2008, I can’t believe it’s here already. 2007 seemed to fly past at an astonishing rate, and yet so many things have happened to change the way I will be living this New Year. They also have a major impact on the goals I am setting for this year because I will be pushing the limit even more. The most important lesson I learnt from last year would have to be this. In order to achieve the goals you set you MUST keep continual focus and WORK on it EVERY DAY until you do. If it is truly your burning desire then let nothing distract you from it or take you off the path towards it.

How will 2008 shape up for you?
Have you set your goals and written them down?
Will you achieve your dreams and goals?
What action are you taking every day so you WILL achieve them?

Here are just a couple of the most significant goals I set last year and actually achieved ahead of time.

Reduce the amount of time I spend at a J.O.B. so I can use more of that time in my Internet Business.

I started 2007 working 40 hours a week for someone else to achieve an income I could use for living expenses. In November I reduced this to 24 hours a week, then 2 weeks before the end of 2007 I reduced this to zero. I now have the original 40 hours a week to build my Internet business.

When I first set this goal I really didn’t think it was going to be possible. I was stuck in the ‘rut’ of thinking I HAD to have a JOB in order to gain the income necessary to live. It took a change in my thinking, and the guts to actually ‘bite the bullet’ and decide that I WAS going to be free from working 9 to 5 before things started to change. Believe me it was scary at times, and Cecilia did think I was crazy for some of the decisions I seemed to make out of the blue, but in the end it all paid off. The funny thing was that I had stopped ‘thinking’ about it and just let things happen as the opportunities presented themselves. This proved to me that I COULD achieve my goals if I had faith that it would happen.

Stop thinking I had to receive every email for all the ‘gurus’ and actually Opt-Out of all the list that really didn’t contribute to my success.

I must have been on over 20 email lists, maybe even more, I can’t really remember. This meant I received a ridiculous amount of emails every day of the week, some of them just offering the same ‘must have’ deal.

Going through all those emails took several hours. Sometimes I didn’t even get through them all because each one involved reading an associated sales page or blog post. This meant I had even more emails to read the next day. So all the time I was spending reading was being wasted on things not generating an income.

Notice the word ’spending’ in the previous sentence. When you start to think of your time as money then you will start taking more care of it. Put a value on your time, make it an astronomical amount. Australia’s Macquarie Bank Chief Executive Allan Moss earns the equivalent of $16,948/hour, yes you read that correct $16,948 per hour. Do you think he spends his time reading emails that don’t help him do his work? I doubt it very much. So put a value on your time and at the end of the day see how much money you wasted.

So what I did was OPT-OUT, and if you are serious about your success you should too.

Yes I said it, opt-out!

We do not get paid to read emails!

As you begin to go through the emails you have received, try this simple test.

Before reading each email ask yourself this question.

“How often does this person send me an email, and has it added any money to my bottom line in 2007?”

Too many emails or no value in the message? The decision is simple, hit the remove link!

Over the last few months of 2007 I have systematically opted out of all lists of no value.

I will admit, doing this did ‘hurt’ a little. I had become so used to receiving emails about this offer and that offer, and also the latest technique which will promise ……., but after a while I didn’t even miss the emails, and I also started to notice a change in my Internet Business, namely an increase in my income and the fact I was actually getting a lot more done.

To keep up with what everyone else was doing I found it easier to subscribe to I.M.NewsWatch, a brilliant service managed by a good friend of mine Mike Mograbi. I receive a summary email with a list of all the latest offers from other Internet Marketers. I simply scan the list and if something looks interesting I have a quick look and test it against my criteria I have set.

Basically it’s boils down to this.

Will it help me achieve my goals or not, and you MUST be tough on yourself and keep FOCUSED. If it doesn’t fit, forget it, if it does, get it. It’s that simple. Most offers have a money back guarantee so you can read or test it. If after checking it out it still doesn’t help your business, get your money back. Doing this has saved me a fortune in money, time and hard disk space.

This year I’m posting my goals here on my blog. Not necessarily for everyone to read, but more for me to commit to achieving them. This way I can check back and keep focused on what I want in 2008.

So here goes.

My Goals for 2008.

Reduce the hours I spend in front of my computer to 30 hours per week. Done.
Spend more time with family and call my mother once a week (sorry Mum I’ve been slack). Done.
Travel to 4 different countries, including Taiwan to see where Cecilia was born and raised. Vietnam only.
Continue to work on being lazer focused and resist the urge to get distracted by all the ‘bright lights and promises’ on the Internet.
Eliminate all my debts and cut up all my credit cards. Almost Done
Create 12 products including a successful Intern Course to help others achieve their dreams through the Internet.
Tell more people about Xooma so they can have a better quality of life like Kay who suffered badly from osteoporosis but now copes much better and has been able to stop her calcium tablets. Cancelled
Sell my old car and purchase a Suzuki Boulevard. Changed goal to Mobile Home
Hire a house boat on the Hawksbury River for 1 week and leave the computer at home.
Sponsor 6 rickshaws through PeopleAid so families have their own business.
Purchase a property in the Blue Mountains. Started looking and plan to buy in 2009.
Attend at least 2 Internet Marketing Seminars so I can meet all the wonderful people who have helped me thus far and encouraged me to keep going even when it all seemed too much.
Stand in front of a packed seminar hall and encourage hundreds of people to achieve their dreams. If I can do it so can you.
Travel to New Zealand with the family and have a two week skiing and excitement trip. Changed destination to Vietnam and did it in March 2008.
Purchase the newest MAC and have it running PC and MAC applications. Purchased a new PC with Vista and 2 monitors.  Decided to stick with using my MACBOOK.
Start and maintain an exercise regime so I have a better quality of life.
Give up smoking. Achieved this on my Birthday

I will probably add more things to the above list through the year as I achieve and cross off some.

I encourage you to write your list of goals down somewhere so they can remind you every day. Feel free to share them here if you like, I’d be interested to see what goals you have and if there is any way I can help I would be more than happy to.

Thank you for your support and interest in my ramblings. I plan on bring a lot more information, products, training and news over the next year, so if you are interested please subscribe to my posts.

Hope you had a wonderful 2007. Cecilia and I wish you all the best for 2008 and look forward to helping make everything EzyAs123.