GTA HowToSetAndAchieveYourGoals Ebook

Goals To Action: How To Set And Achieve Your Goal s
The Secrets That Make Goal Setting Work

2 Copyright 2009 Effexis Software All rights reserved
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Copyright 2009 by Rodger Constandse & Effexis. All rights reserved.
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Introduction.........................................................................................4
Principle # 1 Live Your Purpose ......................................................... 22
Principle # 2 Become an Active Participant.......................................... 42
Principle # 3 Plant the Right Seeds .................................................... 60
Principle # 4 Develop Your Personal Core............................................ 74
Principle # 5 Progressive Realization .................................................. 89
Principle # 6 Follow a Winning Recipe................................................. 97
Principle # 7 Take Small Steps in a Spirit of Continuous Improvement . 109
Principle # 8 Combine Wisdom and Execution ................................... 119
Principle # 9 Balance Learning, Planning and Doing ........................... 129
Principle # 10 Use the Power of Synergy .......................................... 140
The Goals to Action System............................................................... 147
Introduction
Around 230 BC, the great Greek mathematician and engineer Archimedes
wrote about the idea of leverage. In basic terms, leverage is the ability to do
more with less its a way of magnifying and multiplying the results that you
get from your efforts and actions.
Archimedes used the power of leverage to pull huge ships out of the sea and
onto the beach, which many people considered impossible at the time.
Afterward he famously said, Give me a place to stand and a long enough
lever, and I will move the Earth.
In this program, youre going to learn some of the highest leverage
principles and strategies you can use to help you achieve your most
important and meaningful goals.
These are some of the most valuable principles for true productivity and
achievement; in fact, they are a critical factor in everything that you
accomplish or fail to accomplish.
Applying these principles is the most effective way to achieve your business
and personal goals, significantly increase your productivity, and get what
you really want in life. Thats why this program is not just about how to set
and plan goals that motivate and inspire you; its about how to actually
achieve them.
By the time you finish, youll have a simple but very powerful 5-step goal
achievement system to help you take consistent, focused action toward your
goals.
If you follow the system and apply the principles that Ive laid out in this
program, youll have more clarity, focus, inspiration and excitement than
youve probably had in a long time. Youll know exactly what you need to do
to go beyond just setting goals to become a true goal achiever.
This system is very powerful, and yet its simple enough that anyone can
learn how to use and apply it to get some amazing results. Just keep in mind
that youll only get as much out of it as you are willing to put into it. The
more effort, dedication and hard work you are willing to put in, the better
and faster results youll get.
The Power of Goals
Learning how to set and achieve goals is a critical skill that can make a huge
difference in your career, your finances, your health, your productivity and
every other area of your life.
Business coach and motivational speaker Brian Tracy says, People with
clear, written goals accomplish far more in a shorter period of time than
people without them could ever imagine. In fact, Brian Tracy calls goal
setting the master skill of success.
Earl Nightingale said, People with goals succeed because they know where
they are going, its as simple as that.
Dozens of research studies show that, when used correctly, goal setting
really does work in sports, in business and in life.
People with clear, specific goals derived from a deep connection to their
purpose and values
Feel more power and control over their lives They are more
confident, less stressed, and feel better about themselves overall
Get better results They take action and are much more likely to
achieve the results they want
Are physically healthier They exercise more and tend to lead a
healthier lifestyle
Have a sense of purpose and direction They have a guiding sense of
purpose that helps them understand whats most important and to
produce meaningful results
Are better and more effective time managers They are more
productive and get more important things done
Have better relationships They recognize and value the most
important people and relationships in their life
Are happier and more fulfilled
While those are all good reasons to use goals, I think the most important
reason is that getting what you really want in life is not going to happen by
accident. As you are going to learn throughout this course, you have to be
actively involved in MAKING it happen. Thats the real power of goals.
People without goals tend to drift through life they go with the flow and
end up wherever life happens to take them. Sometimes thats a good place,
but often its not. And where they end up is mostly out of their control.
Worse, people without goals often feel powerless to change their life or
circumstances in a meaningful or positive way.
As you can see, there are many good reasons for you to use goals. In fact,
recent surveys reveal that up to 92% of participants believe that setting
goals is a critical skill needed to achieve their dreams.
And yet, you probably also know that goals dont seem to work for everyone.
After all, millions of people around the world start New Years resolutions
every year only to give up on them weeks or months later without making
progress.
Most people dont even bother with goals at all.
So what gives? Why do goals seem to work so well for some people and not
at all for others?
Answering this question will be our main focus for this program.
The reason is that once you know the answer, youll know the secrets that
make goal setting work.
Then youll know WHY you may have struggled to achieve goals in the past,
youll KNOW how to make goals work for YOU in the future, and youll know
how to use them to get what you want in your own life.
If you dont understand and apply these secrets, you could learn hundreds of
goal setting techniques, know all the how to step-by-step information and
have the best system in the world, and still find that goals dont seem to
work for you. At least not how you really want them to.
Thats why I want to tell you about these secrets BEFORE we get to the goal
achievement system in part two of this course.
It took me a long time to figure out, understand and start applying these
secrets, not because theyre particularly complex or difficult to understand,
but because they are simply NOT obvious. In fact, some are downright
counterintuitive and go against our natural tendencies and preferences.
Let me give you an example. When people are first learning to kayak
through rapids, one of the areas they struggle with is dealing with the rocks
they encounter along the way.
The reason is that our natural tendency when the kayak is rubbing against a
rock is to lean away from the rock. Thats what our common sense tells us to
do and its what most people do naturally.
But in kayaking, you need to do the exact opposite. If you lean away from
the rock, the water rushing by can trap you against the rock or flip the
kayak over. So instead, you need to lean into the rock to allow the water to
hit the bottom of the kayak and push you past the rock.
Even when students are explicitly told that they need to lean into the rocks,
they still struggle to do it because their natural tendency to lean away from
them is so strong. It takes time and practice to get used to the
counterintuitive move that you need to make to navigate the rocks in the
rapid.
Achieving goals, particularly big, challenging goals is a lot like that. You
often have to make several counterintuitive moves along the way to
achieving your goals.
If you only do what common sense or your natural tendencies tell you to
do, youll often end up struggling or getting poor results.
Thats why so many people struggle to achieve goals even when they know
what they are supposed to do. Just like the kayak students have to practice
to override their natural tendencies and learn to lean into the rocks, goal
achievement is a skill that you have to deliberately learn, practice and
develop over time.
I call these principles secrets not because they are some carefully guarded
ideas that only a select few are supposed to know, but because they are
hiding in plain sight. These principles are available to anyone who wants to
know and use them, but most people simply dont recognize them or they
never choose to apply them in their own life.
So where do these goal achievement secrets come from anyway?
Natural Goal Achievers
Tony Robbins likes to say that success leaves clues. If someone else has
already achieved something that you want to do, theyll leave clues of how
they did it.
I first became aware of these goal achievement secrets when I noticed that
some people have naturally figured out what they want to do with their life
and are actually doing it.
I call these people natural goal achievers, because theyve gotten to a point
where creating the life they want comes naturally to them.
You can usually tell them apart because they are passionate and inspired by
their work. They wake up excited about the day ahead and cant wait to get
started. They work because they want to, not because they have to. They
care deeply about what they are doing and how it affects other people, and
they have a deep sense of fulfillment that is very energizing and inspiring.
These people dont have a job. They dont even have a career. What they
have is a true calling. They are doing what they were meant to do, and it
shows in every aspect of their life!
Most of these people are also naturally achieving their goals while meeting
their fundamental needs in a very profound way. They are emotionally
happy and passionate, are doing well physically and financially, have good
relationships, and are deeply fulfilled spiritually. Many also have a sense of
peace and calm about them, even when they are working very hard.
By observing and learning from these natural achievers, you can figure out
the clues they are leaving behind for you to follow.
The Difference That Makes The Difference
Whats so different about these natural goal achievers that allows them to
achieve such outstanding results?
Well, its not their luck, talent, intelligence, opportunity, persistence,
knowledge, skill, determination, effort, hard work or even the systems they
use that ultimately makes the difference. While they are all part of the
puzzle, something else, something deeper supersedes them all.
Natural goal achievers produce different results from everyone else because
they THINK differently.
Youve probably heard that before. I know Id heard it many times before
from all the personal development books and tapes I studied over the years.
At first, I believed this just meant that high achievers have different kinds of
THOUGHTS than others. For example, youve probably heard that high
achievers have positive, optimistic thoughts, and that underachievers have
negative, pessimistic thoughts. Or that high achievers believe in themselves
and have a positive mental attitude while underachievers have a negative
attitude.
What I didnt realize at the time is that its not just about your thoughts or
even your attitude. It goes MUCH, MUCH deeper than that.
Natural achievers dont just have different kinds of thoughts, they dont just
have a more positive attitude, they have a different WAY OF THINKING.
Its their way of thinking that drives everything else, including their positive
attitude, thoughts and actions, and its their WAY OF THINKING, not their
attitude or specific techniques, that helps them create the results that
they do.
Let me give you an example of what I mean by a different way of thinking
and why it can make such a big difference in your results.
Carl Gauss was a famous German mathematician and scientist born in the
18th Century. When he was a young student in primary school, Gauss
teacher tried to occupy his class by making the students add up all the
numbers between 1 and 100 (1 + 2 + 3 + 4 and so on all the way up to
100.) The teacher fully expected them to take a long while to complete the
assignment.
As the story goes, Gauss completed the assignment in just a few seconds to
the complete astonishment of the teacher, his assistant and all the other
students in his class.
How was this possible? Did Gauss cheat? Was he a human calculator who
could add up numbers with incredible speed and accuracy?
It turns out that he didnt cheat and he wasnt a human calculator. He just
used a different WAY OF THINKING to solve the problem much faster than
everyone else.
The teacher and all the other students were stuck using ARITHMETIC
thinking. They only saw one possible way of solving the problem, by adding
up all the numbers one by one: 1 + 2 = 3, 3 + 3 = 6, 6 + 4 = 10, 10 + 5 =
15 and so on.
On the other hand, Gauss used MATHEMATICAL thinking to solve the exact
same problem in a different and much more effective way.
Gauss immediately noticed a pattern in the numbers. He SAW something
that no one else in his class could see.
He noticed that he could easily group the numbers into pairs so that each
pair added up to 101. For example, 1 was paired with 100, 2 with 99, 3 with
98, and so on.
He also noticed that there were exactly 50 pairs of numbers, all adding up to
101. So the answer was obvious 101 x 50 = 5050.
The point of this story is that to a person using arithmetic thinking, what
Gauss did seems like magic. It doesnt make sense. How could he possibly
add up all those numbers so quickly?
The fact is that Gauss didnt add all the numbers, at least not in the
arithmetic sense, he just found a better and faster way of getting to the
same result.
Mindsets
A mindset is a particular way of thinking about something. Gauss used a
mathematical mindset to solve the problem while everyone else in his class
was stuck using an arithmetic mindset.
Mindsets are very important because they change the way you SEE things in
the world. They change your perspective and the way you approach the
opportunities and problems that you are facing in your life. They help you
see things that were invisible to you before.
Mindsets influence your thoughts, your attitude and your behavior in a very
profound and powerful way that is very difficult for someone with a different
mindset to understand. Just like Gauss, mindsets can also affect your
effectiveness and the results that you produce and experience in your life.
Those students stuck in an arithmetic mindset could only see addition; as far
as they could see, there was no other way to solve the problem than to
simply add up all the numbers one by one.
Because he had a different mindset, Gauss was not LIMITED to addition.
Thats why he was able to SEE a pattern in the numbers that no one else in
his class could see, and he was able to solve the exact same problem
thousands of times faster.
If you dont understand someones mindset, you can try to copy their
behavior, their attitude and even their thoughts, but you are unlikely to
produce the same results because youll invariably miss a critical piece of the
puzzle. Without the mindset, something essential is missing. Its just not the
same.
For example, someone stuck in an arithmetic mindset could remember that
to add up the numbers between 1 and 100 you just multiply 101 times 50.
