Our brain plays an important role when we set our goal and formulating plan to achieve it. It is important to note that when our brain is given a choice to do something or to put it off, we will always be pulled towards the more comfortable path, especially if the goal is so difficult to achieve. However, when we have no choice but to do something no matter how big it is, our brain will start taking us seriously and we will always find a way!

Therefore, to ensure that you achieve your big goal successfully, you must put yourself in a critical condition where you have absolutely no choice but to achieve the goal. You put yourself on the line where there is no doubt that the only option is to succeed. You focus on success, you think success, you breathe success, and you dream success. As Benjamin Disraeli said, “Life is too short to be small.”

Many successful individuals created the results they did because they simply had no choice. They put themselves in critical condition (their future was at stake) and this action eventually led them to successfully achieve their goals!

Likewise, you must know what is worth dying for. Spend some time reflecting this: “What in life would I not be able to stop doing, no matter what the consequences were?”

You must ensure that your goal is STAMPS: Specific, Time-limited, Action-oriented, Measurable, Purpose-driven and Stretching.

· Specific. The goal must be clearly spelled out.

· Time-limited. The goal must have a time frame and deadline which will force you to watch and put your best efforts to fulfill.

· Action-oriented. The goal must inspire action.

· Measurable. You must be able to measure the goal so that you have the idea in expressing it using figures of measurement.

· Purpose-driven. The goal must be reasonable, i.e. it has a strong “Why” behind it.

· Stretching. The goal must be very challenging, something which pushes you and yet is achievable.

The following five strategies can be used to put yourself in a critical condition to ensure that you achieve your big STAMPS goal:

1. “Burn the ships.”

You put everything you have on the line. Of the five strategies, this is the most daring strategy because the stake is very big.

In 1519, Hernan Cortez sailed his fleet of 11 ships from Spain into the harbor of Vera Cruz, Mexico, bringing with him soldiers, sailors, and horses. He landed in Mexico on 4 March 1519. Cortez did not want his troops to have any doubts about their mission, so he gave the order to “burn the ships” to make retreat impossible. His men no doubt understood that Cortez was very serious about this mission and really wanted results, and they had to focus on victory.

When I quitted from my profession to start internet business, I was tempted to go back to my old job when I did not see any money yet. However, I realized that if I did not “burn my ships” then I won’t fight very hard to succeed in this internet business.

2. Set a monumental goal.

You deliberately set a highly challenging and monumental goal with adequate time limit so that you will be forced to take a lot of thinking and efforts to achieve it. According to Tom Hopkins, “You can’t rest unless you set goals that make you stretch.” Remember, however that there is nothing courageous about boldly saying that you will successfully do something without the capacity — the skills or the resources — to do it.

In 1508, Michelangelo, the famous artist, was summoned by Pope Julius II to work on a painting project, which involved painting a dozen figures on the ceiling of Sistine Chapel, a small chapel in the Vatican. Once Michelangelo agreed to do the job (albeit reluctantly), he poured himself into it. He expanded the scope of the project to include more than 400 figures and nine scenes from the book of Genesis. He spent four agonizing years sweating in physical distress — his neck, shoulders and back ached, and his vision was damaged — as he worked to paint the Sistine Chapel’s ceiling and produced a real masterpiece.

What is your monumental goal in your financial? How much are you going to be worth in 2010?

3. Make a public declaration of your goal.

You make your goal and plans public, so that you will be more committed to following through with them. Thomas Edison called a press conference to announce his good idea for an invention. Then he would go into his lab and invent it.

Who should you declare your goal to so that there is no way you will back down?

4. Get other people involved in the process of attaining your goal.

You share your goal with some close friends or relatives, those who will be supportive to you. This will force you to be committed to achieve your goal, and at the same time enable you to get valuable support, advice and information from them. According to Tennessee Williams, “Life is partly what we make it, and partly what is made by the friends we choose.”

5. Make a financial commitment on your goal.

You set your goal associated with financial commitment, such that it will hurt you not to do it. What is the extra money you are committed to make or to spend? When it comes to real commitment on money, people tend to be more serious and determined, and put their thought and actions wholeheartedly. As Voltaire properly put it, “When it’s a question of money, everybody is of the same religion.”

