Goal setting is a powerful process for visualizing your ideal future, then putting into place an action plan aligned with correct mindset with the objective to turn your vision of this future into your reality. The process of goal setting helps provide a road map from where you currently are to that ultimate destination you envision for your life. Without the purposeful setting of goals, your life may very well reflect the wayward course of a ship at sea without a navigator.
While I’m writing this blog at the onset of the new year. whether it’s the beginning of the year or you’re finally ready to commit to setting and keeping goals mid-year, the principles I share on goal setting still apply.
You’re at a place where you’re ready to start fresh. The start of the new year is the best time to re-evaluate where you currently are in your life, where you want to be or what you want to accomplish over the next 12 months…it’s the time of year for goal setting.
How do we make and keep life changing goals that will deliver the results we set out to accomplish at the start of the year? Most new year goals and resolutions fail before the year gets started. Many people have already broken their new year’s resolutions by the time they are reading this blog.
What are the key components of successful goal setting?
The key components to making and accomplishing life changing goals are mindset, personal growth, contribution and action plan. Now I will explain these goal setting components.
Life Changing Goals Begin With Mindset
I believe that making, keeping and reaching life changing goals begins with mindset. If you think things in your life won’t change, they won’t. This is based on the law of attraction, you manifest in your life what you think about and how you see life from your perspective. If you want more success in your life you need to think and act like successful people do. You need to retrain your brain to visualize yourself and your life in terms of success. This mindset will open the door to attract the people, resources and opportunities you need to reach your goals.
Jack Canfield, author of The Success Principles and Chicken Soup for the Soul, offers a free 10-day transformation course which focuses on the principles necessary for success. Sign up for the free course by clicking here.
Personal Growth: For Things To Change You Must Change
If you want more in life you have to be more. This means personal growth IS required. Do you have those attributes that will cause people to want to follow you or invest in you? It is said that your current bank account balance is a true measure of your past choices, your set of personal assets (leadership skills, knowledge, experience, etc.) and your current mindset. If you want to be a million dollar earner you need to grow to be that person. But CHANGE is absolutely possible and I promise you that the journey of personal growth will be the most rewarding journey of your life.
What and who are you allowing to influence YOU each day? Like a computer program, what you allow into your mind and who you allow in your life will produce the fruits you currently have in your life. If you want a different outcome (a better life) start by changing your input (what you allow into your mind) and your social influencers (the people you spend the most time with).
The things you read and watch are your inputs. These things are either promoting your toward your goals or distracting you from your goals. For your input, commit to reading something at least 30 minutes each day that teach and challenge you. In addition, watch or listen for 30 minutes each day something that inspires and teaches you to be a better person. Here are three books that you should read regularly:
Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill
Think and Grow Rich
How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie.
How to Win Friends & Influence People
“The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People: Powerful Lessons in Personal Change” by Stephen Covey.
The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People: Powerful Lessons in Personal Change
There are many videos on YouTube that can help you with your mindset, vision and traits you need to become successful. In addition, the movie, “The Secret” is a must watch. You can find this movie on Netflix or purchase The Secret here:
The Secret
To watch the trailer for The Secret click here.
You are the average of the five people you spend the most time with. These are your friends, family and associates. Honestly evaluate these people and their influence in your life. Do you feel like a better, empowered person in their presence or do you feel depleted, discouraged and feel weight of burden after leaving them. You have a choice in the people you have in your life. For people who bring you down and negative people, especially family, minimize your time with them or better yet completely weed them out of your life. Find a mentor, someone who has the traits and success you are looking for. Look for people who challenge you and make you want to be a better person. As you change what you are reading, watching and listening to you will naturally be drawn toward people who are more like-minded.
I am a strong believer in the importance of investing in yourself. Any amount of money you spend in personal development is money well spent. I highly recommend investing in personal coaching programs. These programs give you a structured personal growth format and someone to be accountable to. One program I highly recommend is Ray Higdon’s Power Mind Course. Click here for the Power Mind Course.
Another resource I strongly recommend and have greatly benefited from are paraliminals by Paul Scheele. These are meditations that focus on reprogramming your subconscious and conscious mind to better serve you and the higher goals you want to reach. Paraliminal learning is the easiest learning you will ever do. This is because you can listen while you go to sleep at night. How easy is that?! You will notice the difference in your reactive mindset, your subconscious mind, within days of using these paraliminals.
To experience what a paraliminal is just click here:
[grwebform url=”https://app.getresponse.com/view_webform_v2.js?u=B0q5V&webforms_id=2934903″ css=”on” center=”off” center_margin=”200″/] I particularly recommend The Law Of Attraction by Paul Scheele and Jack Canfield which you can get here:So set goals that will help you grow and require that you stretch yourself. Get comfortable with being uncomfortable! Do this one day at a time…be better today than you were yesterday.
Your Calendar Is Your Accountability Partner!
The most important tool to help you achieve your goals is your calendar or daily planner! I can always nail down where someone is dropping the ball is whether or not they’re keeping a detailed calendar of all their activities. Your calendar is your BOSS!! If it’s not on your calendar you don’t do it. If it’s on your calendar DO IT! I promise you that if you commit to consistently writing everything down in your calendar/planner those things that you do your life will become more productive, you’ll more things done and you’ll achieve more balance in your life. Also, writing everything down in your planner will help you identify areas you can be more efficient. Identify those tasks where you would benefit more by delegating or sourcing out those tasks to someone else. An industry leader in my network marketing profession determined that anything costing less than $500 these things should be outsourced and done by someone else. So if you’re wondering if you should hire someone to clean your house? Absolutely!