But they probably wont be able to adapt that knowledge to other situations
or experiences. They wont be able to apply that knowledge in the real
world. They wont be able to live it.
Mindsets Are More Powerful than Thoughts or Attitudes
Do you also see why mindsets are so much more powerful than individual
thoughts, attitudes, feelings or actions?
Gauss classmates could have had the best and most positive attitude in the
world, they could have been very fast and efficient at adding numbers, but
they would still be stuck adding up the all the numbers one by one. Positive
thinking couldnt change that; a positive attitude couldnt change that;
efficiency couldnt change that. Only a different mindset could change that.
Changing Your Mindset: The Secret That Makes Goal
Setting Work
In order to get the same results as the natural goal achievers, you have to
begin to THINK like they do. Then their actions will begin to make sense to
you. Then youll KNOW what you need to do and youll know how to APPLY
that knowledge in your own life. Youll know how to LIVE IT.
Your thoughts, your feelings, your attitude, your behavior, and ultimately
the results you experience will begin to flow naturally from your new way of
thinking. Youll begin to see things differently, think about them differently,
and because of that, youll feel and do things differently as well.
The reason why we are starting with these principles is that without the right
mindset, setting goals will probably NOT work for you, at least not the way
you want it to.
Just like it would be very difficult for someone stuck in an arithmetic mindset
to try to use algebra or calculus to solve a complex math problem, its also
very difficult to use goals effectively if you dont have the right achievement
mindset.
Even if you go through all the motions of defining, planning and executing
your goals, without the right mindset youll find that something essential is
missing. For example, you might end up setting goals that dont represent
what you truly want, or you might set yourself up for failure and sabotage
your efforts without even knowing it.
Thats why these principles and the mindsets behind them are the secrets
that make goal setting work. They help you think the way natural achievers
think about their life and their goals, and ultimately to act and behave like
they do.
These principles change your mindset in profound and powerful ways,
preparing you to understand, apply and use a goal achievement system
effectively to produce the results that you want in your life.
We ALL have the ability to examine our beliefs, see things from new
perspectives and shift our way of thinking. But its not necessarily easy to do
and it will probably take some time and practice to develop your new
mindsets and goal achievement abilities.
The First Secret: Natural Goal Achievers Are Made Not Born
I know you want to achieve inspiring and meaningful goals. Everyone does.
But what do most people do about it? Absolutely nothing!
While many people say they want to be able to achieve their important goals
in life, the interesting part is that most will NOT bother to learn how to do it.
Instead, most people sit back and go with the flow going wherever life
happens to take them.
Many simply dont know enough about goals. After all, its not something
that is commonly taught in schools, and if your parents dont teach you
about it either, then you could go through your entire life without learning
anything about goals.
Others have the mistaken notion that achieving goals is just common
sense and its something that should just come naturally to them. But as
you learned earlier, this is simply NOT TRUE! Most of the mindsets and
techniques that you need to use are often counterintuitive and not obvious;
they often go against our natural tendencies and common sense.
So the first important mindset shift that you need to make to achieve your
goals is to realize that all goal achievers are made... they are NOT born.
They sometimes make it seem so easy and effortless, that its hard to
imagine they were not born that way. But the truth is that people are not
born knowing how to set and achieve goals.
Goal achievement is a skill that you have to learn and master with practice.
You werent born knowing how to ski, or how to do math, or how to drive a
car. Well the same is true about goals.
Natural goal achievers learned this important life skill themselves through
years of trial and error, or they learned it from a great mentor or teacher
who took them under their wing and showed them the ropes.
The good news is that YOU CAN DO IT TOO. Anyone can learn how to set
and achieve inspiring, meaningful goals if they really want to.
The more you practice setting and achieving goals while using these
principles, the stronger your goal achievement ability will become. Then
youll truly know the secrets that make goal setting work. Youll be able to
live them and use them to get what you want in life.
Thats what you are going to learn in this program.
Getting Started: The Goal Achievement Puzzle
When I asked readers to send me their biggest questions about goal setting,
two common questions were How do I get started with goal setting? or the
related question Where is the best place to start?
These questions are not very surprising given all the information about
goals, personal development, productivity and success that is available
today. If you do a quick search, youll find lots of success techniques that
can definitely help you and make a difference in your results. Things like:
Goals
Visualization, law of attraction & vision boards
Positive thinking and the power of beliefs
Persistence
Motivation, discipline and pushing yourself
Hard work and determination
Confidence and believing in yourself
Emotional Intelligence
Passion and drive
Time management and productivity
Knowing yourself
Focus and concentration
Personal development and improving yourself
Creativity, ideas and problem solving
And many more
The problem is that while all these success techniques are valuable and
can help you get what you want in life, its very difficult to know where and
how to get started when you look at them this way. Which one do you focus
on first? How do you incorporate the other ones? Where do you start? Which
one is the key to success?
Most people look at these success techniques trying to find the answer, the
key that will solve all their problems and unlock the secrets of success. They
may say to themselves, goal setting, thats the key or confidence, thats
whats missing or law of attraction, thats what I really need.
The real problem here is the mindset. They way you SEE and think about
these success techniques.
Let me give you a simple example. Imagine that you go to your garage,
open up your toolbox, and spread all your tools on the floor in front of you.
Youll probably see a hammer, a drill, maybe a couple of screwdrivers and
wrenches, lots of nails and screws of different sizes, etc.
Now ask yourself the same questions: Which one do you focus on first?
Where do you start? Which one is the key to success?
You can hopefully see that youll never be able to answer these questions.
Tools, techniques and strategies cant be the answer you seek; they cant be
the key to success because it all depends on what YOU want, what YOU
are trying to achieve, and what unique challenges YOU are facing.
Instead of looking at these individual success techniques as the answer or
the key to success, you need to see them for what they really are: they
are just tools.
They are just pieces of the puzzle. They cant be the answer. At least not by
themselves.
The principles and mindsets that youll learn in this program help you zoom
out and see the bigger picture. They help you see the puzzle that you are
trying to put together.
From that new perspective, youll know how all these success technique
pieces fit together, how you can arrange and interconnect them, and more
importantly, how you can USE them to get what you really want in life.
Once you incorporate these powerful achievement mindsets and change the
WAY YOU THINK about the success techniques, youll be able to find your
own answers, your own keys to success. Youll know how to complete your
own unique puzzle and create the life that you want using a goal
achievement system.
A Goal Achievement System
One of the important mindsets you are going to learn later in this program is
that following a winning recipe is a great way to achieve what you want.
This is particularly true with goals because effective goal achievement is a
repeatable process.
Theres a formula, a well-defined sequence of steps that when used correctly
and in the proper sequence will naturally help you to achieve your goals.
This is the how to, the step-by-step system that you need to follow to
organize and apply all the success techniques to help you get what you
want.
This process WORKS because it helps you take consistent, focused action
toward your goals but theres a catch!
The catch is that theres ONE unique ingredient in this process that cant be
replicated. Theres one critical ingredient that ALWAYS changes from person
to person and that can make ALL the difference in the results.
That unique ingredient is YOU!
The goal achievement process works MUCH BETTER when you have the right
achievement mindset. Your mindsets and programming are so important
because they represent what YOU bring to the process.
Thats why the exact same process that works so well for one person may
NOT WORK AT ALL for someone else, and why its so important for you to
understand and apply these principles BEFORE you start using the goal
achievement system in part two of the program.
To summarize, effective goal achievement comes down to two main things:
1. Using a system that not only shows you the ingredients that you need
to use (success techniques), but that also gives you the winning recipe
that you need to follow to use the ingredients in the proper sequence.
2. YOU Having the right achievement mindsets and programming so
you can use the system effectively.
You need both of these things to achieve your goals. If you are missing
either one, youll be left wondering why goals dont seem to work for you.
Thats why this program integrates these two essential components.
Why Do You Want to Achieve Your Goals?
If we are going to talk about productivity, achievement and goal setting, its
important to consider the end result were truly after. To zoom out, look at
the big picture and think about what we are really trying to accomplish here.
When I ask people WHY they want to be more productive, achieve their
goals, or realize their dreams, I usually get a lot of different answers.
For example,
Because I want to be more successful and make more money
To advance my career and get to the top
Because I want to achieve something important and meaningful
To feel better about myself
Because I want to be happy
To make the most of my life
I want to be more productive and get things done
I want to be rich
To take charge of my life
Because I dont like where my life is headed
I want to provide a good life for me and my family
Because I feel lost and directionless
What about you? Why do you want to be more productive? What are your
own reasons for wanting to achieve your most important goals?
While these reasons may appear completely different and unrelated, what
Ive found is that they really have many similarities if you look under the
surface.
You and I are different individuals, but we also have a lot in common. Our
life journeys may follow different paths, but they also share some universal
human themes.
Because of these similarities, Ive found that most of the reasons for wanting
to be more productive, or wanting to achieve our important goals and
dreams can be broken into four categories.
The first category is what I call emotional fulfillment and reflects our desire
to feel happy, to feel good about ourselves, to have positive experiences, to
have a sense of inner peace, and to feel like we have a bright future ahead
of us.
Ultimately, we want to feel that we are in control of our life and that we can
handle the challenges were facing. If we dont have that sense of control,
its difficult to feel good about ourselves or our future.
The second category is physical fulfillment and reflects the fact that we have
a body and we live in a physical reality. We need to eat, sleep, take care of
our bodies and have some degree of comfort and security. We also know
that good health & money are both important to help us meet these physical
needs, so our overall health and financial security play a key role in our
physical fulfillment.
Our feeling of outer success, being able to achieve things, being productive
and accomplishing what we set out to do, and having the material things
that we want, also contribute to our sense of physical fulfillment.
The third category is social fulfillment and reflects our social nature. As
human beings, we are not meant to live alone; our nature is to love and be
loved; to form close bonds and relationships with others. We instinctively
know that having rich, satisfying relationships with other people is not only
important, but also deeply fulfilling.
The fourth category is spiritual fulfillment and reflects our natural desire to
grow, to realize our potential, to understand the universe and our place in it,
to have a sense of direction and purpose, and to contribute something
meaningful to the world.
We may not always fully acknowledge all these different areas of life, but
deep down we all know they are there, and if we are truly honest with
ourselves, we know that they are all critical to have a rich, fulfilling life.
When one of these key categories is missing, we know it. We feel it. We
realize that our life is not as good as it could be because we can feel the
vacuum and emptiness that it creates.
Whether its
Feeling unhappy, out of control or powerless
Being unhealthy or out of shape
Struggling to pay our bills or worrying about our financial future
Dealing with loneliness or relationship turmoil
Being unable to achieve our goals or make progress toward what we want
Lacking passion, meaning and direction in our lives
They can all take a tremendous toll.
If we continue to neglect any of these key areas of fulfillment over a long
period, something that starts out as a small problem or inconvenience could
grow like a cancer into a full-blown crisis that consumes all of our time,
energy and attention and severely limits our quality of life.
But if you choose to honor and nourish these fundamental human needs as
you pursue and achieve your own unique goals and dreams, and you
continue to build and grow these key areas of your life over time, youll
begin to experience something very powerful. Youll begin to experience a
full, rich and deeply fulfilling life.
At this point, you might be saying to yourself Well of course that sounds
great, but how do you do that? How can you achieve your goals while
meeting these key needs in your own life in a fulfilling and satisfying way?
Thats where the achievement principles in this program come in. Just like
Archimedes was able to use leverage to pull huge ships out of the sea, the
powerful leverage you get from applying these goal achievement principles
makes it possible, even probable, that you can achieve these kinds of results
in your own life.
If the idea of achieving your goals while doing work that you love and
fulfilling your emotional, physical, social and spiritual needs resonates with
you, then I encourage you to take a good look at the principles and
strategies youll learn in this course. Study them. Put them to the test and
see what results you get in your own life.
But please make the commitment to approach this material with a fresh and
open mind. One of the biggest barriers to effective learning, growth and
development is approaching things with an I know this already mindset.
