With traveling so much in May, the weeds got ahead of me. Way ahead of me! Weeding is not a chore I enjoy. I’d much rather sit outside and enjoy the fresh air and read or take a walk. About this time I found a note from a young man in my neighborhood looking for work so I gave him a call. He was off from college and wanted to earn extra money. He had a big goal. He was the recipient of a 1977 Granada, a classic car. Only problem was the car needed some cosmetic work that he and his dad could do and he needed to buy insurance.

What did I learn from this young man?

1. Knowing your why is huge. Tim, that’s the young man’s name, said he needed the car because it would make the right impression. It was an impression that he wouldn’t get with the family’s old pick-up truck.
2. Create a plan and work the plan. Tim showed up at my house with calendar pages for May through August printed out. He knows how much money he needs to make to maintain the car. He has the calendar filled in with odd jobs ranging from yard work to dog walking so he can accomplish that.
3. Set deadlines so you can work toward your goals. Tim plans to take a “lovely young woman” out on on June 16th, so he’s got a deadline. He wants that good impression. He has other deadlines along the way, but that’s the first one.
4. Look for options and ask for help. Tim has outlined how much money he needs to make, only it will take the summer to make enough to pay the insurance. (That’s not counting on the money for gas!) To meet his goal, he had to look at other options. His older brother, after reviewing the plan, is loaning Tim the money for the insurance. The older brother considers it a good risk.
5. Don’t forget yourself. When Tim was setting his calendar, he put in the fun activities he had planned so that working toward his goal didn’t consume all his time. It’s easy for those of us who work for ourselves to finish one task and then jump right into the next.

While I could see all the specifics of a good business plan here, what was most fun for me was the joy that Tim had in telling me about the car, how he was fixing it up, and the impression he knew it would make. It was a good reminder for me about looking for the joy in my goals.

Now I’ve got to keep a lookout on the 16th to see the car tooling up the road.

Please share your thoughts below.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, June 5th, 2013 at 5:55 am and is filed under Goals, Planning. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.