If you’re struggling with priorities and organization with your daily tasks I highly recommend that you invest in this very affordable workshop CD, Stephen Covey’s Focus: Achieving Your Highest Priorities
Contribution: Successful Goal Setting Focuses On Others
The natural tendency in goal setting is self-interest and self-focus. How much money to I want to make this year? What further education do I want to obtain? What vacations do I want to plan for? While this isn’t a bad thing all by itself, I’m saying that in order for goals to be more concrete and even more enjoyable and attainable, factoring in other’s is key. Goals that are focus on contribution provides a purposeful life.
One of the most important part of learning is teaching. They say you don’t truly know something until you teach it. This is true. So make it a point to teach what you learn. Social media like Facebook provides an excellent platform for teaching what you learn and, no doubt, will increase the number of friends you have. You should learn it, live it then teach it.
If you want to advance in your business or career, help others set and reach their own goals. This will help build you as a leader. Successful network marketing professionals know that the key to success is knowing and helping others get what they want FIRST, then your success will follow.
Include charitable goals in your goal setting. It’s called the Law Of Abundance. When you give to others or causes like you have an abundance of resources your resources grow. I have always loved the law of giving a full 10% tithe to my church. Being a single parent for many years, I knew that my ability to provide for my son and pay the bills relied on my paying my tithing first. I can’t tell you how many miracles and blessings I always received when paying my tithing and giving to others. But it also made me feel good and happy inside by paying my tithes and giving to others.
Getting Set Up For Success: Your Goals and Action Plan
Now we come to the structured part of goal setting. Here are a few steps to help you not only set these goals but also keep them.
1. Determine why you didn’t hit your goals last year? This is very important and will help you identify some underlying factors you need to address to become more successful in reaching your goals. Human beings are creatures of habit. You can’t expect things to change in your life if you don’t change.
Last year you were probably excited and committed the first part of the year, even making some small changes in your behavior to stay on track. Maybe it was losing weight and adopting a healthier lifestyle, maybe you wanted to change your job, maybe you wanted to stop smoking… However, you may have fallen into old patterns of behavior or thought patterns which caused you to miss your goals.
Ask yourself why do you keep failing at hitting your goals? The mindset exercises and homework I previously mentioned will definitely help. What is also very important is that you have an accountability partner and keep like-minded people around you with the same goals. Find someone you can talk to each week who will hold you accountable to your action plan. Let people know of your goals and require their support. Weed people who do not support your goals to improve yourself and your life.
2. What are the reasons, and what is the motivation behind your goals? Understanding your motivation behind your goals will most likely determine whether or not you are successful in reaching your goals. The most significant your reasons the more likely you’ll stay true to your goals. Do you want to start a home based business so you can spend more time with your family? Do you want to life a healthier life style so you can have a better quality of life for yourself and your family? Do you want to have a greater impact for good in the lives of others?
3. What will happen if you don’t reach your goals? If the consequence of your missing your goal(s) doesn’t bring you pain then you haven’t tapped into the right motivation for your goal(s). The basis for life changing goals must be significant enough to drive you through the difficult moments that will surely come along while you are working hard toward your goal(s). This is why it is so important to consistently work your plan and make visualization exercises part of your daily routine. Make a vision board where you paste pictures of your desired goal(s). Each day envision your ideal situation of where you will be and how you will feel once you reach your goal. Include all your senses in your vision…
4. Get very specific with your goals. This is a map for your goals. Detail out what it will take for you to accomplish your goals. If you want to get into better shape and live healthier write down monthly goals and milestones to hit and track your progress. How much weight have you lost and how far are you walking/running? Don’t beat yourself up if you miss a milestone, just keep working the plan and you’ll get there.
5. Establish new habits that support your goals. Create a set of tasks, your daily routine, that you will discipline yourself to do consistently every day. The key difference between someone who is successful or fails at keeping their goals is consistency. They say a habit is established after performing a task 21 consecutive days. Don’t give yourself any excuses. In fact, let your excuses be your reasons! Remember, you were created for great and wonderful things in your life! Don’t settle for less!
6. Your WHY is not enough. The most important outcome of your goal setting isn’t necessarily the goal. Most people focus on the results of achieving the goal. What is most important is the person you will BECOME as a result of making and keeping your goals. So figure out the person you want to become and why is that important to you? How do you want to see yourself next year. Again, this is part of your vision exercise I previously mentioned.
I hope this blog has been helpful as you set and execute your goals this year. I know you can do this! You deserve a life of abundance and happiness!
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Alycia Skousen
Email: Alycia@alyciaskousen.com
Considering coaching? Check out my Work With Me tab. I help people everyday!
PS: If you find that you are not achieving the the success or creating the life of your dreams, or you don’t have the quality relationships you are looking for, Check This Out (unless you already have all the success and quality relationships you want) – Click Here For Instant Access.
Related Posts: How To Use and Live The Law Of Attraction
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