Om nom nom nom

It is that most delicious time of year! Girl Scout cookie season!

One of my favorite parts of this delectable season is the opportunity for girls to run their own cookie business. The creativity and energy they bring as female business owners is inspiring and formidable.

I have been especially inspired by Leila, a Brownie Girl Scout with moxie! Last year Leila set a goal to sell 250 boxes of cookies. She cannon-balled her goal out of the water.

With a year of business experience, Leila, now 8, has set a new goal for her 2015 cookie season: 350 boxes of cookies – a 40% increase!

Leila says, “Buy lots!” Make sure to watch her video via the linked text!

In order to meet her aggressive goal within a relatively short window, Leila asked her parents if she could sell at their respective offices. However, Leila faced a problem: between school, her activities, Girl Scout meetings and her parents’ schedules, there wasn’t time or available transportation to make personal visits to her parents work sites.

Leila’s inventive solution?  A video pitch sent out via email and posted on Facebook, with the help of her parents, followed up with personal phone calls.

I’m happy to report that Leila is focused and working diligently to reach her goal. Just tonight, one of her calls resulted in an order for 17 boxes from one amazing cookie lover and Girl Scout supporter! While she is confident about her goal, Leila would be happy to speak with you and take your order!

What big dreams or goals have you set in motion for your perfectly perfect self?  With a little bit of moxie, determination and belief in yourself,  like Leila and all of the self-made Girl Scout cookie execs, you too can achieve your goals!

Now that’s a delicious thought!

 

No time for that

Keep your eye on the prize

Hit the boards and go beyond

Go for the gold

Important to all of these idioms is knowing what your goal, your target, your big dream is. A first good step in keeping your eye on the prize, is to write down your goals and big dreams. After all how can you hit the target if you can’t see it?

Seriously though, who has time for writing goals? Life is happening now. Work is happening now. And then there’s dinner to be made and a sidewalk that needs shoveling. Goals? Not today – definitely not today.

Here’s a little something that might grab your attention and have you reconsider this goal-writing thing.

A Harvard study found that people with clear, written goals earn 10x more than people who don’t write down their goals and people who just have goals in their heads. Hmmm.  Kind of interesting isn’t it?  10x more?  Maybe there’s something to this after all! (Check out Debbie Phillips who knows all about this subject and made me aware of this study.)

We make lots and lots of lists to keep our life going: our grocery lists, our to do lists, our bucket lists. Yet taking the time to look inward and think about, let alone write goals rarely makes it on any list.

How about this though as a way to give this goal-writing thing a whirl, which is apparently a lucrative endeavor?

Consider devoting 5 minutes to writing a goal you have for the next day or two. It doesn’t need to be heroic, just a little something you would like to accomplish in the next 48 hours. For instance a goal might be, “I spend ten minutes each morning reading the newspaper for the next two days” or, “I greet one stranger at the grocery store.”

While I don’t expect that you will immediately earn 10x more because of this exercise, I do believe that taking some small steps toward goal writing will start to create a desire and excitement to write bigger goals. Goals that are in service to your big dream or goals that begin to unearth the big dream that only perfectly, perfect you can make happen.

Grab some paper. Set the timer for five and go for it. Big things are about to happen!