By putting yourself in a critical condition, you put yourself on the line and tell yourself that the only option is to succeed. Failure is not an option regardless of the immense obstacles. You force your mind, body and soul to focus your efforts, play all-out to achieve your big goal successfully and pay the price to reach it.

Make a solemn commitment in your heart to achieve your goal. Commitment is the inner strength that keeps you pressing on when everyone else tells you to give up and getting up no matter how many times you are knocked down.

The only real measure of commitment is action — walking your talk. Therefore, measure your commitment based on your action: how much time you spend at work, in generating other income streams, in service, with family, etc. Then see if your actions match your ideals about the things in your life which you would not be able to stop doing. As Cecil B. De Mille said, “The person who makes a success of living is the one who sees his goal steadily and aims for it unswervingly.” Take action to wealth creation here.

So what is Money Management? Money Management is essential to preserve your trading capital and is simply a set of rules that governs how much money you have at risk. Ask yourself the following questions to determine whether or not your Money Management plan is in good working order:

1. Do you know how much you are risking on each trade? This depends, to some extent, on the time period over which you trade. A good rule of thumb for day traders is to risk a maximum of 2% of your trading capital on each trade. Remember, you will not win every time and you need to be able to withstand a losing run and stay in the game. Not staking too much on one trade is one of the secrets you must learn if you are to master the art of day trading.

2. Are you over exposed in a particular sector? If you have too many trades running the same way in the same sector, it can be the same as risking too much of your capital on one trade. If you need convincing, just look at how often the share prices of companies in the same sector move in unison.

3. How much of your capital is exposed to the market at any given time? Your Money Management system will tell you how many trades in total you should have running at any given time. You might think you have a good mix of buys and sells and have a good spread across sectors, but a very volatile market can very easily whipsaw you out of all your open positions. This is particularly the case for day traders using tight stop losses. Don’t have your whole trading capital committed to the market at one time.

Good Money Management is an elemental component of trading. It is not something you can learn overnight but a steady progression that, if done properly, can truly lead to life changing results. Develop sound Money Management habit, and you will be amazed at the results you can achieve. There is no reason to go for the “big one” with every trade. Slow and steady – with small, consistent profits – will bring you results beyond your expectations.

For more information on Money Management techniques, as well as other proven strategies to improve your trading results, click on the links below.

If you think of large businesses and how they measure growth and performance. They will continually talk about growing by either opening new branches or shops, or taking over existing ones.

So for instance a company may say “Our target is to open 30 new stores throughout the UK in 2008.”

Another company may say we shall consolidate our position and work on performance of existing stores. In terms of growing as a business, this is where buy to let has a huge advantage over buying to sell.

If you buy to sell, you have to re-start your company each time, and are not building up any longer term growth, you can make short term profits but you work very hard for this at times and is not very tax efficient.

For me I look to increase the overall value of my portfolio each year by buying further properties in areas I see continued capital growth and a healthy cashflow, and holding onto existing properties. The great thing with buy to let is it takes far less time than buy to sell, and is far more tax efficient in my opinion.

Once you target an area and affordable properties, you can pay your deposit, mortgage the remaining amount, and let your money start working for you, and then move onto the next one.

I always think of each house as the equivalent of one store in a large chain of stores eg a Marks and Spencer store in an area of the country. If the house is performing well, it can be down to a good tenant/good managing agent/or good local area, vice versa if it struggles it will be down to one or two of these key points not performing.

It is always worth looking at how your overall business is running, but then drilling down and looking at individual houses to see how they are individually performing.

For instance overall your portfolio may be going up in value by 10% per annum, and running at a neutral cashflow, which you may think is very good, but if look closer may see that 50% of your properties are going up by 20% in value and making a net income each month, while 50% are not showing any capital growth and losing money each month. Or you may see that a property you thought was performing very well, actually is giving a low return on investment as has very little borrowing on it.

How do you measure the performance of each investment?

Let’s look at a couple of example properties:

You own 2 properties in the same area of the country, both bought in Jan 07. Therefore similar levels of capital growth are expected, 10% for the year, and rental yields are similar as they are both 2 bedroom terraced properties.