Yes, you may have been exposed to some of these ideas before, but Ill bet
that others will be completely new to you. And you can probably get
something new from the ones youve seen before if you approach them with
the desire to gain a new and more powerful perspective.
Where To Go Next
You can go through this program in two main ways: One is to learn all the
principles in this part of the program first, and then go through the goal
achievement system in part two. I recommend this approach because the
principles will help you use the system more effectively.
But if you are itching to get started with the system right away, then I would
suggest that you skim through these principles quickly to get an idea of
what they are about and what they can offer, and then skip ahead to part
two of the program.
As you learn more about the system, come back to this part as needed to
deepen your understanding of the principles.
How to Get Results from This Program
In this course, youll learn that information and knowledge are essential
elements to get results, but they are not enough by themselves.
If all you get from this course is more information to store in the virtual
shelf on the back of your mind, then you most likely will not get any
significant results.
The best way to learn material like this is to get involved, to view the
information from multiple perspectives and engage your different senses.
The eBook is very valuable because it serves as reference material that you
can review over and over again.
If you really want to internalize the material, then explain it to someone
else. After you finish each lesson, tell someone else about what youve
learned in your own words and explain the key concepts to them.
Take Action
To get the most benefit from this course, I encourage you to take action and
do the exercises in your workbook!
If you just go through the lessons passively, youll probably learn a lot about
goal setting and achievement, but you wont make any significant changes in
your life unless you take action.
Practice the Mindsets
At the end of the course, Im going to give you some exercises and tools to
integrate these new mindsets into your way of thinking. Use them!
Its very important that you do these exercises consistently for at least 30
days to turn these new mindsets into habitual patterns of thinking.
Remember That All the Principles Work Together
All the principles that youll learn about in this program work together and
reinforce each other. Youll get much better results if you use them all as a
group, rather than attempting to use them individually. The goal
achievement system in part two will help you do that.
As you go through this program, look for ways in which the principles are
related to each other and how you could use each one to make the others
stronger.
What You Are Going to Learn In This Program
In the rest of this program, youre going to
Learn ten high-leverage principles and associated mindsets that together
represent the secrets that make goal setting work
Discover the way natural goal achievers think about goals and the
mindset shifts you can start making today to help you think like they do
Learn about the Goals to Action system and the Ultimate Goal
Achievement Process that you can use to achieve your most important
goals by taking consistent and focused action toward them
Principle # 1 Live Your Purpose
If there is one core principle that can give you the biggest leverage and give
you the best chance of meeting your needs while achieving more meaningful
goals its this one: live your purpose.
Living on purpose is one common thread that virtually all of the natural
achievers share. Its the spark that ignites their unstoppable spirit, drives
their passion, and fuels their burning desire.
What exactly do I mean by purpose?
There is a big difference between a purpose and goals. Unlike goals, a
purpose establishes a direction, focus, and guiding philosophy rather than a
concrete destination to reach. It answers the questions who am I? why
am I here? and what do I want from my life?
Living your life on purpose adds meaning and fulfillment because it provides
a clear way to use your unique talents and abilities to express yourself and
your potential as a human being. It gives you the means to connect your
day-to-day actions with something that is meaningful, important, and
inspiring to you.
Your life purpose serves as a guiding philosophy that provides greater clarity
about who you are and what you want in life while giving you a sense of
direction and focus.
If the idea of a life purpose seems too intimidating or scary for you, you
can think of it instead as a direction or path for your life. It doesnt matter if
you call it purpose, direction or path; the idea is the same.
When you are living on purpose, you have a strong feeling that your life is
heading in the right direction or that you are following the right path.
Benefits of Living On Purpose
Purpose-driven people experience more personal, financial and professional
success than those without purpose. One reason is that they know what they
really want from life and this gives them extra energy, passion, excitement
and focus. Because they love what they do so much, they also tend to work
harder than others and it shows in the results they produce.
Another reason is that your purpose usually flows directly from your natural
talents and strengths. By living your purpose, you are playing to your
strengths and doing the kinds of activities where you can naturally excel, be
very good at, and feel fully engaged. This gives purpose-driven people a true
advantage.
Psychologists have discovered that using and applying your signature
strengths every day, the ones that you are not only good at but that you
also deeply enjoy using, is one of the surest ways to increase your passion,
happiness and emotional fulfillment in a lasting way.
Living your life as an expression of your purpose also gives you a powerful
sense of inner peace, freedom and satisfaction, knowing that what you do
every day matters and is making a difference.
Because living your purpose means that you are expressing your true self,
you also tend to attract people that are naturally compatible with you into
your life. This is a great foundation for establishing deep, fulfilling and
lasting relationships.
When you combine all these benefits, you can see why living your purpose is
a great way to meet your emotional, physical, social and spiritual needs
while achieving goals that are truly meaningful and inspiring to you. It lays
out a powerful custom-built foundation that is uniquely designed for YOU
and who you are as a person.
George Bernard Shaw said, This is the true joy of life, the being used for a
purpose recognized by yourself as a mighty one.
Achievement Mindset
Living your purpose gives you the best chance
of achieving lasting success, happiness and
fulfillment in life.
Desire: The Starting Point Of All Achievement
Napoleon Hill, one of historys greatest minds on the topic of success, said,
desire is the starting point of all achievement.
While doing research for his book, he interviewed a lot of successful people
and found they had one striking thing in common: an intense, burning desire
that blasted them through obstacles and temporary failures.
Natural achievers differ from the average Joe in that they burn with desire to
achieve their goals. They know what they really want and they see
themselves achieving it. They hold a picture of it in their minds.
This type of burning desire can come from two main sources.
The first is motivation, all the stuff we do to artificially fire ourselves up to
take action. Things like pep talks, motivational techniques, willpower and
self-discipline.
Motivation is a very handy tool. It can help you achieve your goals,
overcome difficult obstacles, or stay on a twelve-week diet. But it usually
doesnt have staying power. Its good for a short burst of burning desire, but
it eventually peters out.
External motivation is usually not enough to create the kind of sustained,
burning desire that Napoleon Hill talks about. That kind of energy comes
from somewhere else.
This type of burning desire comes from inspiration, not motivation.
Whats the difference between motivation and inspiration?
Well, inspiration doesnt come from anyone or anywhere else, it comes from
inside you. Yes, it can be triggered by a book, a movie, or a speech, but it
cant be pulled from those sources, it has to ignite from deep within. It has
to well up from within and rush into your gut, your nerves, your cells.
Inspiration is all about what you feel and desire, deeply, when no one else is
looking. Inspiration happens in the private fire of your own heart.
Motivation is pushing yourself to do something you dont really want to do;
inspiration is allowing something you deeply WANT in your life to pull you
toward it. See the difference?
Inspiration often comes from catching a glimpse of a worthy purpose that
you can fulfill and must fulfill in a way that no one else has ever done
before.
Its about believing that this purpose is important somehow. That its not
only going to fulfill you, but its going to serve and make a difference for
others as well.
Inspiration comes from the natural desire to express and bring such a
worthy purpose into being, not just because of what it will provide or give
you, but for its own sake.
The way to know youre inspired, rather than motivated, by any given
activity is by the energy you gain from it. Activities that inspire you feed you
positive energy. Activities that you need motivation to do deplete your
energy.
At the end of a motivated day, you feel exhausted and depleted. At the end
of an inspired day, you may feel tired, but youll also feel nourished and
fulfilled inside.
Like you cant wait to do it all over again after catching your breath.
Finding out what inspires you means finding those things that you love to
do, captivate your attention, hold your interest and feed you energy. Those
things you get lost in and make you lose track of time.
Becoming inspired also means finding the things you, and you alone, truly
value and are passionate about. Things that feel important to you.
Now of course, there are many things we all say are important. Eliminate
world hunger. Improve the environment. Be more honest. Be more loving.
These are good and important values, no doubt, but if you want to be
inspired, you need to know what things you privately feel are most
important to YOU. Thats what matters.
Finding your true desires before you set out to pursue your goals will inspire
you to achieve them.
While desire truly is the starting point of all achievement, the burning
desire you need to achieve your most important and meaningful goals comes
from your purpose and your compelling vision of the future you want, not
from artificially motivating or pushing yourself to achieve them.
Thats why this principle is so important and so powerful.
Achievement Mindset
Living your purpose takes you beyond external
motivation and helps you connect with a deep
and powerful sense of inner inspiration.
Not Knowing What You Want
Many people have problems achieving goals because they dont know what
they want, or their goals represent what they think they SHOULD want
instead of what they really want. They depend solely on motivation and
willpower to carry them through to the end, and they often run out of gas
well before they reach their destination.
Goals can help you get what you want, but they wont help you figure out
what you want. You have to be clear about what you really want before you
can use goals to get it.
Setting goals becomes meaningless if you just pick them at random, you
select them because they sound good, or because they represent what
others expect from you. In order to be effective and meaningful, you must
derive your goals from a deeper sense of purpose, a compelling vision of a
desirable future, and what you truly feel is most important for a good life.
Thats what clarifying your purpose is all about and why its such an
important place to start from.
Shifting From What You Should Want to What You
Really Want
This is another all too common problem with goal setting. For example, an
author blamed goals for ruining his marriage and wasting years of his life
climbing the corporate ladder in a job that he didnt even like. He achieved
virtually every goal he set for himself over this time, but he ended up
divorced and miserable. It was definitely not what he really wanted.
He was so good at pushing and forcing himself to do what was needed to
achieve his goals that he never noticed the devastating effects his goals
were having on his life and relationships.
Blaming goals for your misfortunes is very much like using a power drill to
drill a hole in your skull and then blaming the power drill for your headache.
But we all do it. We set goals that we think we SHOULD want and then
wonder why we are not motivated or inspired to work on them, or why we
still feel empty and unfulfilled even after achieving them.
Setting goals based on what you SHOULD want instead of what you really
want is a bad idea, because even if you win, you lose.
Thats why its important to be clear about what you really want and set your
goals based on that. Or at least be aware enough to know when your goals
arent working for you, instead of stubbornly pursuing goals that are making
you miserable and destroying your life.
A great way to set inspiring and meaningful goals is to let them flow
naturally from your purpose, your vision, and your values.
Rather than trying to constantly motivate yourself to achieve goals you
should want but really dont, set inspiring goals that pull you toward them.
Why We Focus Too Much on What We SHOULD Want
One of the main reasons why people focus on what they should want rather
than what they really want is the expectations of other people, including
their parents, teachers, friends, even society, religion and culture as a
whole.
The expectations of others, particularly our parents, spouse, and peers, can
exert a very big and powerful influence on our thoughts, choices and actions,
sometimes without our full awareness.
One of the most common barriers to making this mindset shift is paying too
much attention to what other people think, especially when we seek to win
their approval.
Since this often happens outside of your conscious awareness, becoming
fully aware of this conflict between your purpose and your shoulds is the
first step to resolve it.
You begin to take charge of your own life when you realize and acknowledge
that you CAN choose to follow your own purpose instead of doing what
others feel you should do. After all, its YOUR LIFE.
This choice may have consequences and it may not always be easy, but its
still your choice to make.
Another common reason why we focus on what we should want is that we
compare ourselves to others. When you focus too much on what others
have, who they are, or what they do, its hard to discover who YOU are,
what YOU want, and what YOU can do to contribute and make a difference in
the world.
Its good to open your eyes and SEE what others are doing because it shows
you whats possible, but dont take it so far that you lose yourself in the
process and allow other people to determine what you should want or what
your purpose should be.
A third reason why we often focus too much on what we should want is that,
on some level, we may feel that what we really want is not possible, or at
least not possible for us. So we focus on what we should want instead as a
way to relieve the pain and frustration of not being able to get what we truly
want and desire.
To overcome this tendency, its important to consider what you truly want
regardless of whether you think its possible or not. If it turns out that it
really is impossible, you can adjust your plans accordingly. But dont limit
yourself at the start worrying about whats possible or how youll achieve it.
Be completely open and honest with yourself about what you really want.
