How To Dream Big And Get Wealthy

With the new year comes a lot of goal setting and resolutions. To lose that extra weight, run that marathon, take those dance classes you always meant to do. But as business owners we often spend this time of year reflecting on the previous twelve months, planning for the year to come, and setting some hard-core business goals.

The Problem With Big Dreams

The problem most of us run into when it comes to business goals are similar to the ones we encounter in our personal lives.

We tend to set really BIG goals, and almost immediately feel so overwhelmed by the enormity of the task ahead, that our efforts stall.

It feels impossible. You start working towards it with gusto but somewhere along the way feel like you’re just not doing it right.

The trouble with goals is that the second you lose faith in your ability to achieve them, you start self-sabotaging. Not consciously, but unconsciously.

You don’t put in quite as much effort as you could, you miss crucial deadlines that make certain elements of your plan impossible, or you fail to take care of yourself, causing you to fall ill at a crucial time.

If you’re not careful you’ll reach the end of the year and have made good progress, but got nowhere near your BIG dream. And you’re not even surprised, because deep down you have stopped believing it was achievable.

How To Dream Big Without Self-Sabotaging

So many business owners either have no clear goal in mind, or a goal that is ‘fuzzy’. It’s not specific to them, it just sounds like a good thing to aim for. When you’re first starting out in business there are two really common goals:

1. 6 Figure Business
2. Million Dollar Business

I know entrepreneurs who turned an amazing profit in their first year of business, but because they didn’t hit six or seven figures, they felt they had failed.

Given that so many businesses don’t turn any profit at all in the first two years, that’s actually insane, but it’s true.

They had a big goal in mind, and they failed to hit it. Therefore, they failed.

So how exactly do you go about setting those huge, big, wonderful dreams without being so unrealistic they are unachievable, or scaring yourself so much that you stop believing in your ability to achieve them?

Why We Struggle To Set BIG Money Goals

Where money is concerned, picking a number is really easy. But picking the right number is really hard.

A lot of entrepreneurs struggle to commit to the number that’s right for them, so they aim low and fail to reach their potential, or aim so high that it’s never a possibility.

There are a few reasons for this but the common ones are:

• Fear they are calculating their income goal wrong, causing them to stick to common number goals: $10K/month, $50K, $200K etc.
• Overthinking the question and getting so confused by maths and calculations that they give up and pick something that sounds right, or that other people are using.
• FOMO – business owners tend to know a lot of other business owners and have strong networking groups. When everyone else is saying their goal for the year is X amount, it’s really easy to jump on the bandwagon for Fear Of Missing Out.
• Avoiding setting a solid income goal at all for fear of being tied to it.
• Fear of failing to reach their goal causing them to procrastinate and avoid setting one (that way, they can’t fail!).
• They’re waiting for a magic bullet. Some genius solution or plan that will propel you into your big goal at super speed.

Perhaps the biggest traps we fall into is overthinking our goals and avoiding getting really clear on what we want to achieve. The latter generally happens because there is a feeling of goals being set in stone.

What if you set a big goal and hit it easily? What then? You’re missing out on a load more success!

And what if you fail to hit it? That will feel like a massive failure, even if your business is doing amazingly well. That’s a whole load of negative feelings you could have avoided by simply not setting the goal.

The Key To A Big Business Dream: Just Start

We’re alarmingly good at procrastinating on this issue.

But setting a clear goal and having a fabulous, big dream for your business is really important. It helps you to do so many things:

1. Assess your success on a month-to-month and annual basis.
2. Decide what’s working and what isn’t, and be ruthless when it comes to eliminating tactics that aren’t succeeding.
3. Make important decisions concerning the direction of your business, your marketing, hiring, firing and so much more, simply by asking one question: Will this move me closer to my dream?
4. Avoid Bright Shiny Object Syndrome (running off after every new business idea that wafts through your mind, causing you to lose focus and divide your resources unnecessarily).

The first step in dreaming your big dream and getting wealthy is to actually put a number on it.

Consider the life you want to have and everything involved in it:

• The holidays – how many and where to?
• The home – are you happy where you are or do you want to uplevel your house, or buy rather than rent? Maybe you want a second home, or a holiday home?
• The work/life balance – do you need to reduce the number of hours you’re working in order to spend more time on other things?
• The car – is it time for an upgrade?
• The clothes – do you have enough disposable income to comfortably buy yourself whatever you need, in the brand you like?
• The hobbies – what do you want to be doing in your spare time, and how much do you need to accommodate that?
• The family – how much do you need to care for your children, have more children, get a dog, or visit and care for relatives?
• Your health and what it will take to get you eating the right food, doing the right exercise. Do you want a personal trainer, a dietician, or to take up a new sport or exercise.
• And the extra treats – what are you stretch goals? The things you’d love to treat yourself to if you could afford it?

The key here is to dream your best dream. In an ideal world, what would your life look like? What would you like your business to look like? What does luxury lifestyle mean to you? Think BIG!

How Much Will The Big Dream Cost?

Once you’ve figured out what your big dream is, it’s a lot easier to be specific about how much you need to earn in order to achieve it.

Think of everything you want to achieve in your business, and the various resources, people and funds you need to put in place in order to achieve that.

New marketing tactics and strategies often require additional budgets, as does expanding into new areas or releasing new products. If you have launches coming up, you need to include a good amount to cover their expenses. Beyond that you need a really clear understanding of the basics: overheads, everyday running costs, monthly expenses for software and other subscriptions.

Figure out how much you need in order to do exactly what you want. That can include many different things you might not have considered:

• How much do you need to draw from the business as salary to cover that dream lifestyle? (Don’t freak out if this is a huge number, it’s supposed to be BIG!)
• How much income do you need to cover all your business costs? (Be really specific and factor in everything!)
• What do you need to put in place to ensure you are working the hours you want, on the projects you want, and not having to deal with anything else? (i.e. new automated systems, hiring new staff, outsourcing, switching to different suppliers/models in order to streamline.)
• How much do you need to cover wages? (Including any new people you may need to hire as you grow!)
• Don’t forget about tax! Remember, as your income goes up, your tax bill will too. So once you’ve totted up everything you need, add 10% on top!

Add it all together and you will reach a really specific annual income goal that would allow you to do absolutely everything you wanted.

That’s your number.