Long Term Goals

Today's Marketing Cookie is a form of encouragement for you. Too often in marketing, we are so laser-focused on what's right in front of us, we don't take the time to look at the long view. Let's face it, every day prospects are swimming by, and unless you drop a line in the water right now, you won't catch any fish. We're running hard. I get it. While this may be our reality as marketers, have you thought about the future? Have you set some long-term goals? If so, today's cookie is for you!

I love today's fortune because it is saying not to give up. The worst part of having a long-term goal is that it takes a long time to achieve. While you might get lucky and achieve it sooner than you thought, it is still something you wanted to accomplish a long while ago. Just to be clear, if something can be done quickly, it doesn't qualify as a long-term goal, now does it? So, how long is long-term? One year? Two years? How about eighteen years?

When I was in college, I decided that I wanted to be an actor. It didn't take me very long to realize that with a wife and new baby at home, I could not earn enough as an actor to provide for my family. I simply couldn't afford to pursue an acting career, so I went into marketing instead. A short time after my son was born, I decided that I would become a professional actor again on October 11, 2018. It's true. 

I didn't know exactly how or where. I just knew that on that day, all of my children would be legal adults, and I would give myself permission to pursue a career in acting again. 

The first thing that happened when I set that goal twelve years ago is I allowed acting to exist in my life. It exists. Acting has a start date, and it has a clear ranking of priority. Okay. I'm sure I could earn a part here and there in a community playhouse, or be an extra in a movie once in a while, but at what cost? When I declared a date for when I will once again be a professional actor, I made an acting career possible.

The second thing that happened when I set that goal twelve years ago is I made my children a priority, as well as my current career, by the way. Being distracted in my current career limits my success and defeats the purpose of deferring acting in the first place. If you know me well, then you know that whatsoever I choose to do in my life, I do it all the way. If I attempted to add a "little bit" of acting to all of the other things I am doing right now, something important would definitely suffer. Since I love acting so much, I am certain that it would be too tempting to sacrifice other commitments in favor of following my dream.

What is your dream? Were you planning to be an actor like me, a pilot like John Travolta, or maybe a photographer like Leonard Nimoy? Sometimes life happens when you have other plans. Rather than wishing you had stuck with it, I highly recommend that you pick a date and give yourself permission to work on it again when you'll have more time.

Ironically, I happen to love the career I have. Although I'm sticking to my plan of deferring my acting career until 2018, I doubt that I will leave my love for marketing. Either way, the next six years will probably fly by, and before I know it, I will be taking curtain calls again. Think about it. My oldest daughter was only six years old when I set this goal, and she will be turning eighteen in a few months. Allow your dreams to exist and please be encouraged by today's fortune, because I believe a long-term goal will soon be achieved!