Who Is Doing Your Goal Setting?

Goals are really important, so chose them wisely.  Make them yours and find a way to measure success no matter how small.  If you have many goals, chose the one you are totally passionate about.  The formula for success is very simple.  Thought becomes a feeling and a feeling becomes an action and an action produces results.  Sounds simple but we usually get stuck in the action part.  For total success, you must spend time thinking about your goal everyday.  If you do this you can’t help but feel an emotion.  See yourself there.  See yourself successful but most importantly, take action even if it’s only a few minutes a day.  Always work towards that goal. For example, if you want to write a book and you don’t have a lot of time, write a page everyday.  Before you know it you’ve written your book.

Do goals work?  Yes they do, even if they are not yours.  Let me give you an example.  When I was at a maritime school, the mission of the school, besides giving me a good education, was for me to become a Captain.  In four years at the academy I can’t tell you how many times they prefaced everything as if I was already a Captain.  In my mind and the school’s I was already a maritime Captain.

So be careful choosing your goals.  Make sure the goal is not your parents’ or somebody else’s.   So did I become Captain?  Yes, and in record time.  I used the about formula everyday for eight years and became one of the youngest Captains ever.  What I found when I was promoted to Captain was happiness and sadness.  I should have been ecstatic, jumping up and down. I had accomplished something that most mariners only dream about.  Why wasn’t I happy?  Well, after much thought I realized this was never my goal.   The maritime school had subconsciously chosen this for me.  I was never happy in the position as Captain although I did a very good job.  Choose your goals wisely; too many people are in jobs they hate.  Life is too short.

Just think what you could do if you set your own goals.

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What Is Your Goal Achieving Style?

Everyone has a different set of things that will get them moving and keep them on the path to achieving their goals.  If you don't know what pulls you or pushes you, you'll have a much more difficult time in getting to where you want to go.  Generally, people seem to fall into two groups.  Either they are goal oriented or process oriented.  This doesn't mean that the process people don't want to get to the result, it's just that they can really get into the flow of things on the way to reaching the end.

Mutt and Jeff on Goal Achieving

Mike and I are often at different ends of the spectrum when it comes to going for a goal.  Mike is a goal oriented guy.  He's also spurred on by competition and the word 'accountability'.  Even if it needs to be changed, Mike wants a due date on things and will post it on his computer.  

I don't care about competition but want to be good at something by my own standards.  A due date that I have to look at constantly gives me the pip.  But if I have a daily or weekly list of tasks to do that get me to my result, I am as happy and productive as can be. Mike focuses on the end goal and, while I acknowledge it, I'm definitely a process person.

What's Your Motivation - the Means or the End?

Neither way of doing things is better than the other.  The End Goal Person needs to go through processes to get there.  The Process Person needs the goal so the processes actually accomplish something.  What we need to do is acknowledge our strengths and use them.  And acknowledge our weak points and find a way to work with them or have someone else take up the slack in that area.

It doesn't really matter which camp you're in, so long as you wind up with the goal you have chosen.

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Goal Setting and Action

Peter McWilliams said, "If you're not actively involved in getting what you want, you don't really want it."  I love excuses as much as the next person, but I have to agree with McWilliams on this.

Pretending to Take Action

When I give lip service to something I say I want, I either plan to do something about it later, or I go through the motions without really participating.  I may spend an inordinate amount of time planning.  This is not to say that planning is bad, but there comes a time when planning is just procrastination.  How about going through the motions without really participating?  Have you ever washed your car just to keep people from writing rude notes in the dust?  How about the time you had a new car and spent ages washing, waxing and buffing your new baby?  We all know when we're putting in effort and when we're not, when we really care and when we don't.   

Time Doesn't Equal Results

The amount of time you spend isn't a good gauge of how effective your efforts are.  Cast your mind back to a time when you had a report due in school.  Did you have long periods of time when you just sat in front of a blank piece of paper or a blank computer screen?  More time was spent checking the clock than actually creating the report. We've all been there. 

What Do You Really Want?

