Whenever I have goals or targets, I try to approach it as though I were playing a game. As the game progresses, I strive to achieve higher and higher goals and I try to learn new ways of doing things to help me achieve them.
It works very much the same way when I'm trading. I don't see the dollar values I make as money - instead I look at it as a score. At the end of the month, I tally my scorecard up and I try to see if I can beat it the following month.
By doing this, it forces me to try new things or apply different techniques to my game. In essence, it allows me to grow - or better yet, it motivates me to grow.
I've used the same approach to growing this site. I look at the number of visitors during the month and I try to beat it the following month. The number of visitors can be considered my scorecard and I'm constantly trying to beat it.
By doing this, it forced me to take a look at new ways to market my site and to connect more with the blogging community.
You can approach life in very much the same way, whether it's your financial goals or your social goals.
My wife recently started a new business and had a huge stack of business cards printed. We were discussing ways to market her business when we started talking about treating it like a game.
At first, her goal would be to give out maybe 5 business cards a week.
Then she would try to increase it to 10 business cards a week and so on and so on.
As this "game" progressed, I found that my wife became more and more motivated to get the word out about her business. She began attending social events and seminars and I was quite impressed with the way she handled herself.
I have attended some of those events with my wife and at the end of the evening, I was quite surprised at the number of business cards she was able to give out!
In no time, my wife began giving out business cards by the handful. She also became more innovative as she looked for more ways to hand out her business card and she connected with others in the same industry.
You know, when she first brought home her freshly printed business cards, she looked at the stack and wondered how she would ever give out all of those business cards. That was about 3 months ago. If you were to look at her stack of business cards today, you would have to estimate that she will need more business cards printed within the next couple of months!
That being said, how's your game going?
