Category: Blog

  • How To Start A Blog Under $30

    How To Start A Blog Under $30

    We all dream of being the next Pat Flynn from Smart Passive Income but we are not anywhere nearer to that dream. We dream of living on the Internet and working anywhere in the world with just your laptop.

    Sadly, not many people live up to those dreams. Even with me. 

    Let me tell you why and I strongly encourage you to read this. I’m sure it resonates with you perfectly well.

    I have a dream — to make money online and quit my day job. I like what I’m doing, but I love making money from the Internet (even more). Little did I know, I started blogging in 2004 and soon, it lifted off. I was making thousands of dollars month in, month out and I was happy.

    Soon, I find myself drifting away because I wasn’t blogging anymore. I thought money would flow in that way and I was wrong. Blogging takes time and more importantly, the first step of actually starting a blog (penning down the content).

    In 2017, I took action to grow my email list and started blogging back. Yes, I miss those thousands of dollars I earn monthly and I dearly need it for my financial needs.

    Then I realized something significant. Starting a blog now is way easier than those days. 

    You are reading until here, you should be interested to start a blog. Good for you because I’m a true believer that Internet can drive a lot of people (including you and me) to richness — with the right strategy.

    In this post, you will discover the exact steps I took to start a blog from scratch and start making money online.

    More importantly, I’m going to show you how you can start a blog under $30 investment. Period.

    How To Start A Blog Under $30?

    start a blog under $30

    Starting a blog is actually very simple. The below are what’s needed to start a blog under $30, and with budget in mind.

    What you will need are:

    • Domain name
    • Web hosting
    • WordPress theme
    • check-square-oWordPress plugins
    • check-square-oEmail marketing software

    Step 1: Choosing the right domain name

    choose best domain name

    Do you need the keyword in the domain name? 

    Do you need it to be a .com or a .net?

    How long should a domain name be?

    All these questions, I know — I thought of them myself. The truth simple: It doesn’t matter.

    In today’s world, getting a domain name is just like an address. It doesn’t matter if you have the prime location in town, you will still receive your mails.

    Here are some basic to help you get started on the right foot:

    • Easy to remember domain name > Hard to remember domain name
    • Shorter domain names are always better
    • Having keyword in the domain name is a bonus (but not an absolute need)
    • check-circle-oDomain name with .com should be your first priority (and opt for alternatives if it is not available)
    • check-circle-oEnsure that the exact domain name is available on Facebook and Twitter

    How much does a domain name costs?

    A domain name would costs you under $10. In most cases, you can just head over to GoDaddy, create a new account and purchase your first .com domain for only $1.

    Ladies and gentlemen, a domain name costs as low as $1. So, what’s stopping you?

    Step 2: Purchase a web hosting service

    choose web hosting

    In order to start a blog, you need to have a web hosting service. If a domain name works as your address, a web hosting service will be the electricity to light up your property.

    Web hosting doesn’t cost you a bomb. On average, you can get a decent one under $10 a month.

    If you want to have complete hassle-free process, you should just purchase web hosting from GoDaddy (choose shared web hosting) and bundle up with your domain name purchase. 

    Why?

    More discounts from GoDaddy, of course!

    Are there any other GoDaddy alternatives?

    Yes, there are. As a matter of fact, I highly recommend beginners to get SiteGround hosting instead due to several reasons:

    • checkGreat performance and zero downtime
    • checkExcellent support (the best you can find)
    • checkSimple pricing and 1-click installation

    BONUS:Top 5 Secrets Of Finding The Best Web Hosting Company

    Usually, SiteGround charges $9.95 per month for its web hosting. However, you can get it for only $3.95 per month through this special link (no coupon code required).

    Note: Once you have purchased a web hosting service, you will receive step by step instructions from the web hosting company such as SiteGround on ways to install your domain on the server. This whole process wouldn’t take longer than 10 minutes to complete.  

    Step 3: Choosing a WordPress theme

    how to choose the best wordpress theme

    This is where the tricky part and 99.99% of the bloggers make the same mistake. They opt for free WordPress theme.

    Let me repeat. This. Is. A. Mistake.

    A WordPress theme is like the pain job of your car or bike. You may have a great engine under the hood but if you are not having the right appearance, the vehicle is not going to turn heads.

