Internet Marketing Tips - The Key For Achieving Your Goals

I recently read an article, written by Tamara E. Holmes, published in this month's issue of Black Enterprise magazine (www.BlackEnterprise.com). The article dealt with attitude enhancement and attaining goals, and discussed the importance of accountability to goal reaching. And that got me to thinking...

In the Internet marketing and online business industry, we often discuss goal setting. Most often, there's a great deal of emphasis placed on identifying, planning and striving for goals, but honestly, we're often a bit weak when it comes to the discussion of accountability.

In the Black Enterprise article, an entrepreneur discussed her sense of freedom when opening her own business; not having the burden of answering to anyone else, and the relief that “there was no one forcing” her to keep her business open (just in case things weren't working out). However, she soon realized after overhearing an employee's conversation that the success or failure of her business not only affected her, but those she employed. That realization made her view her entrepreneurial venture a bit differently, and forced a less cavalier attitude about what she was doing. She came “face to face” with Accountability.

I think often times online entrepreneurs feel much as the above-mentioned entrepreneur did in the beginning of her journey. Most often we are “one man/woman shows”, so there is a common perception that “if this doesn't work out, oh well, I'll just go on to something else.”

What we're really saying though, is that we don't want to be accountable for attaining the goals we've set for ourselves. And, if we're not accountable, then we can say things like "It's the economy"..."It's the soft market"..."I didn't have a fair opportunity"..."My competition has an unfair advantage"..."We're just too small to compete"...or offer any number of other excuses for failing to reach the goals we've set for our success and the success of our businesses.

So what does it mean to be accountable?

Again from the article in Black Enterprise, life coach and founder of Whole Life Coaching (http://www.wholelifecoaching.us/), Thornton Prayer promotes the SMART system for goal setting. According to Prayer, goals should be Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic and Time-based. In other words, you have to see your goals very clearly and in detail. If you work in non-specific generalities, chances are very good that you'll never be able to accomplish what you seek. And not only that, others will fail to take you seriously, most notably because you won't appear to be serious yourself, about what it is you're doing or attempting to accomplish.

We all want to be successful in our endeavors, but don't ever be fooled. Success takes work. And part of that work is setting goals, and then ensuring that you do what it takes to attain them.

Formulate your goals, develop a plan for achieving them, then track your progress.

For more information and help with goal setting, I suggest you check out this tool for Goal Setting.

Toodles.