I can't tell you.  Sometimes it's hard for me to know what I really want.  Several years ago I finally joined the gym that Mike belonged to.  I'd been putting it off because I knew I wouldn't make the time for it.  Thinking that it would help get me going, I signed up for one of the workout programs they offered.  I figured that getting in shape and looking better in clothes would be good motivation. 

Nope.  That didn't work. 

A vacation in Acapulco was coming up in a few weeks.  Surely that would get me to be faithful and spend quality time at my workouts. 

Nope.  Any of you who work out know the difference between just showing up and really working out.  One produces results, the other spends time. 

Then, quite apart from the fitness club, I started taking dancing lessons and fell in love with the lindy hop. I wanted to dance, I wanted to dance well, and I wanted to enjoy it.  Back to the gym.  Forget the general workout program - I signed on for a personal trainer 3 times a week.  Neither rain, nor snow, nor dark of night would keep me from training.  Because I wanted to get slim?  Because I wanted to be fit for the sake of being fit?  No.  The majority of other lindy hop dancers were some 30 years younger than I was and I didn't want to be sitting on the sidelines while they were having fun.

So what do you really want?  Don't let others decide because that won't be enough motivation to keep you going.  Find out what really drives you to achieve a goal.  You'll find that along the way you'll achieve more goals than the one you set out to accomplish. 

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Where Have All Your Dreams Gone?

If you by chance died tomorrow and was able to look down on you life, what would you say?  Okay, this is one of those standard scenarios that you hear every single success coach ask when they want you to take a look at how happy you are with what you've done with your life.

The reason I bring this up is that I had a near miss yesterday when a speeding car ran a red light.  Usually when the light turns green I'm first off the line, but yesterday I was preoccupied for some reason. Okay, let's be honest - there was a really pretty girl running along the other side of the street and my attention was not on the stoplight.  The car behind me gave me one of those friendly honks.  Just that small delay probably saved my life. 

So I pulled over and thought for a few minutes. If I had died today I'd be mad at myself because I haven't completed a good majority of my dreams.  This was a real wake up call for me.  Do you have to have a near miss for you to evaluate where you are today?  Where are you with your dreams?

I've been studying the book The Science of Getting Rich by Wallace Wattles.  In it he says ‘no person can be really happy or satisfied unless his body is living fully in every function and unless the same is true of his mind and soul.’  Upon further thought, when I got home I found my last few years have been troubling.  You see, I'd forgotten to dream.  I was letting situations control who I was rather than creating the events that I really want.  It may sound like nitpicking, but it’s very different.  You see in the first situation, life just goes round and round.  You settle for a boring life and whatever life throws at you. In the second situation you are the captain of your destiny.  Your dreams become reality.  So what would you rather have?  Someone telling you what to do or….??

Remember when you were a kid you thought you could do, be or become anything you thought?  Become a kid again and start dreaming those big dreams again. I am.

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Set Goals From the Inside Out

We all seem to be fooled by the lure money, fame and power.  They are constantly dangled in front of our noses as something to admire and envy in others, as being important and worthy goals..  Why is it that many who have worked for these goals are so unhappy?  You'd think they would be blissful and fulfilled when they reach these points in their lives.  Unfortunately, many have dysfunctional marriages, many turn to drugs, and many turn to suicide.  John Belushi and Anna Nicole Smith immediately spring to mind.  Why?  Why is this so?

On the outside, everything looks beautiful. Fame, fortune, and power are saying, "Come on in.  Everything's fine.  Come in and you'll find complete happiness."  If things don't seem quite what they expect when they get there, people often make one of two choices.  Some assume they need more of what they have, so they focus on getting more and more of what didn't make them happy in the first place expecting different results.  It never happens. You spend the rest of your life chasing after more expecting it different results.  Some other people take the escape route and try to take their minds off of why things aren't a wonderful as they might be. 

Here’s the deal.  Whenever you use someone or something outside of yourself to make you happy, you have the recipe for disaster.  The bottom line is: If you want happiness then be happy from the inside out.  Don't expect to create happiness from the outside in