    MUST READ:Which Are The Best Premium WordPress Themes For 2018?

    What should a good WordPress theme has?

    • Loads the website under 1.5 seconds
    • Easy to customize without coding skills
    • Wide variety of demos to import and use immediately
    • checkConstant updates and undying support from the developers
    • checkAffordable and easy on your wallet

    When it comes to choosing the best WordPress theme, I only recommend one — Thrive Themes.

    Thrive Themes is powerful because it comes with 9 Thrive products along with the theme. I personally call Thrive Themes my all-in-one marketing toolbox.

    When I use Thrive Themes, I am not only able to use beautifully crafted, fast loading and conversion-focused premium WordPress themes, I am able to enjoy unlimited usage of these:

    • All Thrive Themes (10 premium WordPress themes)
    • Thrive Architect (drag and drop builder plugin)
    • Thrive Leads (lead generation plugin)
    • check-square-oThrive Ultimatum (scarcity plugin)
    • check-square-oThrive Comment (comment plugin)
    • check-square-oThrive Ovation (the only functionable testimonial plugin)
    • check-square-oThrive Headline Optimizer (set and forget dozens of titles on automation)
    • check-square-oThrive Clerver Widget (finally, a plugin that allows you to display specific widgets to your audience)
    • check-square-oThrive Quiz Builder (the only quiz builder that helps you generate leads dirrectly from your blog)

    Can you guess how much the above cost? $100, $200 or $500 a month?

    No, it only costs you $19 per month for Thrive Themes Membership (you can read the full review here).

    Again, read the review and decide if Thrive Themes is worth it.

    Step 4: Installing essential WordPress plugins

    uninstall unwanted WordPress plugin

    Stop cracking your head on which plugins you should be installing. To start a blog, you only need to install two WordPress plugins from the WordPress repository:

    Do you know why you only need two plugins? Because when you use Thrive Themes, you have everything inbuilt in it. You have everything at your disposal such as lead generation plugin, comment moderation plugin, quiz builder plugin and many more.

    If you are just starting a blog, this is the best way to start a blog under $30 investment.

    Best WordPress Form Builder?

    If you are looking for a good WordPress form builder, you don’t have to look far. WPForms is one of the best and most intuitive form builders in the market. There is no coding skills needed—just drag and drop elements into the form and anyone can build it from scratch!

    Step 5: Email marketing software

    top 10 email marketing tips 2018

    Another major mistake by many bloggers is that they don’t start collecting emails from their readers.

    You should start collecting emails as soon as you start the blog and with tools such as Thrive Leads, it allows you to collect emails faster due to their high conversion tools and it integrates with major email marketing providers.

    But wait! Email marketing software is expensive, right?

    No, they are affordable and even free for some.

    If you are a starting a blog and affiliate marketing is your main business, do not use MailChimp.

    I repeat — Affiliate marketers need to avoid MailChimp as much as possible.

    While MailChimp is free to use (forever if you have less than 2,000 email subscribers), it serves some major disadvantages for people like — people who makes a living from the Internet.

    MUST READ: 3 Disappointing Truth About MailChimp Email Marketing Solutions

    If you are not doing affiliate marketing, MailChimp is definitely a great choice when you are just starting a blog.

    What is the best MailChimp alternative?

    MailChimp is free and the best alternative to MailChimp for bloggers is Drip. Drip offers free account to everyone (use this link to sign up) and it is free for the first 100 email subscribers.

    Once you hit the 100 email subscriber mark, you should be able to generate at least $50 a month (easy). By then, you have two choices to make — stick to Drip at $49 per month or ConvertKit at $29 per month.

    Personally, ConvertKit will be a better choice when comparing with Drip. You can also read my review here: MailChimp vs ConvertKit vs Drip

    St

    Summary: How to start a blog under $30?

    Starting a blog under $30 is doable — more importantly, it is achieveable only when you follow the above steps. As you progress deeper into the blogging world, you can start considering better options such as premium WordPress hosting and other WordPress options.

  • Top 3 LeadPages Alternative 2018

    Top 3 LeadPages Alternative 2018

    Are you looking for the best LeadPages alternative?

