
Goals!
How to Get Everything You Want – Faster Than You Ever Thought Possible
Book Edition Details
Summary
"Goals! (2003) explores the power of goal-setting. It outlines tips and techniques for achieving your most important aims in life and examines the link between goal-setting and success."
Introduction
Picture this: you're working harder than ever, yet feeling like you're running in circles. Your to-do list keeps growing, your energy feels scattered, and despite your best efforts, the results you crave seem frustratingly out of reach. You're not alone in this struggle. In our fast-paced world, most people find themselves overwhelmed by competing demands, unable to distinguish between what's truly important and what's merely urgent. The challenge isn't a lack of motivation or intelligence—it's the absence of a clear system that helps you focus your energy on what matters most. This book introduces you to a revolutionary approach that transforms chaos into clarity, scattered effort into laser-focused action. By learning to identify your focal point—that critical 20% of activities that generate 80% of your results—you'll discover how to double your productivity while actually working less. The principles you're about to explore have helped thousands of people break through their limitations and achieve extraordinary success in every area of their lives.
Simplify Your Life and Double Your Productivity
At its core, simplification means ruthlessly eliminating the nonessential to make room for the extraordinary. Most people live in a constant state of overwhelm because they've never learned to distinguish between what's merely good and what's genuinely great. The secret lies in applying what's known as the "law of complexity," which reveals that complexity increases exponentially with each additional step in any process. By reducing the number of steps required to achieve your goals, you dramatically decrease the time, cost, and potential for mistakes. Consider the story of an insurance executive who attended an advanced coaching program while working seventy to eighty hours per week. He hadn't taken a vacation in four years and felt completely overwhelmed despite earning over $100,000 annually. His breakthrough came when he applied zero-based thinking to every activity in his life, asking: "Knowing what I know now, if I weren't already doing this, would I start it today?" This simple question revealed that 80% of his activities were contributing only 20% of his results. Within three months, he had dramatically restructured his approach. He focused exclusively on his top 20% of clients while systematically reducing time spent with the remaining 80%. He cut his work week from seven days to five, yet his income increased by 300% within a year. He lost 22 pounds, began taking monthly vacations with his family, and discovered levels of satisfaction he'd never experienced before. The key to his transformation was implementing the Seven Rs of Simplification: Rethink your current approach, Reevaluate based on new information, Reorganize for maximum efficiency, Restructure to focus on high-value activities, Reengineer processes to eliminate unnecessary steps, Reinvent yourself for the future you want, and Regain control of your time and energy. Start by making a list of everything you do in a typical week, then apply zero-based thinking to each item. You'll be amazed at how much of your life you can simplify immediately, creating space for what truly matters most to your success and happiness.
Master Personal Strategic Planning for Success
Personal strategic planning is the bridge between where you are today and where you want to be tomorrow. Unlike hoping and wishing, strategic planning provides a systematic approach to designing your ideal future and then creating a roadmap to get there. The process begins with seven fundamental questions that successful people ask themselves regularly, starting with the most important: "What business am I really in?" This question forces you to define your work in terms of the value you create for others, not just the activities you perform. Take the example of a young insurance company that had grown rapidly to $75 million in annual sales through energy and a good market, but had never engaged in formal strategic planning. The management team was skeptical when they first gathered for a two-day strategic planning session, believing they already knew what needed to be done. However, as they worked through the seven strategic questions—defining their business, envisioning their future, identifying their customers, recognizing their strengths, focusing on high-value activities, removing constraints, and committing to specific actions—they realized they'd been succeeding largely through luck and hard work rather than strategic focus. The transformation was remarkable. Instead of reaching their stretch goal of $100 million in sales, they achieved $125 million within twelve months. The clarity gained from strategic planning enabled them to make better decisions, allocate resources more effectively, and focus their collective energy on the activities that generated the highest returns. To implement personal strategic planning in your own life, begin by dividing your life into seven key areas: business and career, family and personal relationships, financial independence, health and fitness, personal growth and development, social contribution, and spiritual development. For each area, clarify your values, create a compelling vision, set specific measurable goals, identify required knowledge and skills, develop supporting habits, design daily activities, and commit to immediate action. This systematic approach ensures that every area of your life receives the attention it deserves while maintaining balance and forward momentum.
Build Wealth While Enjoying Balance and Health
True wealth encompasses far more than money—it includes the time freedom to enjoy life's precious moments and the physical vitality to fully engage with the world around you. The most successful people understand that financial independence, personal relationships, and physical well-being are interconnected elements of a rich, fulfilling life. When one area suffers, it inevitably impacts the others, but when all three thrive together, they create a synergistic effect that amplifies your overall success and happiness. Consider the remarkable transformation of a single mother who earned just over $30,000 annually while working seventy to eighty hours per week. She felt torn between the demands of career success and quality time with her daughter. Through applying focused improvement principles, she identified the two or three highest-value activities in her work and systematically delegated, outsourced, or eliminated everything else. Within five years, her income had grown to over $300,000 while her work week decreased to just thirty-eight hours. Her success came from understanding a fundamental truth: in our knowledge-based economy, you're rewarded for results, not hours. By concentrating her efforts on activities that created the most value for her clients and company, she became exponentially more productive. This financial growth allowed her to invest in her health through regular exercise and proper nutrition, while the reduced work hours enabled her to build a stronger relationship with her daughter and maintain meaningful friendships. The path to this integrated success starts with adopting the mindset of complete personal responsibility. When you accept that you are the architect of your own results, you gain the power to change them. Begin by calculating your current financial net worth, establishing automatic savings of at least 10% of your income, and investing in your most valuable asset—your own knowledge and skills. Simultaneously, commit to regular exercise, proper nutrition, and adequate rest, viewing these not as luxuries but as essential investments in your productivity. Finally, schedule specific time blocks for the important relationships in your life, treating these appointments with the same respect you'd give to your most important client meetings.
Summary
The journey to unlocking your full potential isn't about working harder—it's about working with greater precision and purpose. As this book powerfully demonstrates, "Your ability to choose the correct time, place, and activity to place your 'X' on has a greater impact on your life than any other factor." Success comes from identifying that focal point where your efforts can create the maximum positive impact, then concentrating all your energy there while systematically eliminating or delegating everything else. The path forward is surprisingly simple: determine what matters most in each area of your life, create a clear plan to achieve it, and take consistent daily action toward your goals. Start today by identifying just one high-value activity that you can focus on this week, and watch how this single change begins to transform every aspect of your life. Your potential is unlimited—the only question is whether you'll choose to unlock it.

By Brian Tracy