going the wrong way? I believe it’s because they don’t know where they are going, don’t know when they’ll arrive and they don’t care or don’t have the courage to change directions. Many of them might be just like I was, driven by pride and a sense of self-preservation that closes the mind.

Shifting to the right lane isn’t always easy. I know, when I first heard about Orrin and the TEAM business I wanted nothing to do with it. A couple of friends tried to show me the plan and I said, “Get that thing out of here.” Literally, I hit the paper.

“No, it’s stupid. It won’t work.”

Still to date I don’t think I have met anyone who is as close-minded as I was when I was exposed to this industry. Probably the biggest thing that changed from that first day was that I opened my mind.

When I saw the TEAM and LIFE industry, my only thought was to defend my position and I had no interest at all in seeking the truth. Ultimately what was driving this was my pride and self-preservation because of all the work that I had put into becoming an engineer. I didn’t want to admit that it might not take me where I wanted to go because I did work so hard at it.

That is natural. I still see people today who do the exact same thing. They are willing to sacrifice success on the alter of pride because they don’t want to let go and consider that what they are doing might not get them where they want to go. Most people have bought into this typical way of thinking.

“Hey if I just go get a degree then I will be successful.” If that were true, then ninety-five percent of the people wouldn’t be broke out there.

Now I am one hundred percent for education. When I was exposed to TEAM I was only for college education, and I thought that was the road to get me where I wanted to go. Then I read a book called The Magic of Thinking Big. It does exactly that, it gets you to think big, and I really fell in love with the process of education. I wasn’t just educating myself out of duty, which is what I think a lot of people do, but I developed a hunger for truth.

That has effected so many areas of my life – in my TEAM life, my marriage life, my faith life.  A hunger to know the truth keeps me pointed in the right direction.

So if you find yourself traveling down the wrong lane, open your mind. After all, a mind is like a parachute – it’s not worth much if it’s not open. Fall in love with learning, hunger for the truth and seek it. It could turn your life around.