6 Steps From Idea To Reality: How to Set Goals that Transform Your Business

How often do you set goals? How often do you say you want to sell more cars? Or hold more gross? Or have more leads? Or be a better closer?

If you’re like most people, you will not achieve many of your goals.

Do you know where YOU get stuck?

There are actually 6 steps that are necessary to go from idea to reality. Most people’s goal-setting actions never move to the last stages, so pay close attention to steps 4 through 6. Many people have great ideas for changing their life, or their business, or even the world so it’s important to learn how to take action on new goals.

Here are the 6 STEPS of turning an idea or goal into reality:

Step #1 is to have an idea. This step is usually not a problem for most of us. Most people have lots of ideas and freely talk about their ideas and which goals they would like to achieve.

Step # 2 is a wish. It means an idea goes from a passing thought to something you say you really wish for your life. You may say, for example, “If I could become more successful at sales, it would be fantastic and I would ensure a good life for my family!”

Some ideas move to step # 3 and become a want. At this stage you find yourself imagining the outcome of your goals more frequently and begin to think how your life would be better if you accomplished your goals. You start saying, “I really want this,” or “I really want to make this change.”

The next steps are critical because 90% of ideas get stuck or die somewhere around step 2 or 3. They remain a wish or a want, but neither is strong enough for a goal to become reality.

Step # 4 is desire. Desire only happens when you infuse your “want” with an intense amount of focus and emotion. Consider the word “desire” and how often you use this word in your day. Most of us go through our day without even feeling the emotion of desire. Because desire sounds … passionate! And most of us don’t feel passionate about our day, our job or even our life. To go from step 3 to step 4 requires taking ownership of your idea and visualizing yourself experiencing your want. You need to feel passionate about wanting it! If you think about your idea, you get excited, hopeful and optimistic.

At the same time, you may find yourself dealing with fear – fear of loss or fear of failure. Why does it happen? You probably have no fear of rejection or loss about something you don’t desire. You may have a thousand things you want, but there is no emotional connection to them and therefore you’re not afraid of losing them. But once you desire something, reality sinks in: you could have this OR you could really NOT have this. Desire can be dangerous and that’s why most of us avoid it. However, in order for something to go from an idea to reality, it must become emotional and go through the step of desiring it.

But desire by itself still won’t take you where you want to be.

Step # 5 is a must. An idea becomes a wish, a want, a desire, and then a must, which is absolute certainty. Think about this. Every day millions of people go to work. When the alarm goes off, we have all kinds of thoughts about going to work: I gotta go to work or I want to go to work or I have 4 appointments today so I’m excited to go to work. But I guarantee this – millions of people go to work not because they want to, not because they desire to, but because they must. We do things we must do. Even if we don’t want to do them or feel like postponing them till later, we do them anyway simply because we must.

Step # 6 in the sequence is reality. After you must do something, you start doing it consistently. When you do something consistently, reality is just around the corner.

Taking a goal from step 1 to step 6 requires a change of thinking. Certain things or actions must become non-negotiable. For example, finish this sentence: “I would never …” Or how would you finish this sentence: “I will always …” The items you put in those sentences are non-negotiable for you. You decided you will never do something or you will always do something regardless of your life’s circumstances or how difficult it is for you to follow through your commitments. These items are at the “must” stage for you and this is why you do them consistently. If you apply the same standards to your New Year’s resolutions, you will not suffer from failed goals again.

It takes raising your standards to take a goal from being an idea to being something you must do, which is the only way to assure it will become a reality.