    When it comes to creating landing pages, LeadPages is always known for its popularity in the space.

    Influencers such as Amy Porterfield and Lewis Howes highly recommend LeadPages. While LeadPages is created to serve as many people as possible, LeadPages may not be a good fit for you.

    Don’t worry, you are not alone. I felt that LeadPages isn’t the right tool for me and just like you, I had my times trying to find the best LeadPages alternative.

    In this post, you will discover three of the best LeadPages alternative for 2018. 

    Quick Introduction: What is LeadPages?

    what is leadpages

    LeadPages is an online tool that you can use to collect email subscribers. That is the main function of LeadPages, and they provide tons of purdy templates that you can use for lead magnets, webinars, and landing pages in order to grow your email list.

    LeadPages offers a simple, custom-made solution for you to create landing pages without installing a plugin on your WordPress blog. For beginners and business owners, using LeadPages is a great way to save time and effort.

    Why people are looking for LeadPages alternative?

    While LeadPages is often considered one of the best in the email marketing space, it is not always the best choice for everyone.

    For starters, the pricing structure for LeadPages is way higher than most of the tools in the market space. The lowest pricing structure for LeadPages is the Standard plan which starts at $31 per month (with 12 months upfront payment). The Standard plan gives provides you with basic landing page functions and email support.

    The next tier is Professional plan which starts at $66 per month (again, with 12 months upfront payment). This plan is much better because it comes with A/B testing and advanced LeadPages features such as Leaddigits® Text-to-Opt-in Codes and Leadlinks® 1-Click Signup Links.

    This is why most people start finding for LeadPages alternative. The pricing structure is too steep and it doesn’t cater for everyone. I stop using LeadPages recently because it is no longer worth it. I’m living in Asia and my exchange rate to USD is 4x. This means that the Professional plan will costs me $264 per month ($66 x 4)!

    I am also 100% confident that this is one of the core reasons LeadPages is losing it’s customers because of the pricing structure. My two cents tells me that it is not worth it, even with the Standard plan because the landing page features are all basic with no split testing features.

    Sorry LeadPages, I’m one of those thousands who went looking for LeadPages alternative and found great ones.

    LeadPages Alternative #1: Thrive Architect

    Thrive Architect Review

    Thrive Architect is a content builder plugin from Thrive Themes. Thrive Architect comes with over 220 ready made templates for you to create different landing pages.

    What makes Thrive Architect extremely versatile and better than LeadPages is that each landing page set comes with similar layout. For example, each set may have 3 landing pages and each landing page has similar designs to give you professional landing page design.

    Apart from that, Thrive Architect pricing is only $67 for a year (compared to LeadPages at $31 per month).

    Advantages using Thrive Architect

    • Build for speed
    • Over 220 landing page templates
    • Fully customized elements for you to build the lading page of your choice
    • check-square-oCreate sales pages that makes you look like a professional copywriter
    • check-square-oCreate any type of pages you want quickly (landing page, webinar registration, download page, thank you page etc.)
    • check-square-oAffordable pricing (cost a fraction compared to LeadPages)

    Read The Latest Thrive Architect Review

    LeadPages Alternative #2: Thrive Membership

    thrive themes membership

    I might be a little bias here, but trust me that Thrive Membership is definitely something you need to consider.

    After two years using Thrive Membership alongside with LeadPages, I can safely and fairly say that Thrive Membership worth more than LeadPages.

    And the reason is obvious.

    Thrive Membership is not only cheaper than LeadPages, it offers way more features compared to LeadPages. Thrive Membership is definitely an eye opener for me.

    Advantages using Thrive Membership

    • Full suite of Thrive plugins (all Thrive Themes and Thrive plugins included)
    • Whole year round of updates and support
    • Member’s only content, templates and other downloads

    The best part about Thrive Membership is that it costs only $19 per month (when you subscribe the yearly plan). Again, this is way cheaper than paying LeadPages $31 per month!

    Half the price of LeadPages + 10x more value of LeadPages = Winner

    Try Thrive Membership For 30 Days Now!

    LeadPages Alternatives #3: ClickFunnels

    clickfunnels review leadpages alternative

    This is probably the first time I speak about ClickFunnels on my blog. So, what is ClickFunnels and why is it one of the best LeadPages alternatives?