Starting from a place of possibility will give you a completely different kind
of energy than starting from a place of limitation and settling only for what
you think you can have right now.
Achievement Mindset
To live your purpose, you must focus on what
you really want, not what you think you should
want or what others want for you.
Two Important Aspects Of Your Purpose
Your purpose is a combination of who you are, what you do, how you relate
to and affect things outside yourself, and a how you contribute or add value
to the world.
Since most of us spend a fifth or more of our lifetime working, your purpose
will likely focus on your lifes work and your main career path, but it also
includes and describes the kind of personal life you want to have.
Thats why most people will find that their life purpose is a combination of
two important aspects: their ideal personal life and their lifes work.
Your ideal personal life describes the kind of person you want to be, the kind
of life you want to have, the qualities that are most important to you, and
the most important roles you play. It incorporates your top values and the
areas of life that you feel are most important for a good life. It addresses
your fundamental emotional, physical, social and spiritual needs that we
talked about earlier.
For example, what do you want your physical health and lifestyle to be?
What kinds of relationships do you want to have with the people you love?
What does living a full and rewarding life mean for you? What does a great
day in your life look and feel like?
Your ideal personal life is about being and doing much more than having. Its
about the kind of experiences you want to enjoy regularly as part of your
normal, everyday life.
Remember that whatever you want for your personal life, its unlikely that
youll get it by accident. Thats why you need to choose to live your life on
purpose, rather than just accepting whatever you happen to get by default.
Your ideal personal life can be a great source of inspiration to help you set
meaningful, inspiring and valuable personal and professional goals.
Your lifes work and ideal personal life work together to help you define
meaningful personal and professional goals that inspire you to grow and
realize your full potential.
Your Lifes Work
Your life's work is the part of your purpose that revolves around what you
want to do with your life and what you want to contribute to the world.
Purpose-driven people think differently about their jobs and careers because
they inject their purpose into them.
Even if their current job is not fully aligned with their ultimate purpose, they
see it as an important stepping-stone toward their true calling, and that
makes a big difference in their attitude toward their work.
They see their work as something meaningful and important that provides
value to the world, rather than something that they just need to do to get by
or make a living.
Can you see how this different mindset could make a significant difference in
the quality of your work and the results that you produce? Do you see how it
would make it easier for you to advance, get promoted, or find an even
better career later on?
Theres an old story about three workers who are building a wall when a
young man walks by and asks what they are doing. The first worker says he
is laying down bricks because he needs to make a living and feed his family.
The second worker says he is making a wall and paying his dues with the
hope of someday becoming a supervisor for the construction company.
The third worker says he is building a great Cathedral that will bring joy and
inspiration to thousands for many generations to come; he hopes to become
a great architect and create many more buildings that will inspire millions of
people and help them get closer to God.
The first worker has a job, the second worker has a career, and the third
worker has a true calling, a life purpose expressed through his work.
You can turn any job into a career and any career into a calling by
discovering your purpose and using you work to express it every day. By
doing so, youll go from just surviving to truly thriving.
Steve Jobs founded Apple Computer along with his good friend Steve
Wozniak in 1976. About 10 years later, he was fired from his job at Apple
by the CEO that he himself had recruited to run the company a few years
earlier.
As you can imagine, this was a big shock and disappointment for Steve Jobs,
and he considered it an embarrassing public failure. In fact, it was so
devastating for him, that he almost decided to leave the technology field
altogether.
But his love for entrepreneurship, technology and innovation that inspired
him to start Apple was too strong, so instead he decided to start all over
again.
He started a company youve probably never heard of called NeXT, and
another one that you may know called Pixar, which created the blockbuster
computer animation film Toy Story and is now one of the most successful
animation studios in the world.
Steve Jobs is back at Apple and credits the great work and technology
developed while he was at NeXT for the rebirth of Apple in recent years.
He now sees his firing from Apple as one of those seemingly devastating life
events that end up being the best thing that could have happened at the
time, but only because it helped him realize how much he really loved
technology and innovation.
Steve Jobs credits much of his success to the fact that he really loved what
he was doing. His love for the work kept him going through all the setbacks
and challenges he faced over the years.
When Steve Jobs gave a Commencement address to the graduating class of
Stanford University on June 12, 2005, one of his main messages was the
importance of loving what you do.
Because we all spend so much of our life working, Jobs believes that doing
great work is the only way we can truly be satisfied, and that doing great
work requires that you love what you do.
His advice to the young graduates was to never settle for less, to keep
looking for something you love to do even if you havent found it yet, saying
that youll know it when you find it because youll feel it.
Living your purpose helps you do what you love and love what you do.
Thats why its such a powerful and important foundation and mindset to
operate from. It shapes and influences EVERYTHING else that you do.
Achievement Mindset
Its important to do what you love and love
what you do because it inspires you to do
great work and leads to true satisfaction in life.
No Purpose Is Too Big or Too Small
Some people may be concerned that their purpose is too big or too small,
but there is no such thing. The size of a purpose doesnt limit how
important, meaningful or significant it is. As long as your purpose is right for
YOU, size doesnt matter.
For example, if someone decides that his purpose is to be a great
elementary school teacher or a great parent, and that purpose feels right
to him and truly makes him happy and fulfilled, whos to say that this
purpose is too big or small, or that he should be dreaming about something
else?
No one can tell you what your purpose should be you have to decide that
for yourself.
A Very Worthwhile Investment
The investment of time and energy that you put into discovering and
clarifying your purpose is very powerful because it forces you to think
carefully about your life and your future, to examine what is important and
valuable to you, and to consider your innermost thoughts and feelings.
It forces you to clarify what you truly want from life, and then to take those
fleeting thoughts and capture them in writing. Once youve developed your
purpose statement, you can review it every day and begin to internalize it
into your daily actions, using it to guide your choices and behaviors.
For some, this process could be the first real attempt at examining, thinking
about, and clarifying exactly what it is that they want from life.
Theres an old saying that most people spend more time planning their
vacations than they do planning their life. Now, I dont know if thats actually
true or not, but I would strongly encourage you NOT to be one of those
people!
Are People Born With a Specific Purpose?
Some people seem to be born with a purpose just waiting to be unleashed.
From early adolescence, sometimes even childhood, they have a calling for a
particular field. They intuitively know what they want and what they are
meant to do with their lives. Whether it is music, art, business, sports, or
science, it is what they have always wanted to do. I would say Steve Jobs
falls into this category.
Earl Nightingale called them river people because they have a strong
internal current of interests and passions that naturally pulls them in the
direction they were always meant to go. Their job is to become aware of the
purpose that is already inside them and live their life accordingly.
River people often use this type of intuition and inner knowing to help them
figure out what they want and choose the right goals and dreams to pursue.
Their main challenge is recognizing, accepting and following this inner
wisdom rather than choosing to pursue what they think they SHOULD want
instead.
Other people dont feel like they were born to do just one thing in particular
and may be very happy and fulfilled pursuing a different number of things.
Their life purpose is something that they have to discover, clarify and define
for themselves. Richard St. John calls these people seekers because they
need to seek and discover a purpose of their own.
In fact, their ideal purpose may actually change and evolve over time as
they themselves grow and mature. Sometimes they may even discover it
after having worked for decades in a completely different field, and just sort
of stumble upon it by accident.
Seekers often have to use a similar discovery or seeking process to figure
out what they really want and find good dreams and goals to pursue. Their
main challenge is to actually go through this seeking process and use it to
discover what they really want, instead of just drifting through life doing
whatever lands on their lap.
Just like some people have blue eyes and others have brown eyes, some
people seem to have a purpose inside of them waiting to be unleashed,
while others have to seek and define it for themselves.
One of the great advantages of living in this day and age is that you have
more freedom to explore the world and the boundless opportunities that it
provides than at any other time in history. You can even reinvent yourself
several times along the way, until you either discover or define a life
purpose that suits you well.
The Power of Focus and Concentration
Another reason why living your purpose is so powerful is that it will help you
focus and concentrate most of your time, effort, energy, passion,
imagination, inspiration, and creativity behind ONE major purpose.
Natural achievers create such outstanding results because theyve learned
how to focus and concentrate their time, energy and resources on a single
objective.
Their concentrated power can produce results that are much greater than
those achievable through the diffused and unfocused energy most people
use to get through their days.
A clear example of the power of the concentration and focusing of energy is
a simple magnifying glass. The light from the sun arrives at the Earth as
diffused energy. We know the energy is there because we can feel the heat
from sunlight on our skin.
When this diffused energy is concentrated through a magnifying glass and
focused on a specific point, it can easily burn wood. The same amount of
energy that in one instance produces a very slight increase in overall
temperature, when focused can ignite a fire.
Another example is the laser beam. The light waves from a powerful laser
beam can easily cut through a thick piece of metal.
When we focus and concentrate our time, energy and resources, we can
similarly cut through many of the challenges and obstacles that are standing
in our way.
A major challenge we all face today is that there are more options and
opportunities available to us that anyone could possibly attempt, let alone
accomplish, in an entire lifetime.
If were not careful, its very easy to diffuse our time and energy over many
different pursuits, opportunities, aimless distractions and general busyness.
If instead you choose to concentrate and focus your time, effort, and energy
hard enough and long enough behind a single purpose, you can achieve
almost any goal and thats what a worthwhile purpose can inspire you to
do.
This doesnt mean that you have to (or can) ignore other important parts of
your life. You CAN balance and integrate all the important parts of your life,
you CAN achieve many worthwhile goals, but you cant do everything at the
same time.
The good news is that you dont have to. You can use an incremental
approach to gradually incorporate the different parts of your life and align
them with your purpose, one step at a time. Just dont try to do everything
at once.
When you work with goals, I recommend that you focus on living your major
definite purpose by choosing ONE goal that will help you move in the right
direction. If you want, you can also choose ONE other part of your personal
life that you want to improve, like your health or your relationships, by
selecting ONE goal in that area.
Then, after youve built momentum and created progress, you can
incorporate other goals and other aspects of your life gradually over time.
Its much better to focus and concentrate all your time, energy and effort on
launching one or two goals successfully, rather than spreading yourself thin
trying to achieve many different goals in all the various areas of your life all
at the same time.
Focus your time, focus your energy, and focus your attention.
Focus, focus, focus!
How to Live Your Purpose
Living your purpose boils down to four essential steps
1) Clarify your purpose in writing Remember that you may simply need to
become more aware of it (River), or you may need to actively seek to
discover it and define it for yourself (Seeker)
2) Figure out a way to express or live that purpose in the real world and
create a compelling vision from it
3) Go out and actually do it start turning your vision into reality
4) Learn from your experience and adjust as needed
Most people will experience this as a continuing process, where you need to
go through these steps many times. These cycles of growth are very natural
and healthy; they are the way you hone in on your purpose and the way
you adapt it as you and your life change.
They also serve as a kind of feedback loop that energizes, inspires and
motivates you to continue making progress.
When you begin to crystallize your purpose into a compelling vision, and you
begin to turn that vision into reality, youll get very valuable feedback along
the way, and that feedback will help you get even more clarity about your
purpose and naturally increase your desire to go after it.
Making steady progress also builds your confidence and belief in your ability
to live your purpose, which as youll learn later in this program, is an
essential ingredient that you need to get what you want.
Since your purpose is a direction and not a destination, you can start
integrating it into your life as soon as you discover or define it. You dont
have to quit your job, start a new career, or make a radical transformation
before you can benefit from it or start living it.
You can use it right away to help reshape your attitude, your thoughts, your
decisions, your goals and your projects and bring them closer into alignment
with your purpose regardless of where your life is right now.
When you do that, you may be pleasantly surprised to find out that your
current career is the perfect way to express your purpose, or you may
discover that you really do need to do something completely different to live
your purpose.
The point is that discovering and living your purpose will help you make the
right choices for YOUR LIFE based on what you really want and need.
Your Internal Guidance System
So how do you go about clarifying, discovering or defining your purpose?
How do you create a compelling vision from it?
One way is to use what I call your internal guidance system to help guide
you through the process.
