Setting Goals The Right Way
“You have brains in your head. You have feet in your shoes. You can steer yourself in any direction you choose. You’re on your own. And you know what you know, And YOU are the person who’ll decide where to go!”
As is so often the case, Dr Suess says it best of all…
Some of his books are perhaps the greatest on self-leadership ever written and contain lessons not just for kids. The one I recommend, which is ultimately a lesson in goal setting, with the verse quoted above, is “Oh, the Places You’ll Go!”. Dr Seuss tells readers that “all journeys face perils, whether from indecision, from loneliness, or worst of all, from too much waiting,” Despite the dreaded “waiting place”, a metaphor describing most adults’ existence living in their comfort zones, doing as they have always done, wishing their lives away on that elusive lottery win, children learn that by setting goals and staying focused they are likely to conquer life’s “great balancing act.”
It is unfortunate that by not setting vision, purpose and goals to maintain focus and direction plus values to steer by, most people are driven by their circumstances rather than the other way around. Here is another shocking statistic: less than 1 in every 100 people will ever create the wealth, lifestyle or level of success they are after. Don’t be another statistic…
In reality, you are never in the past or future. You exist only in the present moment. Even when you remember the past or envision the future, you’re still thinking those thoughts in the present. All you really have is right now. And that’s all you ever will have. You can’t control the passage of time, but you can control your present-moment focus. That’s all. No past. No future. Just right now.
First, understand that you can only achieve anything in the present moment, and you can only enjoy those achievements in the present moment. You can’t consciously achieve anything or enjoy anything in the past or future because you’re consciously never actually there. That’s why goal setting is a function of your conscious mind, whilst goal achievement is ultimately a function of your subconscious mind.
Let me explain: You consciously set a goal and thereafter you must consciously remind yourself of that goal every day. You must consciously visualise the feeling of achieving that goal, and take conscious action every day toward it. By doing this, your subconscious will filter present opportunities to the conscious part of your mind that you would have normally missed because you were not focused on your goal. Plus you will subconsciously reprogram far better habits of thought, which we call beliefs, that will, in turn, improve the quality of the questions you ask of yourself and others, the decisions you make, the actions you take, and the results you achieve.
Unfortunately, too often people act incongruently with this fact, most especially when setting New Year Resolutions. Here are the three scenarios that typically occur:
- You consciously set a goal, but then what? You forget about filling your mind with what if’s again. You rarely write the goal down, and even if you do it gets put in the bottom drawer or under a pile of magazines, lost forever. Write your goals down, read them every day along with your why and imagine the feeling of living or experiencing those why’s every single day.
- You consciously set a goal based on an inaccurate model of your reality — in other words, subconsciously, you believe it is very difficult or perhaps impossible to achieve. Such a goal will surely be an uphill struggle, chunk it down and commit only one day at a time to take action toward your goal, with no commitment for tomorrow. There is a reason one of the only truly successful addiction control programs, on a wide scale, is Alcoholics Anonymous, whose mantra is ‘One Day at A Time”. Make this your goal-setting Mantra.
- You only ever set away from goals. Those that will allow you to move away from your pain. The only problem with away from goals is that they rarely drive you out of your comfort zone. Once you stop feeling the pain, you sink back into your comfort zone, and more often than not, the pain eventually returns. Move toward goals that drive you out of your comfort zone.
The purpose of goal setting isn’t to control the future. The only value in goal setting is that it improves the quality of your present moment reality; in other words, it is how we challenge ourselves to improve. The true legacy of goal setting, and achievement is the internal systems you set and use in the future. However, although the future only exists in your imagination, never underestimate its power. The key to achieving goals is focusing on WHY you want to achieve them. Whenever you set a goal, always ask yourself, “How does setting this goal improve my present reality?” “What will my future reality look, feel and sound like to participate in?”. It should bring greater clarity, focus, and motivation to your life whenever you think about what you will get from achieving it; you’re real WHY for setting it in the first place.
Goals shouldn’t be generalised desires, such as “I want more money” or “I want to be happy.” Goals should be exact, specific outcomes–results you can get your head and emotions around. Your goal may be to improve some aspect of your life you are unsatisfied with, or it may be in pursuit of your business vision, or it may be to pass an exam or simply for self-actualisation (learning to be a better you). The first step to living your dream life is writing your goals.
To fuel action on your goals, take some time to consider how achieving them makes you feel. How will you act, walk, and talk when you achieve each goal? What will you do with your new abundant life? Come up with as many positive reasons and anchors (WHY’s) as you can for achieving your goal to fuel you to do your best. Don’t sit on the sidelines, waiting for things to change. Take charge and make your dreams come true.
Setting goals hones our focus, gives us direction, and makes it far more likely that we’ll actually live the life of our dreams rather than drift along on whatever whim our circumstances present.
