How to correctly set goals for your gaming business

99.999% of goals remain forever incomplete.

Every day, millions of us around the world set goals.

Some choose to lose 10 pounds of weight. Other’s set a goal of doubling their income. You may want to grow your YouTube gaming channel to 10,000 subscribers.

These all sound like good goals, right?

Yet the vast majority of these goals remain incomplete. The memory of them stuffed deep into our mind’s wardrobe, never to be spoken of again.

So why do goals seem to fail so frequently for most of us?

Control.

Most goals that people chase do not give them control over the outcome.

But what exactly does that mean?

Well, in the next few sections I’ll explain this answer a bit more. And I’ll show you how to choose the right goals to constantly grow your gaming business.

Let’s take a look.

A goal is all about Control

I mentioned a few goals above:

I want to lose 10 pounds in weight
I want to double my income
Get 10,000 subscribers for my YouTube channel.

These all look like great goals, important goals.

But they are actually awful goals.

I can see you (not literally, don’t worry.) on the other end of the internet reddening in rage, “Nick, you are talking rubbish! I’m never coming back to your stupid website ever again!”

But honestly, it’s true. These are poor goals.

They are flawed. And it’s this flaw that murders your motivation, decimates your determination, and pummels your persistence.

Ok, enough drama… Why are they flawed?

None of these goals can be directly controlled.

You have no direct control over whether you’ll lose 10 pounds or not, only indirect control

It’s your boss that decides whether you’ll get that raise or not, you can only improve your chances of getting it.

You can’t force 10,000 people to subscribe to your Youtube channel. You must create awesome videos to convince them your worth subscribing to.

In other words, these Goals are not actionable, they are not controllable.

But what do I mean by that?

Well, a good goal should be something that you have completely controllable by you and you alone (Or your collective business).

For example, create 10 youtube videos this month is a good goal.

Why? Because you have direct control over it. You don’t have to rely on any outside influences for your goal to succeed. You can create 10 videos on your phone in an hour and upload them all to YouTube. You don’t need 10 people’s help never mind 10,000 people’s to get those videos on YouTube.

Those 10 videos will immediately increase your chance, if only by a little bit, of getting those 10,000 subs you desire so much.

And herein lies the key to setting goals that will move you forward in life:

Set goals that you or your business can take action on and complete without outside influence.

But why is control so important?

It’s important because it means every single one of your goals has a 100% chance of completion if you put the time and effort into it.

You might not have any control over doubling your income. But you do have control over taking a new business course every month, reading more books about your industry, signing up for more projects, and networking more.

Controllable goals increase the chances of success with uncontrollable goals.

But this brings up an interesting point. What do you call uncontrollable goals?

Targets

A target is a goal that you have no direct control over. Examples of targets are:

Double your income
Lose 10 pounds
Get 10,000 subscribers

These are all important. But what is more important is to appreciate they are targets. You’re probably thinking right now the difference between targets and goals is just semantics: different words but the same meaning.

Let me explain why I’m not talking rubbish and why the difference is important.

A target is something you have no control over. You can’t take direct action that only you need to take to hit your target.

Your target often involves the influence, help, or participation of, you guessed it, other people. Getting 10,000 subs on youtube means you need the help and participation of 10,000 other people. Getting you a raise means you need help and influence from your boss.

It’s worth keeping in mind that it’s not always people that are uncontrollable. Look at weight loss. You have no direct control over the number on the scale. Yet you do have control over other things that can shift it.

Generally speaking, if a goal is influenced by an entity outside of your sphere of direct control, it’s an uncontrollable target

Yet your target is one of the most important aspects of whatever you are doing. You may not have any control over it, but the target is still vital for your life’s success.

Targets may not be controllable, but without them, you’ll have no direction for your controllable goals. As it’s the uncontrollable areas of our life are often the most influential on our life.

Yet, controllable goals give as a way of indirectly taking back control of uncontrollable targets.

In the next section, I’ll bring Target’s and Goals together to show you how vital they are to each other and how they work.

