No one ever became a success by accident. Success is the result of deliberate action, the unavoidable consequence of making a definite decision that you are going to be successful. You’ve got to be prepared to do what it takes in order to be successful, but that doesn’t mean it has to be hard. Achieving success can be a lot easier than what most people think, and the good news is that you can take short cuts along the way!
Today we’re going to talk about a concept that I often use with my Clients called “Layby Success”. It basically means we take a concept that people are familiar with such as a Layby, where you find something you want, and have that put aside for you and pay it off in bite size chunks. We then apply the same principal of having something that you want (a Goal) and getting it in bite size chunks.
Today I want to teach you this simple and fun strategy. First of all, we must start off with a Goal, something that you want to achieve.
The Goal.
It’s best to start simple, but it absolutely MUST be something which you REALLY DO want and not just a Goal that ‘sounds’ good. I often talk about the difference between Means Goals and End Goals. You want this to be an End Goal, not a Means Goal. So to quickly re-cap, an End Goal is the Goal that you really want to achieve, a Means Goal is something which will help you achieve the End Goal. I often use the example, if you want a Porsche, the Porsche is not the End Goal. The End Goal is the FEELING that you will get from driving a Porsche, the Porsche itself is the Means Goal that will help you to achieve your End Goal of what it feels like to drive a Porsche.
So for this Goal, you want something which is going to give you a certain feeling. For example, for me personally, I set a lot of Lifestyle Goals. I don’t set income Goals, because income is simply a Means Goal that will allow me to achieve what I really want which is a certain Lifestyle.
So think about the Goals that you want to accomplish in the next 2-5 years. Pick one simple thing, which is something you really want, which will give you a certain feeling when you achieve it.
The Bite Size Chunks.
Once you have the Goal, next we want to work out what are the bite size chunks of action that you can take now that will move you towards achieving your Goal. To use the previous example of wanting a Porsche, go take a Porsche for a test drive. I did that when I was starting out because one of my Goals was to have a new Mercedes. At the time I had a $3,000 car and I went and test drove a $100,000 Mercedes. One thing that you will notice is that when you go to a high end Car Dealership, you will experience more than just a test drive. Simply walking into the Dealership is an experience, and that’s no accident, it’s designed to be that way. When you walk into a Mercedes Dealership for example, it’s like walking into the lobby of a 5 Star Hotel, it’s really classy, they get you coffee and so on. So it’s not just the test drive which you experience, it’s the whole EXPERIENCE that goes with that.
But really, as good as that is, you want something a little more tangible than merely a test drive, what you really want is something that you can step into without having a sales guy right next to you the whole time. If possible, you want something that you can own. Not necessarily the End Goal, because we’re talking about how to get you there with bite size chunks. What you want is a bite size chunk that you can own. And when I say own, it doesn’t even mean that you necessarily have to buy something. Owning it can be just be having something to yourself, even temporarily, without having a sales person around trying to sell it to you. If you want a Porsche, hire a Porsche for the day so that you can experience what it feels like to be driving around in a Porsche. You want to experience for a day, what it would be like to live that way every day.
Examples From My Own Life.
OK, let me give you some examples from my own life which may make this a little clearer for you. When I first got started with Coaching, one of my first Goals was to be an Ultra Successful Coach, I saw myself being able to help a lot of people, and I also saw a certain lifestyle that went with that as well. These days, I want to be a MORE successful Coach, to positively impact the lives of more people, and to experience an even greater lifestyle with fancy shiny toys and things.
So let me tell you what I did. When I first started my Coaching Business, before I even had my first Client, I already saw myself as being a successful Coach. At the time, I was working on putting together my first Programs. I thought, when I become a successful Coach, one of the things that I will do is to have an external office where I could work from. So one thing I did, right back at the beginning was to hire an external office for the day. I went to a Serviced Office provider, I took my laptop in there, set myself up and worked the day in there. I got to experience what it was like. I had my own nice office, with a view! It was a really professional environment, surrounded by other professional people.
There were receptionists on hand. I thought, so if I had an Office here and I was seeing Clients, these are the people that would greet my Clients as they come in. I experienced what it was like to go downstairs to the food court for a Coffee and lunch. Basically, I put myself in the exact position where I wanted to be WHEN I was a successful Coach, and it felt amazing!
And I don’t stop, I keep doing things like this all the time. My most recent bite size chunk was buying a high end tailored suite. It’s been a Goal of mine to be the kind of person who wears expensive suits. I have a friend who told me about this place in Melbourne that he said was the BEST place in Australia for tailoring. He told me he’d bought these $3,000 suits there. So I recently took a trip down to Melbourne to have a tailored suit made. Turns out it may have been a while since my friend was last there because the suits he recommended are now closer to $10,000 than $3,000 lol. $10K was a little too much for me for a suite right now, but fortunately they had some “cheaper” ones so the trip wasn’t wasted. I ended up spending just over $4,000 all told for the whole suit, shirt, tie, shoes package. And OMG, when I wear it, I feel AMAZING! It’s like the movie The Tuxedo, I put it on and I feel like a different person!
It’s not the most practical purchase I’ve ever made, there are far more practical things that I could do with $4K, but that’s not the point. The point is that it’s something that puts you into the state of having already achieved the Goal that you’re aiming for, and by putting yourself into that state, you’ll actually achieve your Goal sooner!
The next item on the agenda for me is a Tudor watch valued at $5,000 and then a Vertu Mobile Phone valued at around $10,000. Each new bite size chunk for me is a step closer to putting myself permanently into the reality of having that thing. Some people ask if I can justify spending so much, I reply I don’t think I can justify NOT spending so much. It is an investment. It’s a shortcut to getting me to where I want to be.
"Begin putting bite size chunks of your Dream into your present Reality and your Dream will BECOME your Reality!"
Your Homework.
Here’s your assignment for today…
Pick just one of your Goals that you want to achieve in the next 2-5 years. Ask yourself the questions, what bite size chunk could you ACTUALLY DO within the next say 1-2 months, that would put you into the state of FEELING the way that you will feel when that Goal has become your every day reality.
Give yourself permission to have some fun with this, and let me know how you go by leaving a comment in the comments below…