Plan Your Year Like a Millionaire

It's 2013, and Serena Williams has just secured her 17th major win as a professional tennis player. But she's not planning to rest on her laurels. Now, she has one objective, to get that 18th trophy. She's determined to reach number 18. She wants this victory more than anything. She puts an enormous amount of pressure on herself because she doesn't want to disappoint her fans or worst of all, herself. But then, Serena's story takes an unexpected twist. At the beginning of 2014, she loses three tournaments in a row. Her winning streak is broken and her confidence is rattled. Clearly, something is not working. Then her coach steps in and says the words that forever changed Serena's life. Coach says, why are you trying to get to 18? This makes no sense. Your goal should be 30 or 40. 18 is such a low goal. The notion of aiming for 30 had never occurred to Serena before. But once her coach said that magic number, it rearranged Serena's entire mindset. In that one conversation, she began envisioning a bigger life, career, and legacy. Bigger than anything she dared to dream about in the past. In a statement to CNN, Serena's coach declares, why not set a record that will never be beaten in history? Serena agrees and she's all in. In an interview, she adds, why not reach for a higher goal? Why not indeed? Here's what happens next. Serena decides that she is no longer an athlete aiming for 18 wins. From this moment onward, she is an athlete aiming for 30. Having such a bold, audacious goal changes Serena's identity. She knows that if she's going to become a player who wins 30 grand slams, this means every part of her life needs to level up. How would a 30-time champion think, sleep, eat, train, behave? How would that kind of person plan their week or plan their year? Not the same way as someone who's hoping for 18. It's time to step it up. By setting her goals significantly higher, Serena unlocks a new level of motivation that she has never tapped into before. She approaches her training in a new way. She goes through a major glow-up. And did she get that 18th win? You know she did. And then she got her 19th, 20th, 21st, 22nd, and 23rd. Way beyond her original low-ball goal of 18, she has broken record after record, becoming one of the highest-paid athletes of all time. Back when Serena announced that she was retiring from competitive tennis, she shared that she doesn't like the term retirement. She prefers the word evolution. In a piece that she contributed to Vogue magazine, Serena said that she was excited to evolve away from tennis and toward other things that are important to her, such as expanding Serena Ventures, the venture capital firm that she founded. Because you know, she's not just a champion when it comes to hitting balls on the court. She's also a baller in the boardroom. Now, maybe you've never picked up a tennis racket in your life. Maybe you have a different type of goal, a financial goal. You want to make $100,000 this year, or 500,000, or a million. You want prosperity and generational wealth. Perhaps you want to break the cycle of financial stress in your family. You want to be the first to build a successful business, the first to own real estate, or the first to have a seven-figure net worth. How are you going to get there? Not by aiming for 18 wins, no. You need to aim for 30. You need to set your goal much higher than you've done in the past. You need to set such a goal that is so ambitious and daring that simply having such a goal changes your identity. And like Serena, you need to play to win. If you are serious about getting a million in the bank, then you need to step up your game dramatically. You need to shift from amateur to pro. If you're already pro, then you need to shift from pro to goat. To become a millionaire, you need to think differently and plan your year differently. The plan that got you earning $50,000 a year is not the same plan that's going to get you to a million. It's time for a whole new plan.