Bringing Target’s and Goals together

As you know, targets are essentially uncontrollable goals that are dependent on other people or entities to succeed.

And goals are controllable goals that you can take direct action on.

But how do they work together?

Well, controllable goals always increase the chances of you hitting your uncontrollable target. The more goals that feed into and are oriented toward your target the more your chance of hitting it increases.

This is one of the main problems most people have. Their goals consist completely of targets. And they forget about setting goals they actually have control over. So they struggle to find actions that’ll take them closer to their target.

This causes motivation to stutter, determination to decrease, and before you know it the target is forgotten about.

To help illustrate how targets and goals work together I’ve written a little story.

Donk and the Deer

His grasp was left empty. And the muddy signal of another failed hunt slathered his face and body.

Donk, who lived in ancient England circa 10,000 BCE, hadn’t been having a lot of luck catching deer lately. The nasty village elders, who were warming their brittle hands on the village bonfire, fancied having a laugh by throwing the seemingly witless Donk in the ancient equivalent of the deep end. “You’re a fool Donk! You’ll never catch a deer. Ha, ha, ha!”, an elder cackled out.

Donk, despite his stereotypical name and an endless parade of gormless expressions, was strong and had an above-average ability to think through problems.

But his target, the deer, was a tricky little fella. The deer had a mind of its own. It was unpredictable, fast, and could move in any direction at the fall of a leaf. It could hear Donk, definitely smell him, and see him from a mile away. After all, Donk was a bit of a bulky brute.

But Donk was starving. With the gnawing of an empty stomach driving his motivation, he vowed to find a way to bring down his target. And he’d better do it quick. After all, the last time I checked Mcdonald’s didn’t set up shop for another 12,000 years or so.

After sitting down for what seemed like 30 days and 30 nights (In actuality, it was 30 minutes. The shadow of the evergreen he mediated under was swaying back and forth over his head and he got confused), he had an epiphany:

He needed to increase his odds of capturing his target. His arms, however long and knotted in muscle, wouldn’t cut it alone.

This is where real goals come in.

Donk brushed off the mud that signaled his defeat at the hooves of the deer and strode home with newfound confidence and hope.

After arriving back in the village, and being laughed at for missing a clod of mud on his cheek, again, Donk popped into his hut, pulled out his iSlate, and scratched down some goals.

Here’s the list he scrapped out:

Build a strong bow (Duh!)
Make sharp arrows that fly true (instead of bent ones? But I like the bent ones!)
Learn hunting theory from elders (if they’ll still teach me) such as staying downwind and how to walk through a forest in silence (HA! Me. Silent? I think not!)
Learn tracking skills
Learn how to make traps (Like that one in Star Wars: Return of the Jedi that smashed that metal walking bear-thing! SORRY! Wrong era!)
Practice hitting a target with the bow and arrow 200 times (Practice makes perfect! Or at least, that’s what the elders tell me)

Donk was thrilled because, before him, he had a list of controllable actions that would vastly increase his chances of capturing a deer. Yet, his ability to succeed at completing these actions were not influenced by the deer at all.

So off Donk went, busying himself with all his goals.

First, he carved a bow from the supplest wood in the forest.

Next, he dug out a crag of flint and ground the sharpest arrows his tribe had ever seen.

Donk visited the village elders, with a “note basket” full of note-ready iSlates, and a classy (though overpriced) chisel made by the famous Mont Bonk. He noted down all the hunting wisdom the elders could muster and studied the notes under firelight until the baby-blue of day dimmed to the indigo of night.

The next morn, he learned tracking skills from a neighboring tribe’s huntress (that he’d fancied for years, I might add).

After his little trip, Donk took a look in the local cave painting library to see how to make traps.

Finally, with all his new knowledge, skills, traps, bows, and arrows, he practiced with his bow 200 times.

With the village elders nodding in silent approval in the background, Donk took one final practice shot with his bow.

His arrow split the bullseye.