    ClickFunnels is basically a software that lets you design and create sales pages, landing pages and it lets you manage your entire sales funnel. You can create seven types of funnel with the help of Clickfunnels.

    If you are in the lead generation business, you will understand that generating lead is just one part of the sales process. Using the right sales funnel is the final step to turn email subscribers into paying customers.

    Bonus: ClickFunnels vs LeadPages (click to play).

    Advantages using ClickFunnels

    • Easily create landing pages and sales funnels under one roof
    • Ability to use split testing in all pricing plans
    • Upsell and downsell pages
    • check-square-oDifferent types of landing pages based on your needs
    • check-square-oEmail integration with dozens of email service providers

    The only downside using ClickFunnels is that it is the most expensive LeadPages alternative. However, it certainly comes with more features such as email marketing included into ClickFunnels.

    ClickFunnels costs $97 per month and personally, I think it is worth the money. It also has a strong fan base on Facebook which proves it is one of the most popular LeadPages alternatives in the market.

    Try ClickFunnels For 14 Days Free!

  • How To Get 2,000 Email Subscribers Under 30 Days?

    How To Get 2,000 Email Subscribers Under 30 Days?

    Everyone wish to get more email subscribers because email subscribers are the ones that are mostly likely to convert and buy your products/services.

    However, it is always easier said than done. The competition is tough and building a 2,000-strong fan base on email isn’t a walk in the park.

    In this post, I’m going to share with you how you can get 2,000 email subscribers under 30 days.

    Step 1: Craft a plan to generate email subscribers

    email marketing planning

    You need a plan, especially when you are trying to get 2,000 email subscribers in a short time period.

    What should the plan include?

    Here are a list of considerations you need to ask yourself, during the planning stage.

    • Who are you targeting?
    • What are you offering to the email subscribers?
    • What makes your visitor want to sign up for the newsletter?
    • check-square-oWhat are the perks you are offering them?

    Important note: Most people doesn’t sign up for an email list for nothing. They sign up because it gives them some sort of value/solve their problems.

    Step 2: Setting up the right lead generation forms

    lead generation 2000 email subscribers

    By now, you should have an email marketing service ready to keep track of all your subscribers and if you are not, you should try out ConvertKit (one of the best in the market and used by Pat Flynn from Smart Passive Income).

    What is a lead generation form?

    A lead generation form is where interested and potential subscribers will be lead to, in order for you to grab their details. This is where you hope that they will share all their details with you and press the ‘Submit’ button!

    Every email marketing service in the planet offers lead generation forms. So, you don’t need to create one from scratch (unless you insist to do so).

    MUST READ:MailChimp vs ConvertKit vs Drip – Comparing The Best Email Marketing Automation Software 2017

    Step 3:  Install a lead generation plugin

    A lead generation plugin allows you to display more than just the forms. It allows you to create beautiful designs to further attract your readers to leave their email addresses.

    Make no mistake, this is a crucial step for you to get 2,000 email subscribers in 30 days!

    I use Thrive Leads and it works like charm because it doesn’t interfere with cache plugin or CloudFlare. You can click here to see Thrive Leads demo and to understand how it works.

    thrive leads

    Why do I use Thrive Leads to grow my email subscribers?

    • Thrive Leads integrates with dozens of email marketing services (offering zero downtime)
    • Thrive Leads comes with many conversion-focused lead-in form designs that are ready to be imported and use
    • Most importantly, I don’t need to have coding skills to create any forms (thanks to the Thrive Leads inbuilt drag and drop builder)

    See Thrive Leads in action

    Step 4: Solve your reader’s BIGGEST plain

    increase email subscribers

    Do you think that your readers are going to subscribe to your newsletters just because they like you? Probably not.

    Unless you are as famous as Seth Godin or Tim Ferriss, chances are you will not be able to convince them to sign up without offering anything.

    Therefore, give them a reason (or reasons) to sign up. You should offer them something they cannot resist — a proven solution to their biggest problems.

    Here are some samples to give you some ideas:

    • How to lose {x} weight in 30 days?
    • How to be debt-free in 12 months or less?​​​
    • 101 ways you cna take action right now to become a better parent

    Note: A great offer will gives the readers NO OPTION to reject/ignore it.