Your internal guidance system is like a GPS unit for your brain. It helps you
get clear about where you are and where you are going, and use that clarity
to navigate through your life. It helps you look deep within yourself and
tune in to your thoughts, feelings and experiences to figure out where your
purpose is leading you.
Your internal guidance system has three main components:
1) Logical Use your mind, self-awareness and imagination to help you
think about past experiences, reexamine your beliefs, discover what you are
good at, and define what you would like your future to be.
What are you good at? What are your main talents and abilities? What do
past experiences reveal about what you are truly meant to do? What do you
think is most important for a good life? What are you interested in? Who do
you admire and is worthy of emulating?
2) Emotional Use your emotions to help you evaluate and feel your way
through your experiences to determine if they are truly right for you. As
Steve Jobs said, youll know when its right for you because youll feel it.
What do you love to do? What are you truly passionate about? What gives
you energy and inspiration?
One tricky thing about the emotional compass is that you often cant know
how youll truly FEEL about something unless you actually DO it. Just
thinking about doing it can give you some clues, but there is no comparison
to actually doing it.
Thats why discovering your purpose is often a process that you cant
complete entirely in your head: you may need to experiment and try DOING
different things before youll get the insights you need to take the next step
forward.
Another tricky aspect of the emotional component is that youll often
experience it physically in your body, rather than becoming aware of it only
in your mind. Thats where expressions like gut feeling come from.
So you need to pay attention to your body and your physical sensations as
you navigate because they will help you become aware of emotions you are
experiencing.
3) Spiritual Use your intuition, inner knowing, conscience, values and
principles as guides to help you navigate and anchor your purpose around
something beyond the self that includes contribution, meaning and service
to others.
What are your top values? How do you want to make a difference in the
world? How can you best contribute and provide value for others? What do
you naturally drawn to do with your life?
When you combine these three components, your internal guidance system
becomes fully engaged and helps you navigate toward your ultimate
purpose.
Different people will use these components in different ways. For example,
river people may rely more heavily on the spiritual and emotional
components, while seekers may focus more on the logical and spiritual
components to help them get started.
Exercise # 1 What Do You Want?
Before you pick a specific goal to work with, take some time to clarify what
you really want in your life.
An easy way to get started is to do some plain old brainstorming and see
what comes up. Think of this as an experiment or a game. You are not
committing yourself to anything; you are just exploring to see what comes
up.
Step 1 Take out a piece of paper or start a new document in your word
processor and put the following question at the top of the page:
What Do I Really Want To Do, Have or Be in My Life?
Its important to do this exercise in writing because you probably wont be
able to remember most of the things that pop into your head. Writing them
down forces you to capture them and consider them later.
Give yourself a time limit (3-5 minutes is a good range) and then just start
writing whatever pops into your head. Dont worry whether it makes sense
or not, or whether it seems impossible, or whether you think you can do it or
not. Save your criticism and judgment for later.
For now, just focus on writing as much as you can. Look for quantity and
dont worry about quality. If you get stuck, look back at the question and
write whatever answer you get, no matter what it is.
If you are having a hard time coming up with answers, figuring out what you
really want, or you dont feel particularly inspired to write anything down,
the most likely reason is that youve become disconnected from your
purpose and are focusing on what you should want or what others expect
from you.
See Exercise # 2 for details.
Step 2 The next step is to start evaluating the list you came up with and
pick ONE goal that you could work with for the rest of the program.
Use your internal guidance system to help you narrow down your choices
and select a good goal for you to start with. Even if you havent fully clarified
your life purpose yet, your internal guidance system can still help you
narrow down your choices.
Logical What goals would have a significant positive impact in your life?
What goal is the most logical one to start with? Which ones would most lead
you in the right direction for your life?
Emotional Which goals feel good or right to you? Which ones would you
enjoy working on or achieving? Which ones would you just love to pursue
and eventually achieve?
Spiritual Which goals do you consider most important, would allow you to
make a difference, or bring you lasting fulfillment?
Keep working the process until you find ONE goal that you think will work
well for you right now. Dont worry about picking the best or the perfect goal
right now. If youre not sure, just pick something. You might change your
mind later as you learn some of the other principles.
Whatever goal you choose, this will be your FOCUS GOAL for the rest of this
program.
Exercise # 2 Are You Living On Purpose?
Go through the short quiz in your workbook to find out how aware and
connected you are to your purpose, and how aligned it is with your day-to-
day reality.
If you dont feel very connected to your purpose right now, or if you are not
living it in your daily actions, the clarification process in the Life Planning
Workshop: How To Discover and Live Your Purpose course is a great way to
take this powerful mindset to the next level.
Clarifying your purpose and creating a compelling vision from it is one of the
best ways to help you figure out what you really want and find meaningful,
inspiring goals to pursue.
Exercise # 3 Become Aware of Your Shoulds
Start acknowledging what you think you should want. Use your workbook to
make a list of all your shoulds, including the things you think you should
have, the things you think you should do, and even the things you think you
should be.
Put them out in the open where you can see them, analyze them, and
examine them more clearly.
The two most common sources of shoulds are the expectations that we
feel others have for us (parents, friends, society) and the inauthentic
expectations that we have for ourselves, which are usually the result of
comparing ourselves to others.
Just because someone else has or does something doesnt mean that you
should too. Dont let others define your purpose and dont try to be someone
youre not. Define your purpose based on who you really are, what you
really want and what will truly make you happy.
Here are some examples of each type:
Should Want to Have
- A good safe job
- A nice house in an
expensive neighborhood
- A Lexus or BMW
- The latest technology
gadgets
Should Want to Do
- Work in the family business
- What your parents say
- Go to medical school
- Get a real job
- Go to parties and get drunk
Should Want to Be
- A real man / woman
- A doctor or lawyer
- Very smart
- Perfect in every way
- Rich and famous
OK, now its your turn. What are some of the things you think you should
have, do, or be? What are some of the things you think you should want?
Now, look at your list of shoulds and see which ones are NOT a reflection
of what you really want. Put a mark or star next to them. Did any of them
show up in Exercise # 1?
Eventually, youll want to use your purpose, vision and values to replace
your inauthentic shoulds with something that you really want. Then you
can define more meaningful and inspiring goals.
For example, you could write I once thought I should want to be a doctor,
but now I realize that what I really want is to be a designer.
Heres another one, I once thought I should want to be very smart and
perfect, but I now realize that what I really want is to be happy and
fulfilled.
Heres another, I once thought I should want to be rich and famous, but I
now realize that what I really want is to do great work and what I truly love
to do.
Principle # 2 Become an Active Participant
Human beings have always been fascinated with the idea of knowing what
the future holds in store for them. Part of it is natural curiosity; part of it is a
desire for certainty and control. Because of this powerful desire, the psychic
and fortunetelling industry that has existed for thousands of years is still
thriving even today.
The truth is that you dont need to hire a psychic or fortuneteller to help
predict your future, because as Stephen Covey said, the best way to
predict your future is to help create it.
In fact, you are already creating your future right now, through every choice
you make and all actions you take or dont take.
What kind of future are you creating for yourself right now?
Are your choices and actions leading you to a fulfilling, rewarding and more
meaningful life? Or are you on the path to a bleaker future with missed
opportunities, disappointment and regret?
Perhaps an even more important question is whether you are intentionally
creating your own future, or you are leaving it to chance, past experiences,
life circumstances or other people to do it for you.
Michael Gerber, author of the E-Myth, claims that only a few people create
their lives actively, while most just passively wait to see where life is going
to take them next. The difference between the two is living intentionally and
living by accident.
So, which is it for you? Are you living intentionally or living by accident?
Are you drifting through life or charting your own course?
Are you more of a passive spectator or an active participant?
You can usually tell when people operate from a passive spectator mindset
because of some telltale signs in their language, attitude and behavior.
Sign # 1) Victim Thinking Passive spectators see themselves as victims
of circumstances, events and other people. They say things like, If it wasnt
for my jerk of a boss, then I would have been promoted long ago and would
be much happier in my career.
Victims are very good at blaming something else, like the economy, their
boss, their company, their spouse, their kids, the government, their parents,
their past, or even God, for their situation in life. The one person that they
never seem to blame for anything is the one staring back at them in the
mirror. The problem is always something or someone other than them.
Sign # 2) Giving Away Power Passive spectators are masters at giving
away their power to something or someone else.
They say things like I cant help it. Thats just the way things are, or
Theres nothing I can do about it. Ill just hope for the best, or This traffic
is driving ME crazy, or You make me so mad. Thanks for ruining my
vacation.
What they are really saying is that they are not responsible for their own
behavior, their emotions, their mood, their happiness or their results.
Something or someone else has control over them and they cant do
anything about it.
Sign # 3) Justifying or Excusing Passive spectators are very good at
justifying or excusing why they are in the situation they find themselves in,
or why they are getting the results, or lack of results, that they are.
They rationalize and justify why its not possible for them to do anything
about it because of their age, their background, their social status, their
health, their intelligence, their company, their situation, their challenges, or
a myriad of other reasons.
Sign # 4) Drifting or Waiting for Things to Happen Passive spectators
tend to drift through life, going with the flow and waiting for things to
happen to them. If something they want happens, great, if not, then maybe
it just wasnt meant to be?
Sign # 5) Complaining Passive spectators are very good complainers.
They focus on the negative parts of their past and all the bad things that are
happening to them, and they usually have a lot to complain about!
They also tend to criticize, complain about and judge other people harshly,
even themselves.
Sign # 6) Denial Passive spectators are very good at denying the
problems or circumstances that exist in their life. They lie to themselves to
hide the things they dont want to see. Many passive spectators wont admit
even to themselves that they want something other than what they have
right now.
Sign # 7) Stagnation Passive spectators are, well, passive. So they tend
to get stuck in their present situation or reality without seeing the possibility
for change or growth. They sometimes wish and hope that things would
change, but they dont take the initiative to do anything about it.
The key quality of passive spectators is the lack of effective and constructive
action. They feel powerless to change themselves, their situation, their
patterns or their circumstances, so they dont; instead, they just wait
passively on the sidelines to see where life will take them next.
The passive spectator mindset can lead to what Dr. Martin Seligman calls
learned helplessness, which is a debilitating psychological state in which
people have literally given up on their future.
People in the grips of learned helplessness lose a sense of control and hope
over their life. They believe that things wont get better and that they cant
do anything to change what happens to them.
The good news is that you dont have to be a passive spectator in any part
of your life if you dont want to. You already have access to one of the most
remarkable forces available to every human being: the power to shape your
destiny and create your future. You just need to learn how to use it.
Orison Swett Marden said, Deep within man dwell those slumbering powers;
powers that would astonish him, that he never dreamed of possessing;
forces that would revolutionize his life if aroused and put into action.
Achievement Mindset
The best way to predict your future is to help
create it intentionally by becoming an active
participant in your life.
Shifting From Passive Spectator to Active Participant
To create your future, you MUST shift from being a passive spectator and
choose to become an active participant instead. Only YOU can make this
shift. No one else can do it for you.
This is a difficult mindset shift for many people because it requires taking full
responsibility for your life, your actions, your choices and your results, and
many people dont want to do that.
This is partially due to our social conditioning. From a very young age, other
people take care of us. Our parents are responsible for providing food,
shelter and security. They are responsible for our health and wellbeing.
Other people are responsible for our education, making sure we go to
school, do our homework, and progress through the education system.
Its quite normal and healthy for other people to take care of us and provide
for all our needs during our childhood and early adolescence.
However, once we become adults, we assume responsibility for our lives,
whether we want it or not. We become fully responsible for the type of
person we are, the life we lead, and the consequences of our thoughts,
choices and actions.
Unfortunately, many people never fully accept responsibility for their life and
fall directly into the passive spectator mindset. People with this mindset
operate under the assumption that someone else is still responsible for their
life and their future; they expect, sometimes without being fully aware of it,
that somewhere, somehow, someone else will provide them with the great
life they think they are entitled to.
After all, arent we all entitled to have a great life?
