by Matt Zembruski, http://www.mattzembruski.com

Clarity is an absolutely essential ingredient for you to achieve your full potential in business. Napolean Hill, in his classic book Think & Grow Rich, said "Whatever the mind of man can conceive and believe, it can achieve." He goes on to explain why having a clear definition of what you want to achieve is a critical factor in your success.

In other words, a goal that is not clearly defined will not be clearly achieved. Part of the goal may be achieved, but you will not be completely satisfied with the results unless you take the time to define the entire goal upfront.

This may be best understood with an example. Several years ago I worked with a business manager named Dan who helped manage a company based in Massachusetts. Dan had some lofty ideas for what he wanted to achieve, but they were not defined in much detail. He also knew that he wanted to achieve a lot of results in a short period of time, but he didn't have a good idea of how he was going to do it.

In other words, Dan was just like many business owners and managers who I have met over the years. He wanted to accomplish a lot, but he needed help gaining clarity about his ultimate goal and his timeframe for achieving it.

The first thing I did with Dan was help coach him to identify his most important short-term goal. Once that was done, Dan and I worked together to figure out what timeframe was going to be our target for achieving this goal. And once we had clarity with our goal and the target timeline, both Dan and I felt much more confident about our chances for success.

In this case, Dan's timeframe happened to be pretty aggressive and we both were confronted with a lot of opposition from people who thought that it couldn't be done. Fortunately, this story has a happy ending. Dan reached his big goal and he reached it within the four month window that he had set for himself.

So how can you learn from Dan's success and develop clarity for your business goals? Here are some questions to get you started:

1. Remember in Step One ("Understanding") when you were asked how you measure success in your business today? Well, you need to use the answer to that question to fill in the blank below:

What have you achieved in the last three months in your business in terms of _____________ ?

(i.e. typical items to fill in this blank are money, profits, or new customers)

2. What one goal would you like to achieve in the next 90 days?

3. Once you achieve this goal, what do you want to do with the extra money and extra time? In other words, what do you personally get as a reward for achieving this goal?

4. Looking back, what was your best month you ever had in your business in terms of ______________?

(insert your chosen measurement again in the blank, and then answer the question)

5. Can you summarize what happened that month (or that period)? In other words, what specific actions had you taken that led to those amazing results?

Getting very clear about what you want to accomplish in your business in the next 90 days is a very important step to catapult your business into massive momentum. Take action and get these questions answered today. You'll be glad you did.

This article was written by Matt Zembruski, http://www.mattzembruski.com