How To Set Your Goal: Do You Really Need To Make Millions?

Last week I showed you how to make a Personal Manifesto, which is a written overview of your goals and all the steps you’re willing to take to make them come true. Now we need to talk about how to set those goals.

Maybe your goal right now is to “make millions online” or “make $10,000/day”. Well, in this post I’m going to tell you why I think setting that kind of goal can be a really bad idea.

Today I’m going to show you:

• Why setting your goal to “make millions” can hurt you.
• The strange (and low) $$ goal that big marketers start with
• Why I think this dollar amount works so well

Sound good? Keep reading.

Humble Beginnings

When I created my Personal Manifesto in 2008, my goal was very simple. I wanted to be able to live without a 9–5 job so I could focus on music.

My goal was $100/day.

Why such a small goal? It’s simple. That was the amount of money I needed to cover my rent, car payment and living expenses.

I wasn’t trying to get rich. I was just trying to create more free time.

It took a while, but after a month of losing money I finally started to break even. Then I got profitable and started getting closer and closer to my $100/day goal.

On my first $100/day I felt like I was the king of the world.

• I felt like I had beaten the Matrix. If I could keep that going, I was free.
• I reset my goal to $500/day.
• Then I hit that and reset my goal to $1000/day.

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Every time I hit a new daily profit goal I felt a huge surge of excitement. I wasn’t getting rich but I was making progress. And in my experience – making progress is the best high there is.

And because it feels good – it keeps you in the game.

The Difference

Millions of people have tried to do this online thing. And millions of failed. But there are some of us that do really well at it, and last for years. What’s the difference?

Well, here’s what I’ve seen.

I’ve had long conversations with a sh#tload of uber-successful marketers and when I tell them my $100/day story, they laugh out loud. Because they did the exact same thing.

They set a similar, small goal and followed the same journey, hitting the smaller goals along the way.

On the other side of the coin – I have NEVER met an uber-successful marketer who started with a goal of making Millions. They may exist out there somewhere but in all of the meetups, conferences and get-togethers that I’ve been to – I have never met a single one.

That’s because most people who come in with dreams of instant riches and mansions and cars fade out and quit real fast. Six months into it they see that they’re not a millionaire yet and give up.

But when you set smaller goals (like $100/day), you keep going.

• You’re continuously hitting smaller profit goals as you move along.
• You get to experience win after win as you better learn the skills and progress into bigger campaigns.
• Flash-Forward a year or two (or five) later you’re still in the game.
• You get to leave the rat race and never go back.

This is what I’ve seen.
This is what I’ve experienced.

And it leads me into my next point:

Setting your initial goal to making millions of dollars is completely unnecessary.

Here’s why.

The Average American Salary

Now, don’t get me wrong. I am a big fan of setting multi-million dollar goals. But do you really need millions? The answer is most likely “no”. To show you why, let’s talk about your real goal.

The real goal for most of you is pretty simple. You want to quit your 9–5 job, right?

Before you worry about being a millionaire – let’s get you out of that 9-5 job lifestyle first. That should be your first priority.

To do this – you don’t need “$Millions” (unless you’re currently making a $1Million+ a year). You just need to replace your current salary. Which is probably a much lower number.

The Average American salary is about $50,500/year

That number is going to differ depending on where you live, but for today’s purposes, that is the number we’ll use.

If you make $50k/year right now, all you have to do is replace that same $50k/year with your own business to be able to quit your job.

Let’s break it down:

• Average American salary: $50,500 a year
• Monthly Income: $4208/month ($50,500/12 months)
• Daily Income: $138/day ($55,500/365 days)

So there it is. The average American makes about $138 a day.

You only really need to make $138/day to replace an average full-time job and completely leave the rat race for good.

And that’s great news – because $138/day is attainable on almost any traffic source and with almost any type of offer.

So why not rethink that Million Dollar goal and reset it to a very achievable $138/day instead?

That’s all the money you need to make to quit your job.

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Do you make less than $50k/year?

I know a lot of people who make a lot less than $50,500 a year. And if you’re one of them I have good news for you. The lower your income – the easier it is for you to escape the 9-5 trap forever.

If you make 1/2 the average, that’s $27,750/year, you only need to make $76/day to quit your job for good.

And to be honest with you, you could even settle for less. I would rather earn $24,000/year being my own boss than $27,750/year working for someone else.

Here’s The Simple Math

Instead of starting out by dreaming of “Making Millions”, set your goal to replace your current job.

The simple math to replace your job: Take your current annual income and divide it by 365. That’s your number to replace your job.

Or if you’re like me and would accept less money to be able work for yourself, set your goal to cover your most basic cost of living. (rent, bills, etc.)

The simple math for your bottom line: Take your current annual expenses and divide it by 365. That is your bottom line.

Let’s Sum It Up

1. An American average salary is $138/day
2. A lower-than-average salary is $76/day
3. So let’s split the difference and see what we get…

It’s about $100/day.

Your mind should have just exploded.

That’s the exact number that I set in the very beginning.

Coincidence? I don’t know for sure but it certainly seems at the very least…

Suspicious.

Conclusion

If you’re a new online marketer (and are writing out your Personal Manifesto) – I recommend not setting your initial goal to “Make Millions of Dollars”. If you do that you are setting yourself up for failure, because if/when it doesn’t happen you might get frustrated and quit.

Every uber-marketer that I know started with a simple goal of making $100/day online. When they hit that goal they reset the goal to $500/day, then $1000/day and so on.

Set your big goal to $100 Million if you want to. Then set your smaller goal to $100/day. It worked for me and several others. It can work for you too – even if you only have part-time hours available to dedicate to it.

Wanna do well at this thing?

Dream big…

Then start small.