    Step 5: Test everything

    what is split testing in email marketing

    You should test your email marketing strategy and that’s how you know what works, and what doesn’t.

    Most WordPress lead generation plugins doesn’t offer multiple A/B testing simultaneously but Thrive Leads does. Using Thrive Leads, you can go crazy with the split test. And that’s another reason why I use Thrive plugins.

    For example, you can test floating bar to slide in, or exit intent vs inline forms. The best part? You can test everything at the same time instead of just A vs B. You can opt for A vs B vs C vs D type of testing which is super important and awesome.

    Pro tip: You should also test email subject lines and different sending time to get the best response rate from your email marketing campaigns.

    Step 6: Analyze the results weekly

    analyze results to get more email subscribers

    I analyse my results once a week and 7 days is a decent time to judge if you are generating enough email subscribers.

    For example, I noticed that I get better response rates (sign up rates) when I offer free courses than eBooks and offering downloadable cheatsheets helps with conversion rates but not long lasting email subscribers.

    How to get 2,000 email subscribers in 30 days?

    I hope that you are ready to work on your email marketing strategy now and tell me what you think in the comments below!

  • How To Make WordPress Faster: 5 Simple Steps To Make It Under 2 Seconds

    How To Make WordPress Faster: 5 Simple Steps To Make It Under 2 Seconds

    Is your website taking more than 3 seconds to load? If you are reading this now, you are not happy with your website loading speed and you are constantly thinking “How to make WordPress faster” — and I get it.

    Using WordPress since 2004, I have my good and bad days using this CMS. For starters, WordPress is great by itself and it loads fast.

    What makes your WordPress doesn’t load that fast is because of technology and the competition itself. We are constantly adding new things into our blog and sites to beat the competitors, but this action is going to make our website loads super slow.

    Lucky for you, I’m going to outline some quick fixes to help you make your WordPress faster.

    • Choose the right web hosting company
    • Use only WordPress themes that are well-coded(and free from bloatware)
    • Uninstalled unwanted WordPress plugins
    • check-circle-oReduce the number of elements on a page
    • check-circle-oUse a Content Delivery Network (CDN)

    Now that we’ve covered the top 5 most important ways to make WordPress faster, let’s dive into the details!

    How To Make WordPress Faster? Choose A Better Web Hosting Company

    choosing the right web hosting company

    Web hosting is like the eletrical company for your home. It supplies electricity to power your website and if there is not enough power, your website will be affected dearly.

    A good web host should offer:

    • 99.9% uptime
    • Doesn’t allow spam (email)
    • Doesn’t allow abusive websites

    Does the above sounds familiar to you? I bet!

    Most web hosting companies offer the above on the front end but how many of them actually live up to those? Not many, seriously.

    That’s why I only recommend using web host that doesn’t oversell their servers.

    Note: Overselling server space is considered norm by many web hosting companies. They allocate thousands of websites into one server and often 500% the capacity of what the server could hold. Thus, affected server performance.

    Examples Of Great Web Hosting Companies

    How To Make WordPress Faster? Use WordPress Themes That Are Well Coded

    premium wordpress themes improve website speed

    There are many themes in the market and most of them are free. The single and biggest problem with free WordPress themes is because they are not well coded, no maintenance and codes may be outdated. Plus, there could be tons of codes within the theme that will slow your website down indefinitely.

    So, how to solve this?

    Choose the right WordPress theme for your blog. Be picky and more importantly, choose a WordPress theme that is developed by reputed WordPress developers.

    Examples Of Great WordPress Themes

    MUST READ: The Top 5 Best Premium WordPress Themes 2018

    How To Make WordPress Faster? Uninstall Unwanted Plugins

    uninstall unwanted WordPress plugin

    How many plugins do you have in your WordPress? Unless you are using WordPress hosting like WP Engine, you shouldn’t have more than 15 WordPress plugins installed.

    The more plugins you install = The slower your website loading speed

    QUestion: How do you solve this?

    Answer: Keep track of your plugins and install only the ones you need.