Today we know that some things happen when you write your goals down. When you write your goals in clear, precise terms, you activate your reticular activating system. This powerful subconscious tool filters out all the distractions and information you don’t want. By eliminating the unnecessary 98 per cent–including all the information that tries to get your attention every moment of every day through adverts, TV, radio and the Internet–you can zero in on the important 2 per cent and become absolutely mega-productive. There are opportunities around you right now to solve every challenge you have, but you may not see them until you condition your brain to look for, accept, and apply them in your life.
Tips
Take at least 10 minutes each day to Visualise in your mind’s eye (your imagination) what you will experience, hear, and see when you achieve that goal and imagine how you will feel with as much emotion as you can about the person you will become.
Affirmations are also an important concept in the power of positive thinking. We know that an affirmation is a positive phrase, or I am used in the present tense to attain a future goal. We take something we’d like to be true in our lives and act as if we already have it. For example, “I have the perfect partner”, “I attract love into my life”, “I am a great father”, or “I am a successful person.”
However, because an affirmation is future-orientated, some people can start to question themselves and doubt they can achieve them; “Yeah, right, that’s never going to happen”, you may hear your internal self-talk respond.”
Believe Blueprinting© combines powerful affirmations, like statements or mantras/prayers, with positive self-questions that support the statements.
If when using an “I am” statement, your internal dialogue, which you must become cognitively aware of, casts doubt in your ability to fulfil the I am statement (such as “I am wealthy”), Believe Blueprinting© brings it into the present moment by encouraging you to ask questions of yourself. Based loosely on Noah St. John’s book The Secret Code of Success, Believe Blueprinting© is formulating a question to empower your mind to support stating something that is not ‘yet’ true (as you believe it). Believe Blueprinting© asks why it is true. So for wealth, you may ask yourself, “How am I wealthy right now?” … your answer may turn out to be nothing to do with financial status, but in so many other ways, you are wealthy, and in so doing, you reprogram your subconscious to the belief that you can be wealthy in every aspect of your life. For love and a perfect partner, you might ask, “Why do I have the perfect partner?” and “Why do I attract love into my life?” As humans, we must give meaning to everything. Therefore we must answer these questions with positively reinforcing, meaningful answers.
To support this process, you must also create an attitude of gratitude around your current reality and express positive affirmations, mantras, prayers or statements about the grateful and abundant person you are right now and idealise the person you will be you wish to have in the future.
The greatest discovery of our generation is that you can change yourself simply by changing your habits of thought, and to achieve this, you start asking better questions of yourself and others.
7 Steps To Getting Anything You Want
- Step 1 – Decide exactly WHAT you want and write it down as a goal.
- Step 2 – Decide WHY you want it and write those down next to your goal.
- Step 3 – BELIEVE you will get it, visualise and affirm through I am statements or self-question that belief every day.
- Step 4 – Make a strategy plan for HOW you can achieve it.
- Step 5 – Be resolute in reviewing your WHAT and WHY every day.
- Step 6 – Be resolute in taking HOW ACTIONs towards your WHY every day, no matter how small a step.
- Step 7 – Have FAITH. It’s on its way to you, and hold yourself accountable to your values.
Bonus Step – As most top athletes and business people do… Hire a great coach to help you DEFINE and keep you FOCUSED on all the steps above…
Acknowledgement and contribution: Vic Chuffitelli
Bonus – Goal Setting Highlights
All successful people are intensely goal-oriented.
One of the rules of success is this: It doesn’t matter where you are coming from; all that matters is where you are going to
You become what you think about most of the time.
Successful people think about what they want and how to get it.
Unsuccessful people think and talk about their problems and worries.
The size, scope, and detail of the goals you choose to think about most of the time are completely up to you.
Why people don’t set goals?
- They don’t realize their importance.
- They don’t know how to set them; it’s all about setting your RAS by visualising your WHY feeling.
- They fear failure – failure hurts – yet sabotage themselves by not setting them.
- They fear rejection and believe others will criticize or ridicule them if they are unsuccessful.
- They fear success and how that may change their reality.
- They don’t understand the importance of failure with success; if you are unwilling to fail greatly, you will never succeed greatly.
Happiness requires Goals, though there is no way to happiness; happiness is the way!
Goals give you a sense of meaning and purpose – a sense of direction.
Invest whatever time is required to become absolutely clear about exactly what you want and how you can best achieve it.
The greater your clarity regarding your true goals, the more potential you will unleash for good in your life.
The starting point of all goal achievement is desire.
Success requires two things – knowing exactly what you want and determining the price you will pay to achieve it.
The ultimate purpose of all human action is the achievement of personal fulfilment.
Setting goals, working toward them daily and ultimately achieving them is the key to happiness in life.
To unlock and unleash your full potential, you should make a habit of daily goal setting and achieve for the rest of your life.
Imagine that you have the inborn ability to achieve any goal you could ever set for yourself. What do you really want to be, have, and do?
What activities give you your greatest sense of meaning and purpose in life?
Look at your personal and work life today and identify how your own thinking has created your world. What should you or could you change?
What do you think and talk about most of the time – what you want or what you don’t want?
What is the price you are willing to pay to achieve the most important goals?
What is the one action you should take immediately as a result of your answers to these questions?