He was ready to hit his target. He was ready to hunt some deer…

The next morning, with his newfound knowledge and equipment, Donk swaggered out the village gates toward destiny and deer.

First, he used his new tracking skills by spying deer tracks stamped into fresh mud.

After tracking the hoof marks for an hour he spotted his prey dotting over succulent meadow grass. Fighting the thrill and urge to rush in, Donk silently circled so he was downwind from the creature.

He then set traps in the direction he thought the deer would try to flee if startled.

Finally, he knocked an arrow, pulled string back, took aim, and waited.

The deer moved meekly among the dappled light of the forest. Leaning to nibble a sweet berry or two. But Donk waited.

The clack of branches drummed to bird song. Beads of sweat cascaded between hairs on his neck.

Donk kneeled ready, statue-still…

The sound and movement of the forest dissolved away into tunnel focus.

The deer raised its head. Its neck long and erect and ready to roll red carpet for the arrival of flint.

Then Donk let loose.

The arrow carved a blur of grey through the air. The sliver of flint struck the neck of the beast and with one final yelp and a puff of crimson, it flopped over dead.

The target, which was completely out of control, was successfully hit. Donk had completed so many controllable goals that his chances of hitting his target were exponentially increased.

That night Donk huffed into the village with the deer hoisted over his shoulders. On reaching the village bonfire, he leaned over and slid his prize to the floor. The villagers cooed in approval. The elders nodded and clapped knowing that Donk had learned the true secret of success:

Set and focus on controllable goals to increase your chances of hitting uncontrollable but important targets.

That night, Donk and the village ate, drank, and danced until fire turned to embers. And with muscles aching from the hard work, and the even harder celebrating, Donk slipped into bed knowing that tomorrow would bring a new target with a new set of goals.

Let’s action it!

First, thanks for reading my little tale about Donk and the deer. I hope it went some way to explaining how to set goals and targets correctly.

But now, let’s take a look at my method for creating actionable goals that increase the chances of me hitting my targets.

The first thing you need to do is find a target. As it’s the target that determines what goals need completing to increase the chance of hitting it.
Pick something that is dependent on other people for achievement. Something you’d don’t have direct control over. A lot of the time, for a lot of people, this will be money based.
1. You need other people to get 100,000 page views a month
2. You need other people to get 1000 subscribers
3. You need to beat other people if you want to win a fortnight competition
4. You want to your website to earn $2000 per month by the end of the year
Ok, you’ve got your target. Draw a circle around it. Then draw another circle around it. It should look like a target.
Next, draw 3 radiating out from the circle.
Now, think of 3 goals that you have complete control over that increases the chances of hitting your target.
1. For example, to increase the chances of hitting my target of 100,000 page views a month I might:
  1. Write 3 articles a week
  2. Post articles to Twitter 4 times a day
  3. Read one book about writing every month.
2. Notice that I have total control over each one of these goals and they help increase the chances of hitting my target.
Write each goal down next to the end’s of the lines you just drew.
Once you’ve got 3 controllable goals next to your uncontrollable target, you are good to go, focus all your efforts on completing your controllable goals. These will increase the chances of hitting your target.
After you have completed your goals, assess the situation, set a new target or keep the same target, set new goals, and go again.

Conclusion

If you want to really start succeeding with your gaming business, set and focus on controllable goals.

You can control how many articles you write, how many videos you make. You can control how often you comment on other people’s videos or on social media. You can control your education, how many books you read, or the courses you do.

These are goals.

You can’t control things like, how much money you’ll make this year, how many page views you’ll get, or how many subscribers will sign up.

These are targets.

There is no way to directly control the outcome of these targets. You can’t force thousands of people to visit your site. You can’t magic money into your bank account.

The final takeaway is this: Set and focus on controllable goals to increase your chances of hitting uncontrollable but important targets.

Now get off this article and start setting some real goals that’ll bring you that long-overdue success that you deserve. And when you do, let me know how you got on in the comments down below.