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for a national publication, they highlighted the words, “If you do not have goals for yourself, you are doomed forever to work for someone else.”
That is just as true today as it was then.
In your career, you can work to achieve your own goals or you can work to achieve the goals of another person or company. The very best situation occurs when you are achieving the goals of your company or organization while you are achieving your own personal goals. But in every case, you are always working to achieve goals of one kind or another.
The Master Skill of Success
Goal setting is the master skill of success. Your ability to clearly and systematically create goals, and plans for their accomplishment, will help you more to achieve success and happiness than any other skill you could develop.
Goal setting is not complicated. It begins with a pad of paper, a pen and you.
The very act of writing your goals down changes your life, sometimes in dramatic and unexpected ways. As motivational speaker Zig Ziglar says,
“Written goals transform you from a wandering generality into a meaningful specific.”
The very act of writing down your goals programs them into your subconscious mind. Your subconscious mind, in combination with your superconscious mind, then goes to work on your goals 24 hours a day, even while you are sleeping. You begin to attract people and circumstances in 36
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harmony with your goals into your life. You get ideas and insights that can help you. You come across articles and books with solutions to your problems. You begin to experience a flow of energy and excitement that drives you forward.
Until you have practiced goal setting on a regular basis, you may be skeptical about its power to change your life. But after you have tried it, along the lines that we will discuss here, you will be convinced. Your whole life will change.
Increase Your Success Rate By 1000%
In February 2003, USA Today ran an article discussing New Year’s Resolutions. One year before, they had interviewed people about their New Year’s Resolutions for 2002. They divided the respondents into two categories, those who had written down their resolutions, and those who had just thought about them.
One year later, only 4% of the people who had made resolutions, but not written them down, had made any changes. But a whopping 46% of those who had written down their resolutions had followed through on them. This is a difference of more than 1100% in the rate of success and achievement explainable by the simple act of writing the resolution down on paper.
Essential Goal Setting Principles
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There are several essential principles of goal setting that dramatically affect the speed at which you achieve your goals. These are principles that you can return to and practice repeatedly for the rest of your career.
Number One: Dream big dreams! Only big dreams have the power to motivate and inspire you toward the fulfillment of your full potential. Only big dreams liberate your imagination and energy, and give you the drive to overcome the obstacles and difficulties that you will experience on the path to your goal. Only big dreams can keep you excited and working enthusiastically every day toward their accomplishment.
When you set goals, practice the principle of “Idealization.” Imagine that you have no limitations on what you can do, have or be. Imagine your goal as if it were perfect in every respect when you set it in the first place. Don’t allow yourself to think of all the reasons why it may not be possible for you at this time. Put those mental roadblocks and excuses aside. Set your goal as though you could achieve anything you wanted, as long as you are perfectly clear about what it was.
Number Two: Your goals must be in writing, in the present tense, as
though they already existed. Your subconscious mind only accepts commands that are worded in the present tense, such as, “I weigh 150
pounds.” Or “I earn $100,000 per year.” Or “I live in a beautiful, 3500
square foot custom designed home.” Each of these goals begins with the word “I” and is followed by an action verb. This is the fastest and most direct way to activate your subconscious mind and harness your superconscious powers.
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Positive, present tense goals program your subconscious mind and build faith and conviction within you that your goal is realizable. The more often you read and repeat your goal, the deeper you program it into your mind, and the sooner you begin to become absolutely convinced that you will attain this goal, exactly when the timing is right for you.
Rewrite Your Goals Daily
My favorite technique for programming my goals deep into my subconscious mind is to rewrite my goals in the present tense each day in a spiral notebook. I learned this technique many years ago. I was absolutely astonished at the speed at which my life began to improve when I began to rewrite my goals each day.
The best time to rewrite your goals is first thing in the morning, before you start your day. This exercise only takes about five minutes, but writing out your goals activates all your mental powers so that throughout the day, you will be more sensitive and aware to possibilities and opportunities to achieve those goals.
Affirm Your Goals Regularly
There is a wonderful technique for goal attainment called “Standard Affirmation Technique.” To use this method, you get a stack of 3 x 5 index cards and write out your goals in the present tense, one per card, in large letters.
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Each day, and throughout the day, take out your stack of goal cards and review them, one at a time. As you read each goal, concentrate on the words on the card, as though you were trying to photograph them with the lenses of your eyes. Think about one or more things you could do to achieve that goal.
Then go on to the next card.
When you combine the two methods, writing and rewriting your goals daily in a spiral notebook, and regularly reviewing them on 3 x 5 index cards, you begin to believe that these goals are achievable. You eventually convince yourself at a deep subconscious level that the attainment of these goals is inevitable. As you become more and more confident that your goals will soon become realities, you begin to move faster toward them, and they start to move faster toward you. You activate more of your mental powers. When you practice either one or both of these methods for 30 days, you will be astonished at the changes that will take place in your life.
Number Three: Your goals must be in balance, and cover the three most
important areas of your life. They must be in harmony with each other, not contradictory. Just as a wheel must be perfectly balanced to rotate smoothly, your life must be in balance as well for you to feel happy and effective.
What Do You Really Want?
The first types of goals you need are business, career and financial goals.
These are the tangible, measurable things that you want to achieve as the result of your efforts at work. These are the “what” that you want to 40
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accomplish in life. With these tangible goals, you must be absolutely clear about how much you want to earn, and in what time period you want to earn it. You must be clear about how much you want to save, invest and accumulate, and in what period you want to acquire these amounts.
Remember, you can’t hit a target that you can’t see.
Why Do You Want Them?
The second types of goals you need are your personal, family and health goals. In reality, these are the most important goals of all in determining your happiness and well-being. These are called the “why” goals. These are the reasons why you want to achieve your business, career and financial goals. They are your true aims and purposes in life.
Many people become so involved with their work and careers, and their financial goals, that they lose sight of the reasons why they wanted financial success in the first place. They get their priorities mixed up. As a result, their lives get out of balance. They start to feel stressed and driven. Sometimes they become angry and frustrated. No matter how hard they work to achieve business and financial goals, they don’t seem to enjoy any more peace, happiness and satisfaction in life. They need to get their goals back in the right order of priority and realize that achieving work and financial goals are the means to the end of enjoying your family and relationship goals. They are not the ends in themselves.
How Do You Achieve Them?