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Think and Grow Rich test: Do you have an aim in life and a plan for achieving it?

October 17, 2009 by JD
Filed under: Books, Self-Improvement, Success and Failure 

My answers to the Think and Grow Rich Self-Assessment Test

Recently, I was reminded of the self-assessment test in Napoleon Hill’s best-selling book, Think and Grow Rich.

There are fifty-four questions in that test, and I’m going to be giving my answers and thoughts on one or two of them as close to daily as I can manage. I may miss a day here or there, but I’m going to follow through until I reach the end of the test.

I’ve started the series of posts with:

Think and Grow Rich self-assessment test

Question Number 22. Do you have an aim in life and a plan for achieving it?

One of the things I keep noticing in a variety of places is that there seems to be a 5% success vs. 95% failure rate for lots of people and situations.

It is interesting to note that Napoleon Hill analyzed thousands of people during his life and found that about 5% had a definite chief aim or goal and the other 95% didn’t.

What does that say about success?

I’ve had many aims in life over the years, and I’ve achieved most of them.

A few years ago, before Mom got sick, I spent a week thinking about what I wanted to do with the rest of my life and decided I wanted to build Castle Freedom, the first castle in the history of the world built by average people and dedicated to peace and freedom.

Not long after that, Mom got sick, and my aim in life switched to caring for her. I did that as well as I could. Not as well as I wanted, however.

This year, following her death, I realized that I’m just not interested in building the castle. I like the idea, but I realized I wasn’t taking steps every day to accomplish it and that’s a sure sign that it isn’t really a chief aim in life.

So, I reconsidered what I wanted to do with the next stage of my life.

I’ve gone through big changes this year and so have lots of other people.

I knew I wanted to do something to help other people I care about and I wanted to earn enough money to continue to live in Murphy, NC, a place I’ve grown to love over the last quarter-century.

So, I pulled out a fresh notebook and started writing. A couple of weeks later, I had a new chief aim for my life and I started making plans to bring it together.

My new aim in life is to build the best marketing system for locally owned small businesses in Murphy, NC.

Lots of traditional marketing doesn’t work as well as it used to, but I’ve become convinced that there is a good mix of offline traditional advertising and marketing that can be combined with 21st century marketing tools that include websites, social networking, email marketing, blogs, and forums.

So, in January, I started brainstorming about what would be needed and started planning how to make it happen.

I created and manage a social networking site for people interested in Murphy, NC at MurphyConnections.com. It’s been slowly growing for the last few months and now has nearly 100 members, some of whom are more active than others, but it’s getting a large readership from people finding us via the search engines.

So, now that we have a place where we can get to know each other as real people, it was time to find a way to pay for all the time and effort, and to promote those local business owners who want to cooperate and co-market each other.

Now, I’m working to build the Murphy Gold Marketing Alliance at MurphyGold.com.

Slowly, but surely, I’m attracting like-minded small business owners in Murphy who want to cooperate and promote themselves, their businesses, and the best things about living in and near Murphy, NC.

I opened Murphy Gold in July, but lost much of August and September due to illness. Now that October has rolled around and my allergies are going away, I’m feeling much better and I’m enjoying working on developing the sites and telling more people about them.

That’s just the start.

I met Audrey and Tom, owners of The Green Sheets, about a month ago and now we’re working together. I’m helping them build an online presence and they’re helping to promote Murphy Gold in their offline direct mail paper that is mailed to about 10,000 mailboxes in the Murphy 28906 ZIP Code.

I have other ideas for offline promotions, but they’re going to have to wait until my cash flow improves.

I went from not knowing what I would be doing in January to coming up with a plan by June, and started implementing it in July.

Now, I know what I’m going to be working on every day, at least part of the day, and interest is starting to grow.

It’s going to take some time to build the best marketing system in Murphy, but now I know my goal and many of the things I need to do to get there.

Will this be the ultimate goal for the rest of my life? I don’t know. It is likely. I love living here and I love marketing, so I think Murphy Gold and Murphy Connections are a great fit.

It’s great to be back on track and working on something I love doing.

What about you?

Do you have an aim in life and a plan for achieving it?

All the best,

JD

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3 Comments on Think and Grow Rich test: Do you have an aim in life and a plan for achieving it?

  1. Mitch on Sun, 18th Oct 2009 12:47 am

    2. It’s funny this is coming up now. I don’t have a plan anymore. I find that I’m spending most of my life these days reacting to issues and figuring out how to deal with them rather than having either an aim or a passion about anything.

    Those days feel like they’ve gone away, and I have to start from scratch to find them again. And that irks the heck out of me. It’s certainly not what I signed up for when I went into business for myself 8 years ago.

    But I haven’t quit, so that means I have to persevere and keep going. Who knows; I just might get it right one of these days.
    Mitch´s last blog ..Fake Commenter Names My ComLuv Profile

  2. JD on Sun, 18th Oct 2009 6:24 am

    3. Good morning, Mitch.

    I know how you feel. For the first six months of this year, and again when I was feeling so bad in September, I didn’t feel on track any more. We talked about that in the question related to self-pity.

    I feel like I started getting back on track in June and this month, even though many things have not changed and life is still a struggle, I know where I want to go and how I plan to get there.

    That makes all the difference in the world.

    For much of the last year, I, too, have been reacting to things and dealing with them. Most of them were outside my control and it was very frustrating.

    You have a major advantage over lots of people who are self-employed. You’re inquisitive, knowledgeable, and open to self-examination. I think all of those qualities are necessary to deal with changing circumstances and all the obstacles life can throw at us.

    So many people drift through life with no goals and no plans. When I go through those periods, it’s horrible. I want to find something to shoot for and get back on track.

    It sounds like you’re going through one of those periods, now.

    Unlike many people, however, you’ll find a target and make a plan.

    We may never get it right, but we’ll get it better! ;)

    All the best,

    JD

  3. Mitch on Sun, 18th Oct 2009 11:07 am

    4. I hope so, John. The pressure is always on, and the stress levels are growing. It would be nice to be able to decompress for at least a couple of months. One of these days,…
    Mitch´s last blog ..Demand Studios, The Follow Up My ComLuv Profile

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