3 Quick Tips for Achieving Your Goals To find success as an entrepreneur, it is very important to give yourself milestones to reach.

By Dan Bova

Here are three ways to set goals that get you where you want to be.

  1. Be specific. You have a much better chance of succeeding if you know what your exact goal is. "Raising capital" isn't a specific goal, but "Raise $10,000 by July 1" is.

  2. Be realistic. If you set a goal to make $100,000 in a month even though you haven't earned that much in a year, that's going to be tough. Begin with small steps like increasing your income by 25 percent. Once you hit that, you can reach for larger goals.

  3. Set short and long-term goals. Short-term goals help define where you want to be next week, next month, even next year. Long-term goals can be 5, 10 or 20 years in the future. These are the big ones, the big prize that keeps the fire burning as you grind it out today.

These tips and many more come from Start Your Own Business. Check it out and other great resources at the Entrepreneur Bookstore.

Dan Bova

Entrepreneur Staff

VP of Special Projects

Dan Bova is the VP of Special Projects at Entrepreneur.com. He previously worked at Jimmy Kimmel Live, Maxim, and Spy magazine. His latest books for kids include This Day in History, Car and Driver's Trivia ZoneRoad & Track Crew's Big & Fast Cars, The Big Little Book of Awesome Stuff, and Wendell the Werewolf

Read his humor column This Should Be Fun if you want to feel better about yourself.

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