Make a Contract With Yourself: Sign Yourself Up for Success

Peo­ple in busi­ness make con­tracts for each other all the time. But do they ever make any for them­selves? Have you ever made any for your­self? And why would you want to anyways.

Mak­ing a con­tract is easy, and very pow­er­ful in help­ing you stay on track to accom­plish­ing your goals. It is mak­ing a com­mit­ment to your­self and your busi­ness. Writ­ing some­thing down on paper is extremely effec­tive men­tally. And hang­ing this con­tract where you can see it every day will remind you.

How to make a contract

Here is a short overview of mak­ing a con­tract for your­self. Obvi­ously every­one is a lit­tle bit dif­fer­ent, but this is a gen­eral lay­out you can use:

Write all the short term goals you need to do for you and your busi­ness. Make a list or what­ever, just write it down. Short term goals are mea­sured in weeks or months. Even days.

Then write down your long term goals. Where do you want your busi­ness to be in 2 years? 5 years? 10 years? Put a time limit on your long term goals and do your short term goals to reach them. Write both these goals down.

Write down the pay­out you will receive when you achieve these goals. Basi­cally what is the point of doing these goals. In 2 years your busi­ness is doing very well. That is the payout.

Reward your­self for achiev­ing these goals. Write down the rewards that you give your­self when you achieve these goals. Maybe a vaca­tion, or go out and buy your­self some­thing. It can be any­thing, as long as it’s per­son­ally reward­ing to you. When you achieve these goals, then take your reward. This gives you some­thing to work for as well, besides just the payout.

Of course we can’t for­get the pun­ish­ment either. If you are lazy one day and don’t get to one of your short term goals, take that extra snack away. Don’t go to sleep until it’s done. What­ever it is, it has to be per­sonal for you. This may take a bit of self con­trol but it will help stay focused.

Now that you have all that writ­ten down, sign it. Stick it up where you will see it every sin­gle day.

This is effec­tive because your wrote it down. That makes a com­mit­ment. And it’s also effec­tive because you see it every day. Work­ing from home is still hard. And You don’t have a boss stand­ing over you to make sure you get the work done. Be your own boss and have your con­tract hover over you. To help make sure you get the job done.

~Chris

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• Goals, Do You Use Them? You Should, It’s Essential
• How to Man­age Your Goals, and Your Problems
• The Old Debate: Qual­ity vs. Quantity

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