    Examples Of Crucial WordPress Plugins

    • Cache plugin (if you are using premium WordPress hosting like WP Engine and SiteGround, you don’t need any cache plugin)
    • Contact form
    • SEO plugin
    • check-circleDrag and drop content builder plugin (I highly recommend Thrive Architect)
    • check-circleEditorial calendar plugin

    How To Make WordPress Faster? Reduce The Number Of Elements On Pages

    reducing elements to speed up wordpress sites

    This is one of the easiest steps to make WordPress faster — make it a point to reduce the number of items on a page.

    If you have a drag and drop WordPress builder like Thrive Architect or Divi, you can have unlimited addons to a page. However, it doesn’t mean that you got ot go crazy with them.

    Instead, just make sure you install just items or elements you need on a page to ensure that the doesn’t take forever to load.

    How To Make WordPress Faster? Use A Content Delivery Network (CDN)

    content delivery network

    Want to speed up your WordPress website? Use a Content Delivery Network (or “CDN” in short). 

    Question: What is a Content Delivery Network?

    Answer: A content delivery network or content distribution network (CDN) is a geographically distributed network of proxy servers and their data centers. The goal is to distribute service spatially relative to end-users to provide high availability and high performance.

    Examples Of Content Delivery Network Services

    BONUS: How to speed up your website using CloudFlare page rules?

    Ready To Make WordPress Faster?

    I hope you find the above tips to quicken your WordPress site useful. 

    Have a special tip that works for you? Leave a comment and share with me!

  • How To Choose The Best Page Builder WordPress

    How To Choose The Best Page Builder WordPress

    Page builder for WordPress helps you to create pages on WordPress with the shortest time available. The biggest upside about using a WordPress page builder is no coding skills required.

    This is one of the reasons why page builders for WordPress are often very popular.

    In today’s world, there are many page builders that you can choose from, at different prices and features. And I totally understand this — everyone wants to use the best page builder WordPress, right?

    So, let’s have a quick discussion on what should the best page builder for WordPress has under its hood.

    1. Features

    The first and most crucial part in choosing the right page builder is the features. What are the features that they offer that benefit you?

    I rather use a WordPress page builder that comes packing with features than hiring an expensive web developer for my websites.

    What are the features you need to look for in a WordPress page builder?

    2. Build for speed

    Page builder plugins are often considerd heavy and bloated with codes that make your website loads super slow. When choosing a WordPress page builder, you certainly wouldn’t want to choose a plugin that will make your website loads over 3 seconds, to say the very least!

    Speed is all about efficiency — build for speed is an important feature in any WordPress page builder plugin.

    Google and other search engines also penalize websites that load slower than the current benchmark. So, don’t ever fall for this mistake.

    3. Build for beginners

    Everyone wish to have WordPress page builder that allows you to “click and edit” anything, in just a few seconds.

    This means that it has to be super easy to use and it doesn’t require you to go through the manual/knowledge base just to understand how to use the plugin.

    Everything on a page builder plugin must be ultra-flexible to ensure that beginners (and advanced users) can create powerful WordPress pages in just minutes and not days.

    Note: The best page builder WordPress removes every obstacle between you and building the content that you want.

    4. Landing page templates and demos

    If you are planning to buy a page builder, make sure that it comes packing with tons of pre-made designs and demos which are ready to download. Most of the time, you wouldn’t want to spend time creating a lading page from scratch. Therefore, having ready-made templates is going to save you a lot of time and making your page building experience a great one.

    Pro tip: The best page builder plugin will allows you to create sales pages that make you look like a copywriting pro.

    5. Pre-build conversion elements

    Ladies and gentlemen, this is important. You are not required to reinvent the wheel — You just need to follow what’s working.

    And this is a critical element when you are choosing the best page builder WordPress for your site. Great landing page builder plugins like Thrive Architect and Divi allow you to import ready made conversion elements (which are proven effective by the way) into your page without you needing to lift a code.

    What’s your favorite and best page builder WordPress plugin?

    Personally, I love Thrive Architect because it is super flexible and definitely the best page builder plugin I have ever tried. Click here to read about Thrive Architect and why it is the best page builder plugin for me.

    How about you?

    Leave a comment below and tell me what you think.

  • Personal Development Goals 2018: How To Start And Where To Start?