Dont we all deserve to be happy and successful, have great relationships,
have an exciting and fulfilling career, and make lots of money?
The answer is NO!
You are worthy of having all these things and building a great life for
yourself, but you are not entitled to them. No one is.
Most people dont want to hear this, but to shift from being a passive
spectator to an active participant, you must understand, believe, and accept
that you are responsible for who you are today and where your life goes
from here.
Michael Jordan said, Some people want it to happen, some wish it would
happen, others make it happen. Rather than waiting for things to happen,
become an active participant in YOUR life and MAKE things happen.
Achievement Mindset
If you want a result in your life, its up to you
to make it happen.
Giving Up Your Excuses
Its easy to come up with excuse after excuse and fool ourselves into
believing that we really arent responsible for our situation, the results we
experience, or the quality of our life.
Many people blame their situation on things they have no control over, such
as lack of education, the economy, genetics, social oppression, the
government, a spouse that wont let them work or change jobs, their
parents, a boss that has a vendetta against them, their lazy employees.
The list goes on and on.
We focus so much on the things we cant control, that we lose touch with the
things that we can control.
The problem with this WAY OF THINKING is that if we arent responsible for
the results we experience in our life, how can we possibly expect to change
them? Thats right, we cant.
People that deny responsibility for their life only end up giving away their
POWER and CONTROL over their life and their future.
If you want your life or situation to change, then you alone are responsible
for initiating that change, you are responsible for making it happen, and you
cant do that if you continue to give away your power.
Dealing with Life Challenges
Im not going to tell you that the life challenges youve had to deal with dont
matter, or that you are to blame for letting them hold you back, or that the
pain and struggle you may have faced isnt real. The pain is real and the
challenges youve faced DO matter.
Its true that we dont always have control over events that happen in our
life, but we are still responsible for the meaning we give them and how
much power we give them over us.
You are responsible because you CAN choose where to focus your attention,
time and energy. You can choose to focus on your challenges, but you CAN
also choose to focus on your opportunities.
You CAN choose to let negative experiences in your life define who you are,
but you CAN also choose to define your life in terms of your purpose and
vision for the future, rather than your past.
It may not be easy or painless, but when you do that, you ARE taking
responsibility and defining your life based on something much bigger,
something much more meaningful than any past experiences youve faced.
Believe You Can Thrive In Spite of Your Challenges
Whenever you find yourself using negative experiences, challenges,
limitations or setbacks as excuses to explain your circumstances, try to find
people with the similar challenges who have thrived in spite of them.
And remember theres absolutely no reason why you cant do the same.
You can thrive IN SPITE of your challenges, whether they involve your age,
your background, your education, or even a past traumatic experience.
Would it have been easier without these challenges getting in your way?
Yes, it would have. But the fact is that they did happen, and you can still
make it in spite of them.
Helen Keller is a perfect example of this. Blind and deaf since she was one
year old, Helen Keller had a ton of excuses for shriveling up and spending
the rest of her life in a cold, dark, lonely place.
But Helen Keller didnt shrivel up, she thrived in spite of her many
challenges. She graduated from Harvard University, wrote nearly a dozen
books, traveled across the world, met 12 U.S. presidents and learned to
read five languages in Braille.
Helen Keller lived in a world that was soundless and dark, yet she took
responsibility for her fate and changed her circumstances so that she could
communicate with the world. She even taught herself to speak by feeling her
teachers mouth as she talked.
George Bernard Shaw once said, People are always blaming their
circumstances for what they are. I dont believe in circumstances. The
people that get on in this world are the people who get up and look for the
circumstances they want, and, if they cant find them, make them.
Achievement Mindset
Give up your excuses and dont let challenges
in your life define who you are. Believe you can
thrive in spite of your challenges.
The Difference between Responsibility and Blame
When some people realize that their own choices and actions brought them
to their current circumstances, they think, Look at all the poor decisions
I've made! I always make bad decisions! How can I ever be successful?
Taking responsibility for your circumstances is not about blaming yourself for
the past; its about what you can do NOW going forward. Its about changing
the way you think, the kinds of decisions you make and the actions you take
NOW so that your future circumstances will change for the better.
Blame looks backward toward the past, focusing on the things you can never
change. Responsibility always looks toward the future, focusing on what you
can change and do about it NOW.
Simply acknowledge that you could have done better if youd known how,
and assume responsibility for what happens to you starting right now.
Ultimately, responsibility is about recognizing that you are the only one in
charge of your life.
Letting Go of the Past
Taking charge of your life and creating your future means that you have to
be willing to let go of the past. You have to be willing to release your
excuses, to abandon the story you keep telling yourself to explain why
your life is the way it is now. You have to be willing to abandon your old
patterns, habits and routines to make room for something new, something
better.
If you try to hold on to the way things are now, or the way things were
before, you wont allow something even better to come your way.
To make room for a better future, you must be willing to let go of the past.
In some cases, you may need professional help to do that. If thats the case
for you, I encourage you to do it. Think of it as an important investment in
your future.
Other times you may need to do some cleanup to complete, close or
release the past. For example, you may need to break a commitment you
made several years ago that is no longer serving you. Or you may need to
take steps to rectify a past mistake. Or you may need to take the first step
in healing a strained relationship with someone you care about.
Achievement Mindset
To create the future you want, you must
become an active participant and accept full
responsibility for your results and your
behavior.
Responsibility always looks forward. Let go of
the past to make room for a brighter future.
Being an active participant means that you have to be honest with yourself
and be willing to see things as they really are and not just how you want
them to be.
Between Passive Spectator and Active Participant
Theres a middle ground between being a completely passive spectator and a
truly active participant, and unfortunately, far too many people get stuck in
this place without being able to fully complete the shift.
This middle ground is what you might call a Reactive Participant mindset.
People operating from this mindset are definitely not passive; they dont just
sit around and wait for things to happen. They take action, sometimes a lot
of action.
The problem is that instead of focusing on helping create the future they
want, they focus on avoiding possible futures they DONT want, or they
focus on proving themselves in the eyes of others. Their actions are a
reaction to past events or to the circumstances, events and people around
them.
This type of avoiding what you dont want or proving yourself mindset
can be very motivating and leads some people to work very hard and
achieve outward success.
The problem is that because this type of success is rooted in avoidance,
rather than creating the future you want, it usually does not fulfill your
emotional, physical, social and spiritual needs. Instead, its usually very
unbalanced and leads to the kind of empty, hollow and unfulfilling success
that weve all heard about.
For example, a person operating from this reactive participant mindset might
focus on avoiding a divorce as the guiding force in their marriage, perhaps
because of their parents divorce and the effects it had on them. But acting
from this focus is not the same as acting from a focus of creating a happy,
loving and fulfilling marriage.
See the difference between the two approaches? Its subtle, but it could
make a huge difference in the kind of marriage this person ends up having.
If you are mostly focused on avoiding a divorce, you may neglect the
marriage when its going well and only begin to react when it starts to go
bad. Or you may never nourish it and find out how great it can really be. Or
you may avoid conflict at all costs, unintentionally fueling the frustration and
resentment that can make divorce more likely.
A person interested in creating a happy, loving and fulfilling marriage would
approach the marriage very differently. They would be much more proactive
in building and maintaining the relationship even when its going well, and
they would handle problems and conflicts from a totally different
perspective.
Can you see how that kind of marriage would probably be different than one
based on just avoiding divorce?
Another good example is losing weight.
Millions of people go on diets every year because they want to lose weight.
Many of them are truly motivated and do end up losing the weight, but the
problem is that the vast majority end up gaining all the weight right back.
One of the main reasons for this is that when your main focus is on losing
weight, your motivation and desire go down significantly once youve lost
the weight. Theres no reason to keep going. So you go back to your old
eating habits, lifestyle and routines, and the weight naturally comes back.
If you focus on creating health and wellbeing in your life, then losing weight
becomes just a natural part of that larger vision and its much easier to
maintain the weight loss over the long-term.
The bottom line is that to be a true active participant in your life, you have
to be actively involved in creating the future you want, instead of just
avoiding a possible future you dont want, reacting to the people and events
in your past, or trying to prove yourself in the eyes of others.
How to Become an Active Participant
The shift from a passive spectator to active participant starts when you take
control of your focus.
Passive spectators tend to focus on the past, on their problems, on the
things they dont want, on the challenges, on the reasons why things wont
work and on the things that they cant do anything about. Its their focus,
their way of thinking about everything in their life, that naturally leads them
to become passive spectators.
Active participants have a completely different focus. They focus on
CREATING the future they want. They focus on the positive aspects of their
life, on the opportunities, on the reasons why things can work and on the
things that they CAN do something about. Its their focus that naturally leads
them to become active participants.
So what controls your focus? What determines what you focus on most of
the time?
As it turns out, the questions that we ask ourselves on a regular basis make
a big difference in the direction of our focus. The moment you ask yourself a
question, any question, your mind immediately goes in search of an answer,
and this automatically changes your focus.
Questions like Why does this always happen to me? or How could Frank
do this to me? or Why is my boss such a jerk? or Why cant I get the
promotion I want? lead directly to a passive spectator mindset.
Questions like Whats great about my life? What can I do about this now?
How am I responsible for this? or How can I overcome this challenge?
naturally lead to an active participant mindset.
Can you see the difference between asking
Why cant I get the promotion I want?
Vs.
How can I get the promotion I want?
Although these questions look similar, would you answer them in the same
way? Probably not, right. Because the first question shifts your focus toward
all the reasons why you cant get a promotion: your jerk of a boss, the
economy, your background, the school you went to, the fact you are not
related to a senior executive, etc.
The second question shifts your focus toward the actions you can take to
help you get a promotion: figuring out what it would take to get promoted,
learning new skills, developing your network, getting better results, etc.
Notice also that the first question presupposes that you cant get a
promotion. The idea of I cant get the promotion I want is embedded right
into the question.
The second question presupposes that you can and will get a promotion in
the future; its just a matter of figuring out what you need to do to get it.
Because the two questions change your focus in completely different ways,
the answers that youll come up with will also be totally different. The first
question will lead you to complain, think like a victim, give away your power,
justify or excuse your lack of results, or even fool yourself into believing that
you dont really want the promotion after all. Your answers will turn you into
a passive spectator.
The second question will help you take responsibility for your future and
figure out what you can do about it now. Your answers will help you become
an active participant.
If you want to become an active participant, you need to start asking better
questions on a regular basis. Every time you fall into a passive spectator
mindset, change your focus by asking yourself an empowering question and
just allow your mind to start looking for answers.
Asking why questions with a negative presupposition, like Why cant I get
that promotion? elicit passive spectator thinking. If you notice yourself
asking these kinds of questions, switch your focus by asking more
empowering questions.
Here are eight empowering questions that you can start asking on a habitual
basis to help you become an active participant:
1) What do I want?
This question will help you shift away from what you dont want and toward
the outcomes that you DO want. This is the first step in shifting from a
passive spectator to an active participant mindset.
2) What is the potential opportunity here?
This question helps you focus on potential and possibility rather than the
limitations of the current situation.
3) How am I responsible for this situation? and What can I learn or
take away from this experience?
This question encourages you to accept responsibility for every situation in
your life, even if part of it was outside your control. By trying to learn or
take away something positive from every experience, you are thinking like
an active participant. This question is particularly helpful after a setback or
perceived failure.
4) How can I get what I want?
This question presupposes that you can get what you want, which leads to
creative solutions that you may not have considered otherwise. Other
variations that you may want to try are How can I improve this situation?
How can I overcome this challenge? or How can I prevent this problem in
the future?
5) What resources do I already have that can help me thrive?
This question helps you focus on the positive things you can do to thrive in
spite of the situation or challenge that you are facing. Another variation you
can try is Who else has thrived in spite of this situation or challenge and
how can I follow their example?
As you ask this question, remember the story of Helen Keller. Remember
how she managed to thrive in spite of her many challenges.
6) How can I do better or add more value?
This question that helps you focus on opportunities, possibilities, and ways
you can improve your performance and add more value to the situation. Its
a great question to ask yourself regularly as part of your job or business.
