Goals and Motivation: You Won’t Find Success Without Preparation

How do we find success? While we’ve all heard the term “overnight success”, that isn’t the reality for most people.

This quote by Bobby Knight is more spot-on when it comes to goals and success:

 “The will to succeed is important, but what’s more important is the will to prepare.”

When setting goals, we may be tempted to aim high or dream big, which is fine. But unless we are willing to prepare and put in the work, then success may end up being just a dream.

We need to prepare with specific action steps and lots of practice (trial and error) to have a better chance of success.

So how do you prepare for the success you want? While everyone’s business goals are different, our paths to success can have some common stepping stones:

Long-term goals:

Where do you want to be in 1 year, 5 years, 10 years? Most successful businesses are planning much further than next month’s sales figures. So think of what your small business will look like down the road as well.

Short-term goals with a timeline of target dates:

Break your yearly goal down into smaller quarterly, monthly and weekly goals. If you feel discouraged at some challenging points on this timeline (and we all do), remember your bigger goal.

Resources you need to succeed:

These resources could be people, supplies, your own training…make a list of what you’ll need to help you succeed in your business.

And remember that investment into your business is not just monetary: it’s your time and focus as well.

Time to Practice:

Think in terms of great sports teams or athletes – how many hours of practice did it take them to succeed?

No matter what your business or skill set, you need to put in the hours of “practice” that will lead you to success.

This could mean testing some things that fail, then moving on to the next test and not getting stuck on temporary failure.

Backup Plan(s):

No one’s journey to success is smooth sailing 100% of the time. Expect some setbacks or unexpected challenges to pop up along the way.

Prepare for the unexpected by having a backup plan in place for the most important systems in your business.

Whether it’s people, equipment, or other resources, spend some time now preparing a plan (or at least the outline of one) that will be easy to put into action when a challenge arises.

We may all have a will to succeed – because we all want to win. The more difficult part is preparing and planning for that success.

Don’t look for the shortcuts to success; most of us earn our success through the preparation and many hours of practice it takes to get there.

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updated: September 2021