    Personal Development Goals 2018: How To Start And Where To Start?

    Have you set personal development goals for 2018?

    Today is the 8th day of the brand new year, 2018 and there’s no time to waste. You might be wondering how to start personal development goals for the year and you came to the right place.

    It is important to have different types of goals in life, because the steps taken to achieve these goals automatically lead to one’s personal development.

    In this post, I’m going to share some very simple tricks to get you started under an hour.

    What Are Personal Development Goals?

    creating personal development goals 2018

    Personal development is often considered a lifelong process. It is a way for people to assess their skills and qualities, consider their aims in life and set goals in order to realize and maximize their potential.

    Personal development goals are targets that you want to achieve in a given time period. In this case, it will be in year 2018.

    The Most Basic Criteria When Setting Goals

    what are smart goals

    S.M.A.R.T. is the only way to set effective goal. This means that goals set much be:

    • checkSpecific
    • checkMeasurable
    • checkAttainable
    • checkRelevant
    • checkTime-bound

    Selecting the right goals with S.M.A.R.T. rules will ensure that you achieve positive personal development for 2018.

    Choosing The Right Personal Development Goals

    Choosing Personal Development Goals 2018

    Before setting those personal development goals, you need to ask your several key questions.

    For example, what do you want to achieve in 2018? What are the changes you want in your life in 2018? All of these are very important and will contribute to better personal development goals for yourself.

    Here are some segments in life you can consider or focus when selecting personal development goals:

    • checkFulfilling aspirations
    • checkEnhancing the quality of life by being more spiritual/healthy
    • checkDefining your ethics as a human being, spouse, family member, or/and co-worker
    • checkBecoming the person you aspire to be
    • checkBuilding your own identity
    • checkDetermine your priorities
    • checkImproving your lifestyle
    • checkExpand your knowledge, potential and awareness
    • checkDeveloping new skills and strengths 
    • checkBuilding human capital

    Regardless whatever your reasons are, those reasons must have significant impact in your life.

    Examples Of Personal Development Goals

    • checkExercise daily without fail
    • checkPursue your childhood hobby
    • checkTake steps to concentrate on positive thoughts
    • checkPractice treating others good and think/hear no evil
    • checkStart a healthy diet
    • checkGetting serious with time management
    • checkRead more book
    • checkControl cynicism
    • checkBe punctual at work
    • checkNever snooze the alarm clock
    • checkControl your anger
    • checkBe supportive towards your spouse, family and colleagues
    • checkWork hard to communicate effectively
    • checkAppreciate others and thanking others
    • checkCreating strong financial strategies
    • checkDoing yoga to relief stress
    • checkOrganize your time
    • checkSetting targets for everything you do
    • checkFocus on one task at a time
    • checkFocus to be the best in everything you do
    • checkInvest in yourself to increase productivity and efficiency

    Want To Copy My Personal Development Goals For 2018?

    My personal development goals for 2018 involves financial, self-development and side hustle.

    Here’s a list of what I did.

    Improve Personal Development By Reading One Book A Week

    reading helps personal development

    Reading is the best way to improve your knowledge. Thanks to Amazon, you can purchase hardcover, eBook and even audio to achieve this goal. For me, I opt for eBook for bed time reading and audio when I commute to work.

    My favorite books of all time:

    Set Personal Development By Living Healthy

    Living Healthy Personal Development Goals 2018

    This part is always easier said than done. But here’s the thing – it felt good when you live healthy.

    My living healthy personal development goal 2018 involves:

    • Avoid fast food at all cost
    • Eat healthy and watch the calories
    • No more supper
    • plus-circleExercising once a day, without fail
    • plus-circlePerform meditation once a day
    • plus-circleSetting priorities in the morning
    • plus-circleWatching one motivation YouTube video daily
    • plus-circleHelp someone (friends, colleagues, family members, neighbor, stranger etc.) without hoping for returns

    Living healthy covers a huge spectrum and therefore, you can literally go nuts with this.

    Do This When Setting Personal Development Goals 2018

    Be bold. 

    The sky is the limit and there is nothing that you cannot achieve. Your biggest enemy is not them – it is you.

    Never underestimate your potential and 2018 is the year for you to make it right.

    What are you waiting for? Start now!