A new year is like an opened and unfinished book waiting to receive the next chapter of your story. Whether your life’s story will be one of surpassing your wildest dreams or drifting in mediocrity depends on the power of your goals. When your goals are awesomely high and carried out with discipline, you’ll find yourself in the company of other successful people.
“Impossible is just a word thrown around by small men who find it easier to live in the world they’ve been given than to explore the power they have to change it. Impossible is not a fact. It’s an opinion. Impossible is potential. Impossible is temporary. Impossible is nothing.” – Muhammad Ali
People fail in life not because they aim too high and miss, but because they aim too low and hit. For MDRT member Alessandro M. Forte, Dip PFS, he believes in setting his goals so high that people constantly tell him he’s being ridiculous. That’s now become part of his system for goal setting.
For him, setting SMART goals doesn’t mean Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant and Timely. Instead it means
Stunning
Massive
Awesome
Ridiculous
Today
“Discipline is the bridge between goals and accomplishment.” – Jim Rohn
For MDRT Past President Tony Gordon, there’s no such word as can’t. “The difference between making it or not is discipline … I don’t believe there are any extraordinary people in our business, but there are people who demonstrate extraordinary discipline.”
Longtime MDRT Top of the Table qualifiers Gordon and Forte discuss the power of setting big goals in the video “Massive goals build success” (MDRT member exclusive content) and the blog post “Succeed or fail by the day.”
Love the word “stunning” for goals. Author Jim Collins calls them BHAGs (Big, Hairy, Audacious Goals). In my own work, I call them “impossible” goals. What I mean is that they’re something you believe are just beyond your reach. I worked with a company years ago that didn’t believe in setting big goals because not reaching them would be a disappointment. That was just so wrong. And SMART goals never worked for me. DON’T be “Realistic,” be “stunning.”