In this episode, we discuss how when need to execute on a plan if we want to have our goals come true.
Full Transcript
Hi Everyone, welcome to the You’re Daily Cup of Joe Podcast, with your host Joe Bautista. In this podcast, my goal is to give you quick lessons that you can reflect on in your journal so you can grow yourself physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually and have a better career, better relationships, and better personal finances while you enjoy your morning cup of coffee.
I’m also the author of the book “More You Know, More You Grow: How to Get Better Every Day”. In this book, I wrote down over 30 tips to help you grow in those four cornerstones. I’m also the founder of Grow With Joe, where I combine self-development coaching and financial planning for Latino Professionals.
At the end of today’s podcast episode, I’m going to give you a prompt question to reflect on in your journal. The idea is to take one to five minutes to reflect on today’s lesson and write a minimum of one paragraph on how you can apply the lesson in your life. You can use an actual journal, a word document like on Google Drive, or your note-taking app like Evernote. The idea is that you’re actually thinking about how to process the information to help you improve your life.
In today’s episode, we’re are going to talk about what is a goal without a plan, and the answer is just a dream. With my life, I don’t have everything planned out but I have a good idea of where I want to go in life. My goal is to live in Latin America for the next two to three years and I’m just taking the country that I’m staying in at a month at a time. I’m currently in Mexico now and I’m going to Panama for a week in Jan followed up by a month in Costa Rica. I really want to see the waterfalls in Costa Rica. Then I’ll come back to Mexico to see my family and then I’m going to Colombia.
I know my general goal is just to learn Spanish and as long as I’m in a Spanish speaking country, then it doesn’t really matter to me where I am living. Thanks to Airbnb, living abroad is so simple. Plus a lot of places take cards so I don’t have to worry about taking out cash.
To make the goal a reality, I worked on it for a year. I decided what was necessary to make it happen and then I made it happen. I needed to get into business school and I needed to start my own financial planning company, which I did, and once they were in place, I knew I have the income coming in so I could travel abroad in Latin America. I had money coming in from my financial planning company and I had money coming from my GI Bill. If you make about $1500 a month, you can live in Latin America just fine.
When I was in the states, I did my budget for living in Latin America and I looked up Airbnb prices, and I looked at food and transportation costs, and I just added everything up and $1500 was a good number to have. So once I started making this, I was fine. My parents bought me a one-way ticket to Mexico and I sold my car, so I had the money to make things work.
I plan this thing out for the most part and I know I just living in the moment here in Mexico. If I didn’t plan all of this out, then my goal of living abroad would have not happened. It would have been a dream and that would be very sad for me. I don’t want to live my life with a bunch of what-ifs. I want to live my life to make sure that I’m seeing what I can accomplish for myself and right now it’s trying to learn Spanish. I know if I can learn Spanish, then I can help out a lot more people.
I have goals and for everyone, I have a general plan on what I’m going to do to accomplish those goals. Sometimes goals take longer than expected but even if I fail along the way, I’m learning new things and I can just try again. If it takes me ten years to learn Spanish, then that’s what I’m going to do. I don’t think it’s going to take that long but I’ll what it takes.
I’ve accomplished a lot of things like working in the White House, getting all my education paid for, and starting my own businesses because I had a plan and then I just started working on the plan. Sometimes I didn’t really know what I was doing and I was just fumbling around trying to make things work, and that just seemed to work. For the White House internship, it was brought up to my attention that I could apply, and then I just applied to it and I asked two people to write a letter of recommendation, and then I got it. I had no idea I was going to get it but I did, and it was a great experience.
With running a business, this is the ultimate test of just following through. All your plans will be changed but as you get new information, you just formulate another plan and go with it. I’ve changed so many things in my businesses and know I only have so much experience. Plus I just give myself micro-goals that I can focus on. I don’t focus on the big item a the end of the road, I focus on the thing I need to do now to get me where I want to go. That will keep things more manageable and more process orientated. You don’t want to focus on outcomes, focus on your inputs. Every day, I have things that I need to do and it’s part of my plan to get what I want in the future. So when you have a plan, just make sure you then start taking action on those plans, because if you don’t then you’re just dreaming.
That’s it for today’s episode, to summarize it, a goal without a plan is just a dream. Dreams are not reality and you should strive to make your dreams a reality. Don’t go into the grave with unfinished business. You might not have reached your ultimate goals, but as long as you did all that you could do, then you should be satisfied with that. You can’t control external thing but you control what’s happening with your actions and your attitudes, which is probably like 80% of the formula for success. You can probably get 80% of the way there through the right attitude but the other 20% will be luck. So to help you get more luck, the right plan to help you reach your goals. If you do this then you’ll increase the likelihood of your dreams become a reality. I know I rather live in reality than in a dream world so I’m going to develop a plan and then I’m going to execute on that plan.
So in your journal, ask yourself, what is a dream that you need to develop a plan on? What would be the first step that you would need to take to make your dream a reality? When can you start implementing your plan? Just write down your thoughts and only reflect on them. Is this what you really want to do? Take the time for reflection and just see where your life needs to go and then make it happen.
Thanks for listening today! To get a free copy of my book “More You Know, More You Grow: How to get better every day” just go to my website growwithjoe.me/book and only pay for shipping and handling.
I have a quiz on my website that grades your inner circle, so if you want to find out if your inner circle is an A, B, C, D, or F, you can take that quiz at growwithjoe.me/quiz
I’m also trying to do a feedback Friday episode, so if you have a question that you would like to have my answer on the air, just e-mail me at [email protected]
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Thanks for joining me today and remember if you go with Joe, you can grow with Joe, cause Joe knows Dough.
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