How To Set Your Personal Success Up For… Success

[View this email in your browser]( • [Forward to a Friend]( We Need a Strict Definition of Personal Success TL;DR: “Every moment we spend pursuing an undefined goal is a complete waste of time — especially personal goals.” As Founders, we spend an inordinate amount of time setting and pursuing goals, yet the ones that truly matter — the ones that affect us personally — are often amorphous. If we're spending every waking moment working toward a goal, it stands to reason that our goals should have an insane amount of fidelity. Today’s Advice Sponsored by [Fundrise]( We Tend to Suck at Goal Definition If you ask a startup Founder what their goals for the startup are, they may say something like "To sell for a billion dollars!" But that's a pointless goal unless that Founder needs exactly a billion dollars (or their percentage of it) to achieve their goals. Also, if you have a plan for spending a billion dollars please call me — I want to hang out. A better goal would be "I need $281,520 to pay off my student loan debt, put money down on a house, and put $50k in the bank for emergencies." That type of goal has a specific definition and a deliberate purpose which allows us to make tons of decisions based on that outcome. For example, we probably don't need to take on a ton of investment to achieve that outcome or build a giant company. We can hit that goal with way less complication. Goals Should Be About More Than Money Money is a very binary goal, but we should also be specific about what our non-numeric goals are. For example, we all say that we want "more freedom" (it's why we started a company!) but do we ever really define that freedom? That freedom may mean that we don't ever want to answer to anyone ever again (my favorite), but we should be specific about who we don't want to answer to. Are we talking about investors, customers, employees (all of the above)? I personally never wanted to answer to a Board again (so we don't have one). I didn't want to deal with huge enterprise customers that could crush my business (so we don't have those). The list goes on. By making goals very specific we start to create a tight roadmap toward real success. The More We Tighten Up Our Goals, The Easier They Become It turns out, the hardest goals to reach are those with the least definition. It's like when we say "I want to be happy" — again, a dumb goal — because in and of itself it lacks definition. On the other hand, as we distill our goals into highly specific outcomes, it turns out they are often way easier to achieve. A great method I've personally found is to not only make them highly specific but make them incremental. Instead of saying "I want to lose 40 pounds" try "I want to lose 1 pound by Monday." Smaller, focused goals have the highest chance of success. And if we're going to be spending an insane amount of time pursuing goals, doesn't it make sense that we invest some serious time refining them? 2020 called… it’s time to rethink your investments This year left many investors trying to keep their cool while watching the absolute nail-biter that was the and fall of the Dow and S&P 500. One group sweating less? Those with a [Fundrise account](. For years Fundrise has steadily invested in a diversified set of [institutional-quality private market real estate]( assets, which allowed their investors to kick back and relax as their diversified portfolios helped soften the blow and position them for long-term returns. Serenity in a topsy-turvy market Real estate is historically more stable than the stock market and continues to be one of the most sought-after asset classes for its ability to reduce risk and improve stability (yep, even now). Unlike most private real estate investments, [Fundrise]( has: - Proprietary technology that reduces fees and helps maximize long-term return potential. - In-house experience that, to date, has transacted on more than $4.9 billion worth of real estate, and delivered 8.7%-12.4% average annual returns since 2014. - Flexible investment minimums that give you the flexibility to invest the right amount, at the right time. [Sign up today and join more than 130,000 active investors]( who are using Fundrise to add peace of mind to their portfolios. [Invest smarter →]( In Case You Missed It [How Do I Design My Startup Around My Life?]( There’s very little preventing us from designing our startups around our life goals. It starts with us being very clear about what we want to achieve and then taking clear, small steps toward those outcomes. [7 Habits Of Highly Successful Entrepreneurs]( From ice cream powerhouses to e-commerce pros, here are some traits from great founders that I’ve observed and tried to emulate throughout my 20-year career as an entrepreneur. [How Much Should I Be Working? (podcast)]( While there's truth to the assumption that more hours equal more growth, we'll explore how it benefits to think quality and not quantity when it comes to your weekly punch card. Love this topic? Hate it? Let's chat on social media! Wil Schroter Founder & CEO @ Startups.com [Share]( [Share]( [Tweet]( [Tweet]( [Forward]( [Forward]( Copyright © 2020 Startups.com, All rights reserved. You are receiving this email because you joined Startups.com. Our mailing address is: Startups.com 1322 Manning PkwyPowell, OH 43065-1100 [Add us to your address book]( Want to change how you receive these emails? You can [update your preferences]( or [unsubscribe from this list](.