Property 1

One is worth £70,000 and rents for £350 a month. You have an 85% mortgage on this and your mortgage payments and maintenance costs each month are exactly covered by your monthly rent.

Property 2

You have bought this for cash. It also rents for £350 a month with no mortgage after maintenance costs you make a net figure of £2000 over the year.

Which has performed better?

Well different investors may see it differently. For some the fact property 2 has made £2000 income would put it ahead.

I would look at the return on my investment. Let’s assume buying costs on each were £2000. With property 1, you have invested £10,500 + £2000 = £12,500, and at end of year you have made no net income, but have made £7,000 capital growth. So I would calculate this as a ROI of 56%.

With property 2, you have invested £70,000 + £2000 = £72,000, and at end of year you have made £2000 net income and £7000 capital growth.

So I would calculate the ROI here as 12.5%

A big difference and shows emphasis is always on high leverage and capital growth. How do you get this? Buy in affordable areas and mortgage as often as you can, as long as your cashflow is kept to a manageable level.

It is also important to realise like any business there will be short term issues but these should never get in the way of your longer term goals. So if you get an issue with your first tenant, or managing agent, but had a goal to get to 10 properties by the end of the year. Do not give up at one property, or think there is no money in property!

The only thing that is for sure is if you stop at one, you will not make a huge amount of money, you should continue with your mid term goals. I lost money on one deal early on, but learnt from it, and have had issues with problem tenants from time to time, but have always had a clear longer term goal. So treat property as a business, review it regularly, and overall measure the performance of your business by the growth each year, and the return on investment each year.

Rocket Scientists would never begin construction on a new booster rocket without a detailed set of design specifications. Yet most of us go blindly out into the world without an inkling of an idea about finances and without any plan at all.

Not very smart of us, is it?

A money plan is called a budget and it is crucial to get us to our desired financial goals.

Without a plan we will drift without direction and end up marooned on a distant financial reef.

If you have a spouse or a significant other, you should make this budget together. Sit down and figure out what your joint financial goals are…long term and short term.

Then plan your route to get to those goals. Every journey begins with one step and the first step to attaining your goals is to make a realistic budget that both of you can live with.

A budget should never be a financial starvation diet. That won’t work for the long haul. Make reasonable allocations for food, clothing, shelter, utilities and insurance and set aside a reasonable amount for entertainment and the occasional luxury item. Savings should always come first before any spending.

Even a small amount saved will help you reach your long term and short term financial goals. You can find many budget forms on the internet. Just use any search engine you choose and type in “free budget forms”.

You’ll get lots of hits. Print one out and work on it with your spouse or significant other. Both of you will need to be happy with the final result and feel like it’s something you can stick to. To read another topic on different site categories, please visit recursion, strojmat, maesc, cubaaction, dengarblog, soahubs, doktermuda, ririn’s, bazzanella, playyourpart, sielmob, spazphotos, and groesbecktennis.

All it takes for the price to jump up by a lot is a little hiccup in the world wide market, note the price of gasoline as it relates to world affairs.

There is a way that we can keep these price increases from impacting our personal finances so much and that is by buying in quantity and finding the best possible prices for the things we use and will continue to use everyday… things that will keep just as well on the shelves in our homes as it does on the shelves at the grocery store or hardware store.

For instance, dog food and cat food costs about 10% less when bought by the case than it does when bought at the single can price and if you wait for close out prices you save a lot more than that.

Set aside some space in your home and make a list of things that you use regularly which will not spoil. Any grain or grain products will need to be stored in airtight containers that rats can’t get into so keep that in mind.

Then set out to find the best prices you can get on quantity purchases of such things as bathroom items and dry and canned food.

You will be surprised at how much you can save by buying a twenty pound bag of rice as opposed to a one pound bag but don’t forget that it must be kept in a rat proof container.

You can buy some clothing items such as men’s socks and underwear because those styles don’t change, avoid buying children’s and women’s clothing, those styles change and sizes change too drastically.

Try to acquire and keep a two year supply of these items and you can save hundreds of dollars. To read another topic on different site categories, please visit recursion, strojmat, maesc, cubaaction, dengarblog, soahubs, doktermuda, ririn’s, bazzanella, playyourpart, sielmob, spazphotos, and groesbecktennis.