Just adjust it slightly for the different aspects of your job: How can I add
more value to my customers? or How can I do a better job marketing my
business?
7) What do I need to learn, master, improve or become?
This question helps you figure out what you need to change, either internally
or externally, to put yourself in the best position possible to get the results
that you truly want.
8) What constructive, positive actions can I take now to move
forward?
This is the ultimate question for accepting responsibility and taking charge of
your life. This question will naturally lead you to focus on the future and on
the things that are under your sphere of influence, rather than on the things
you cant do anything about. Another related question you can ask here is
What would an active participant do in this situation?
Achievement Mindset
Your habitual questions direct and determine
your primary focus.
To become an active participant, ask yourself
empowering questions on a regular basis.
Another tool to help you become a more active participant in your life is
developing your personal core, which you will learn about in a future lesson.
Developing your personal core increases your initiative, your positive focus
and your personal power, which naturally lead you to become a more active
participant in your life.
Develop a True Attitude Of Gratitude
The process of setting, pursuing and thinking about goals can sometimes
lead you to focus too much on the things you lack: what you dont yet have,
whats currently missing in your life, and who you havent yet become.
If you get stuck in this type of lack focus, its easy to accidentally fall into a
passive spectator mindset without realizing it, which can make it much
harder for you to achieve your goals. Its ironic and paradoxical that thinking
about and pursuing your goals could also become a barrier to achieving
them.
Thats why its important to develop and practice an attitude of gratitude,
especially when you are actively setting and pursuing goals. Its a powerful
tool to help you remain an active participant in your life instead of
accidentally becoming a passive spectator without realizing it.
Gratitude can transform any aspect of your life, especially your focus and
your thoughts. When you feel grateful for the good things in your life, you
are obviously focusing more on them. This not only helps you to feel more
positive on a regular basis, it also shifts your focus away from any negative
stuff, lack, and struggle.
When you focus on gratitude, you notice the progress you are making, you
feel happier overall and things in your life tends to run more smoothly. You
feel more optimistic, blessed, and grateful for the opportunity to pursue your
goals, follow your dreams and mold your life into a work of art.
Consequently, it becomes one!
Beginning today, make it a habit to express a feeling of gratitude for all the
wonderful aspects of your life.
At first you may struggle to find things to be grateful for. You may be so
used to looking at the negatives that you truly cant see the positives!
If you have to, start with the most obvious: Im grateful for my life!
Then you can extend it: Im grateful for my body, my ability to think, see
and hear, the love of my family and friends.
With a little practice, youll begin noticing more and more things to feel
grateful for.
Express Appreciation
Appreciation is the practice of recognizing and admiring the positive features
of something, so its a great complement to gratitude.
For example, you can be grateful for the presence of someone you love in
your life, and you can also admire their positive qualities and appreciate the
ways this person supports and encourages you.
You can appreciate the beauty of a morning sunrise, and you can also be
grateful that it lifted your spirits and filled you with feelings of hope and
inspiration.
Getting into the habit of expressing appreciation for everything in your life
can keep you focused on the positive, just like an attitude of gratitude does.
But it can also make your journey more meaningful, enjoyable and
worthwhile.
Take time to appreciate:
Everything you have, for the joy it brings to your life.
Everything you see or hear, because it helps you focus on the present
moment.
The challenges you face, for the richness and strength they add to your
character.
Your journey, for the amazing experiences and growth it provides.
Yourself, for your unique gifts, your spirit, your willingness to go the extra
mile.
One More Empowering Question
To help you practice gratitude and appreciation, here is one more
empowering question you can add to your list
9) What is great about my life right now? This question will help you
focus on all your blessings, resources and opportunities in your life.
Dr. Wayne Dyer recommends thinking about the good things in your life as
you are drifting off to sleep, so this is a good time to ask yourself this
question.
Develop the great habit of asking yourself Whats great about my life right
now? every night before you drift off to sleep. Dont force yourself to stay
awake and answer, just let your thoughts wander and let your subconscious
mind do the work.
The Power of Choice: Saying Yes To Your Purpose, Vision
and Goals
While controlling your focus is an important first step in becoming a more
active participant in your life, you also need to take action, and that means
saying yes or consciously choosing to pursue your purpose, your vision,
and your goals.
Without consciously choosing to go after what you want, youll remain a
passive spectator regardless of your focus. You have to choose what you
want in order to get it. You already have the power to do so, but only you
can choose to do it.
When you make a choice to take action toward the things you want, you
become an active participant and begin to create the future you desire.
As youll learn in later lessons, a great way to continue this shift is by taking
one small step in the direction of your goals every day. Every step you take
builds momentum and confidence.
Consistent and focused action through small, daily steps is how you choose
and say yes to your purpose and goals every day; thats how you truly
become an active participant in your life.
So whenever you want to know if you are acting as an active participant or
passive spectator, ask yourself this simple question: Did I take action
toward my purpose, vision and goals?
If the answer is yes, then you are participating in the creation process. If the
answer is no, then you are still passively watching to see what happens. Its
a simple but very powerful question to ask.
Exercise # 1 Are You an Active Participant or a Passive
Spectator?
Look at the different areas of your life and decide if you are being an active
participant or a passive spectator. Look at the signs of passive spectator
thinking and see if any of them apply to you.
For the next 7 days, pay close attention to your language, your actions and
your attitude and make a mental note anytime you fall into a passive
spectator mindset.
Now think about your focus goal. Are you being an active participant or a
passive spectator when it comes to this goal?
Exercise # 2 Accepting Responsibility
Consciously choose to change the way you think and become an active
participant by asking yourself the nine empowering questions on a regular
basis.
If you are thinking like a victim, then try to figure out one small constructive
action you can take to do something about it. Focus on finding a solution to
your problem.
If you are giving away your power, or justifying or excusing your results,
then ask yourself, How am I responsible? and say to yourself, I am
responsible because I can choose to do something about it.
If you are drifting or waiting for something to happen, say to yourself I am
responsible because I can make things happen, and take a small step. Any
step. Just do something.
If you are complaining about something, stop! Find something positive to
say instead. Get out of the complaining habit.
If you are in denial or stuck in a rut, first admit it to yourself and then
figure out something to do about it. Read a book, learn something new, take
a small constructive action step.
Resolve to say yes to your purpose and vision every day by choosing to
take a small step toward your goals. Do this every day.
For extra credit, start a journal and write down your experiences. Write
down what happened, the passive spectator sign that you recognized in
your language, attitude or behavior, how you are responsible for either the
results (because of what you DID or what you DIDNT DO to prevent it) or
your responses to an event beyond your control, and what you can do about
it NOW.
If you can, also write about a positive experience that happened during the
day, and how you were responsible for that positive result as well.
Exercise # 3 Develop an Attitude of Gratitude
Develop the habit of thinking about 3 things that you are grateful for every
day. As you get into the practice, start adding more and more things to your
list. Begin to appreciate more the people, things and experiences in your
journey.
Then, once a week, think about at least 20 things that you are grateful for.
Spend a little bit more time on this. Really consider and appreciate each one
of those blessings. Think about how your life is better because of them.
Develop the habit of asking yourself Whats great about my life right now?
as you drift off to sleep.
Principle # 3 Plant the Right Seeds
Imagine that you own a farm. One year, you prepare the soil and plant some
lemon seeds. For several years, you take good care of the growing trees by
watering and nourishing them. Then, after they start to bear fruit, you are
shocked to find that you have lemons instead of the oranges you really
wanted.
Sounds ridiculous, right?
If you planted lemon seeds, youll get lemons. You cant get oranges from
lemon seeds!
Our life is a lot like this farm. The fruits in the trees are the results that we
experience in our life, and the seeds are the actions, thoughts, feelings and
mindsets that create those results.
Are you with me so far?
So what do you do if you dont like the results that you are getting right
now? What if you want oranges instead of the lemons you got?
While the answer is obvious, its not what most of us do.
Most of us tend to focus on the fruits, or on the trees, we tend to focus on
the results that we dont want and somehow try to change them at that
level. But what we really need to do is focus on planting and nourishing the
right seeds.
The only way to change the fruits is to change the seeds and wait for new
fruits to grow. The only way to get the results that you want is to plant the
right seeds and help them develop and grow through consistent, focused
action.
If this is so obvious, then why doesnt everyone do it?
There are two main reasons for this
Reason # 1 Seeds Are Often Hidden
The first reason is that in the real world, the seeds are often hidden and
not always easy to spot.
Some of these seeds are hidden in simple, small, seemingly insignificant
actions, decisions or habits that are part of your everyday life.
The seeds of good health are hidden in small amounts of regular exercise, in
taking good care of yourself and your body, and in choosing to eat a healthy
diet instead of pigging out on fattening Pizza every night.
Other seeds are hidden in your thoughts, your beliefs and your mindsets.
You may not even be aware that you are planting and growing them, but
YOU ARE.
The seeds of your financial future are hidden in your saving, investing and
spending habits, and the way you think about money and finances.
Because the seeds we plant are often hidden, its very easy to not pay
attention and end up planting the wrong seeds. Its only much later that you
realize that you are eating bitter lemons instead of the juicy oranges you
wanted.
Its often easy to plant the right seeds and help them grow, but you need to
know what those right seeds are, and you have to be willing to do it
consistently over time.
Planting the right seeds is often easy to do, but its almost always easier
NOT to do it. Thats why you need to plant those seeds intentionally,
deliberately and consistently.
Consciously developing positive and empowering habits is one of the best
ways to ensure that you are consistently planting the right seeds over time.
Once these positive habits become second nature, you wont even have to
think about planting the right seeds all the time, youll simply do it out of
habit.
Thats why great habits go hand in hand with effective goal achievement.
Great habits help you consistently take the actions that will naturally move
you toward your goals, and goals help you identify and recognize the habits
that you need to develop (or change) to get the results that you want.
The Magic Of Habit program from Goals To Action helps you develop great
habits, while also helping you eliminate some of the negative and
disempowering habits that are holding you back.
Achievement Mindset
Right now, you are planting and nourishing the
seeds that will grow into the results youll
experience tomorrow.
Planting the right seeds is often easy to do, but
its easier NOT to do it. Thats why you need to
do it intentionally, deliberately and consistently
by developing positive habits.
Reason # 2 Seeds Take Time to Bear Fruit
The second reason why people dont plant the right seeds and help them
grow is that seeds often take time to produce their fruit. It takes time for the
effects of diet and exercise, or lack thereof, to manifest in your life. It takes
time for sound financial saving and investing to produce significant results. It
often takes time for practice, study and hard work to pay off.
In the real world, the seeds we plant often grow like the Bamboo tree.
When farmers plant certain types of Bamboo, they know that for a while,
they will see very little signs of growth above the ground. Then, suddenly,
the bamboo will shoot out and grow several inches per day until it reaches
full length.
The reason is that during the initial stages, the bamboo plant is busily
creating an intricate root network below ground that will provide the
nutrition and support that it needs for its rapid growth spurt. But this furious
underground activity is very difficult to spot above ground.
Thats how many of the seeds we plant in real life also tend to grow. At first,
we may see very little signs of progress or positive results, but if we
continue nourishing and growing those seeds, then one day BOOM. We get
tremendous growth in a very short burst of time.
Thats how most overnight successes happen. We only notice the rapid
growth spurt at the end, but we miss all the invisible growth that took place
below the surface and made the rapid visible growth possible.
Most people want to skip this initial stage and go directly to the rapid growth
phase, but in 99.9% of cases, thats just not how life works. Research of top
performers in virtually every field has found time and time again that it
takes years of hard work and dedication to get to the top.
By the time you reach the explosive growth stage, youll probably be a very
different person from the one who started pursuing this dream years before.
Thats why it can take years of invisible growth before you see the rapid
visible growth at the end of the curve. YOU need to grow along with it.
