Money, as a resultant, lags behind effort.

"If you can count all your money, you don't have a billion dollars." - J. Paul Getty

Profits...wealth...money in the bank...however you want to look at it, your income is always a "lagging indicator" to your success.

According to Wikipedia: "A lagging indicator is an economic indicator that reacts slowly to economic changes, and therefore has little predictive value. Generally these types of indicators follow an event; they are historical in nature. For example, in a performance measuring system, profit earned by a business is a lagging indicator as it reflects a historical performance."

In other words, if all your goals are money-driven, they won't actually HELP YOU achieve success because the amount of money you make only reflects the things you've done in the past. It doesn't actually tell you what you NEED TO DO to achieve those goals.

So, instead of setting goals based on the amount of money you want to make, set goals based on the specific Action Items that need to be completed and when they need to be completed by.

As long as you hit these targets and meet these goals, the money WILL follow. It's simple cause-and-effect...

For example, if I say I want to create an online business that makes $10k a month, there are a certain number of steps I need to take:

1. Choose a market and a product that lends itself to monthly continuity (i.e. recurring income).

2. Setup a website to sell the product/membership site.

3. Find a source (or sources) of traffic that will deliver 50,000 unique visitors. (If you convert 1% of your visitors into customers and your membership site costs $20 per month, this should generate the necessary 500 sales to get your business up to $10k per month.)

So those are the steps. Now your "goals" need to be to finish each one of them by a certain deadline. If you hit your deadline and meet your goals, success is virtually guaranteed.

If you DON'T hit your deadlines, you'll know exactly why you haven't made the money you want to make.

I realize this seems simple, but I bet very few Internet Marketers look at their own business in such a systematized manner. Instead, each day they just REACT to one thing or another, get nothing done and then wonder why they aren't successful.

If you follow my advice, and set goals that are ACTION and TIME-oriented you'll never wonder again.

In fact, you may just achieve the level of success you've been wanting for such a long time.

So right now, while all of this is still fresh in your mind, write out a detailed list of all the steps you need to take to achieve your primary goal. Next, attach a date by which you will finish each step, and commit yourself to this endeavor for 2007.

Doing this will focus your efforts and keep you from hopping from one opportunity to the next. It will also limit the amount of spending you do on Internet Marketing junk, because unless a particular product will help you achieve a specific goal...there's no reason to buy it now, is there? :o)

Once again, I sincerely hope my "gift" helps make 2007 your best year ever!

This article is written by Ryan Deiss.