How To Create A Success Book (or how $20 can change your life)

I’m a big proponent of creating a vision for your life and then setting specific goals to fulfill that vision. Statistics overwhelmingly enforce the power of goal-setting.

Yet after years of failing to achieve simple New Year’s Resolutions, the majority of the population has given up on goal setting.

Why?

Well…there’s many reasons, such as setting goals that aren’t specific (“get in shape”), not giving the goal a deadline (“learn a new language” great…but when?), not making it measurable (“fall in love”), etc.

But one of the biggest reasons that people fail to achieve their goals is simply this: they forget them.

The solution?

Invest $20 to create a seasonal “Success Book.”

How to create a Success Book

First off, what is a Success Book? It’s a small book that combines your written goals with the power and emotion of photos. You can create one for less than $20 using online services such as Shutterfly and Snapfish. It’s similar to a dream board, but much more specific, transportable, and personal.

This is a HIGHLY personal process, but here are my recommendations for creating a success book:

1. Keep it Short. You should be able to read this in less than 5 minutes.
2. Keep it Personal. This is for your eyes only, not to impress others.
3. Keep it Practical. This isn’t a scrapbook. It’s simply a list of your goals combined with photos that inspire you and motivate you to reach your goal.
4. Keep it Seasonal: I recommend setting goals 3-6 months out (max 12 months).

I believe in having a 3-5 year vision of where you want to be. But that’s different than goal setting. Your goals need to be immediate; you should be able to take action on them immediately. Never set a goal that doesn’t require immediate action.

That said, if you want to add a page at the beginning which includes some long term vision, go for it! This provides a lot of the “why” behind the specific goals in the book. You have to know your destination (vision) before you can plan the route to get there (goals). Just keep in mind the power of the book is to provide a place of daily reminding and inspiration of your goals for this season.

How do you create a Success Book?

It’s simple. Here’s the steps:

1. Write down your specific goals for each area of your life. If you haven’t listened to “Four Steps to Success” yet, now’s the time to do so as I go into this in great detail. Just sign up for the newsletter and you’ll get this 30 minute audio program for free.
2. Gather pictures to use in the book that will inspire you for each of your goals.
3. Go to Shutterfly or Snapfish and create the book. This is very fun process!!

MISTAKES TO AVOID:

Here’s some mistakes I made when creating my first Success Book:

• Too long, I don’t want to read it unless I have 15 minutes
• Too many photos, it’s more of a scrapbook. Plus I spent about 20 hours creating it trying to find the “perfect” photos for the book.
• Too focused on vision rather than specific goals
• Too long term and not seasonal enough

Here’s some photos of my first success book. Feel free to send me photos of yours after you finish it!

-Wesley