Take the story of French firefighter Frederic Sciamma. As a firefighter,
Frederic frequently used circular saws to cut through doors, windows and
cars while trying to free accident and fire victims. One day, a good friend
was injured when a circular saw kicked back while another firefighter was
trying to free a trapped passenger. Frederics friend suffered a severe facial
cut and lost one of his eyes, and had to retire from firefighting.
Thats when Frederic decided to do something about it. He spent the next 12
years of his life developing a new type of saw that used two blades spinning
in opposite direction at exactly the same speed. This dual blade technology
virtually eliminates the kick and vibration from the saw, while actually
improving the cutting speed and accuracy.
His invention, called the Dual Saw, was recently featured in the Discovery
Channel documentary show Pitchmen. When first released in the U.S., the
Dual Saw product experienced one of these explosive BOOMS that Im
talking about, bringing in millions dollars in revenue in just a few weeks.
While many would call Frederic Sciamma and the Dual Saw an overnight
success, the truth is that it took years of hard work and invisible growth
before Frederic reached the explosive part of the growth curve and got his
BOOM.
Consistency Is Essential
Because it can take time to see positive results, even when people ARE
planting the right seeds and they ARE moving in the right direction, many
stop growing and nourishing those seeds consistently because they dont see
the rapid progress they want or expect.
They become inconsistent; they get distracted by other things and the
weeds start to take over. It takes consistent, focused action on the right
things over a period of time, sometimes a long period of time, to get to the
explosive part of the growth curve.
Thats why you need to develop habits and why you need to use a system
that will help you take consistent, focused action toward your goals.
Achievement Mindset
It can take time for seeds to produce
significant visible results, but in the meantime,
the seeds still require consistent, focused
action in order to grow and eventually produce
those results.
Weeds Also Come From Seeds
Im going to call some of the negative results and challenges we tend
experience in life the weeds.
Weeds could be things like clogged arteries that require bypass surgery, a
mountain of debt or other financial difficulties, a broken marriage, a poor
relationship with your children, carrying around 30 or 40 extra pounds of fat,
getting lung cancer from a lifetime of smoking, or staying stuck in a job that
you hate.
While some life challenges truly are out of our control, many are self-
inflicted. They are the logical and foreseeable results of our behavior, our
attitudes, our thoughts and our mindsets they are the inescapable
consequences of the bad seeds that weve been planting and growing over
many years.
The problem with weeds is that the bad seeds that create them are also
hidden and they also take time to produce the significant but negative
results we experience in our life.
Thats why its very easy to ignore or not pay attention to the bad seeds as
we are planting them. Whats the harm? So what if I pig out on Pizza every
night? So what if I light up with a cancer stick every day? So what if I spend
all my money now and dont save a penny toward retirement? So what if I
dont spend a few minutes each day learning and developing myself?
It takes time for smoking to develop into cancer. It takes time for an
unhealthy diet to grow into 30 or 40 extra pounds of fat or clog our arteries.
It takes time for our lack of savings to affect our retirement.
These bad seeds, grown and nourished consistently over time, will
inescapably create the weeds that destroy our quality of life.
The real problem is that by the time the truly big bad weeds show up, its
already too late! Youre already in the explosive part of the growth curve and
it becomes much more difficult to reverse the process.
By the time you die of heart disease, its already too late to improve your
diet. By the time you get lung cancer, its already too late to stop smoking.
By the time retirement comes around, its already too late to start saving in
your retirement plan.
This powerful principle cuts both ways: it can help you grow beautiful fruits
or it can fill your life with stinking weeds.
What seeds are you planting in your life right now? What seeds do you need
to plant to get the results that you want? What habits do you need to
develop, change or break?
Achievement Mindset
The weeds in your life also come from seeds
that YOU planted and nourished over many
years.
Shift from Short-Term Thinking to Long-Term Thinking
To plant the right seeds in your life, you need to start thinking long term.
You need to start thinking about the natural and inescapable long-term
consequences of the seeds that you are planting right now and what they
are going to become five, ten or even twenty years down the road.
Your time perspective has a big influence on the types of choices and actions
that you make today. The best chess players can SEE many moves ahead;
they think about what will happen when they move this piece here or there,
how their opponent may react, what theyll do about it then, and so on.
Because they can SEE many moves ahead, they make better choices NOW.
Similarly, people who can see the natural long-term consequences of their
actions tend to make better choices and decisions. They plant and grow
better seeds and end up producing better results as well.
Your Time Orientation
Some people operate primarily from a past orientation. They focus and
spend a lot of time thinking about and talking about their past, trying to re-
live the good old days or worrying about things that they can never change.
I once overheard someone advise a high school student to really enjoy
himself before graduating, because life just goes down hill from there.
The problem with a past orientation is that if you truly believe that your
best days are behind you, or you obsess about things you cant change,
what does that say about your future? Are you likely to have a bright or a
grim future?
Its actually good to learn from the past and recognize the past actions,
behaviors, thoughts and mindsets that created the results you are
experiencing right now.
And as youll learn in future lessons, its also good to remember and
recognize your past achievements and victories, because they increase your
confidence and help you see the progress youve made. Natural achievers
dont ignore the past; they just dont dwell on it or worry needlessly over it.
Other people operate primarily from a present orientation. They have a
short-term mindset focusing mostly on what they have now and what they
can get now without considering how it may affect their future; these people
usually fall prey to temptations and instant gratification.
Because of their orientation, they also tend to get stuck in their present
circumstances. They dont SEE possibilities for change or growth, so they
keep doing the same things and repeating the same patterns over and over
again. Because they cant see a better future, they become passive
spectators stuck in their present forever.
Natural achievers operate primarily from a future orientation. They dont
ignore the past or the present, but they have a strategic mindset that helps
them think about the long-term consequences of their actions. They focus
mostly on where they are going instead of where theyve been.
Keep in mind that its actually quite healthy to spend most of your time fully
mindful and engaged in the present, because thats the only time that
actually exists. Today is the only day that you can take action.
Future orientation doesnt conflict or interfere with that idea. Its just a
different mindset, a different way of thinking while you are experiencing and
acting in the present. It helps you see things that others dont see.
Develop Strategic Thinking
To plant the right seeds, you need to develop the ability to think long term
in the backward direction. To start with a vision of the results that you want
to produce five to ten years down the road and figure out the kinds of seeds
that you need to start planting NOW in order to naturally grow those results.
This mindset or way of thinking is called strategic thinking. Its an ability
that virtually all natural achievers have developed and that most
underachievers have not.
Most people spend very little time thinking strategically about their future.
They may fantasize about this or that, but they dont connect those fantasies
with the present so that they can do something about it.
Thats because most people operate from the mindset that the future is
completely unpredictable. They are passive spectators drifting through life
and going with the flow.
Natural achievers know that the best way to predict the future is to help
create it, so they think strategically about the future they want to see and
they start planting the seeds that will help them create it.
Strategic thinking is a combination of three qualities or abilities: vision,
wisdom, and planning.
Vision is the ability to envision or see the future that you want to create. To
imagine and see whats possible for you and your life.
Thats why gaining clarity about what you truly want and then using that
clarity to create a compelling vision of the future is so powerful. It opens the
door of possibility.
Vision allows you to shift your perspective and see the big picture.
Albert Einstein said, Imagination is more powerful than knowledge. One
reason why this is true is that knowledge only allows you see things as they
are, but imagination allows you to see things as they COULD be. Imagination
allows you to see future possibilities and potential. It allows you to see a
better and brighter future. It allows you to see not just what you are right
now, but what you can become.
In strategic thinking, wisdom is your ability to understand and grasp the
principles and laws that determine the natural consequences of your actions.
Wisdom helps you SEE the seeds that you are planting and RECOGNIZE
what they will become. Wisdom helps you distinguish lemon seeds from
orange seeds, so that in the future you dont end up drinking bitter lemon
juice instead of the orange juice you want.
In other words, wisdom helps you recognize and understand what you can
naturally expect to happen when you take different actions. It helps you
understand the natural principles or laws involved in producing those results.
Planning connects your wisdom and vision together. Starting with your
present reality and using your wisdom as a guide, planning helps you
recognize the kind of actions you need to take now to naturally produce the
results that youve envisioned.
Planning helps you bridge the gap between your current reality and your
vision of the future that you want to create.
Alan Lakein said, Planning is bringing the future into the present so you can
do something about it now.
Mark Twain said, Plan for the future, because that is where you are going to
spend the rest of your life.
Achievement Mindset
Imagination is more powerful than knowledge
because it allows you to see things as they
could be, not just as they are right now.
Since the best way to predict the future is to
help create it, think strategically by combining
vision, wisdom and planning to help you
imagine the future you want to see and start
planting the seeds that will naturally lead you
to it.
Planting The Right Seeds Automatically
One of the most powerful and highest-leverage actions you can take right
now is to deliberately set things up so that you are automatically planting
and growing the right seeds without having to consciously think about it.
Thats the best way to create consistent, focused action toward your goals.
If you think about it, thats exactly what youre doing when you develop
empowering habits and routines. You are setting up a habit that will
automatically help you plant the right seeds without having to think about it.
Theres an even more powerful way to do this using systems thinking,
where you find ways to create conditions, like an empowering environment,
accountability systems, or the people you surround yourself with, that
automatically force you to plant the right seeds.
Business coach Eben Pagan calls this inevitability thinking and
recommends regularly asking yourself, What conditions do I need to set up
today so that the outcomes that I want become inevitable?
How can you set things up so that you consistently and automatically plant
and grow the right seeds that will naturally lead to the results that you
want? How can you make your success inevitable?
Thats a very powerful mindset to operate from because it will automatically
help you plant the right seeds consistently day after day.
My friend Dr. Phil Humbert often talks about the power that your personal
ecosystem has over your thoughts, emotions and actions. Your environment
has a very strong and powerful influence on the seeds that you plant every
day; so design it purposefully and intentionally to help you plant the seeds
you want instead of the seeds you dont want.
Exercise # 1 What Kinds of Seeds Are You Planting?
Take a good look at the various areas of your life and decide if the seeds
that you are planting right now will grow into beautiful nourishing fruits,
bitter undersized fruits that are not what you really want, or stinking weeds
that will corrode your quality of life.
What seeds are you planting around your health and fitness, your finances,
your purpose and career, your relationships, taking good care of yourself,
and your personal and spiritual growth?
Are they mostly good seeds, mediocre seeds, or bad seeds?
Now think about the focus goal you selected as part of Principle # 1. What
kind of seeds are you planting for this goal? What kind of seeds do you need
to plant to get the results you want?
Exercise # 2 Think Strategically
Spend just a few minutes imagining what a good and desirable future would
look like for your focus goal. Use your imagination to visualize what the
future would be like as you complete that goal. Develop a compelling vision
for this goal.
Now, think strategically and connect the present to that future. What seeds
do you need to start planting today to help you create that future? Do you
need to read some books in that area? Develop better habits & routines?
Break some bad habits? Change your environment?
What small change could you start making today that over time would help
you grow the kinds of fruits that you want in this part of your life?
Exercise # 3 Review Your Habits
Remember that some of the strongest and most powerful seeds you can
plant are great habits, because once you develop a great habit it will
continue to serve you for the rest of your life.
Habits truly are magical things. They can be your greatest ally or your
greatest enemy, but only you can decide which.
To even think about changing a habit, you must be able to step back from
your own behavior and view it with awareness and objectivity. This requires
a shifting of gears from your routine way of thinking.
One way to get this awareness is to think strategically about your current
habits and consider where they are naturally taking you. What are the
natural consequences of your current habits five, ten, even twenty years
down the road?
You need to be completely honest here, because your future depends on it.
For example, are your current health habits helping you become a healthy
person who enjoys good health, a healthy weight, and abundant energy and
vitality?
Or are they helping you become an unhealthy, overweight, lethargic person,
who can expect disease and maybe even an early grave years down the
road?
Now think about the kind of person that your other life habits are helping
you become...
What kind of person are your work and career habits helping you
become?
What kind of person are your saving, investing and financial habits
helping you become?
What kind of person are your relationship and parenting habits helping
you become?
What kind of person are your productivity and goal achievement habits
helping you become?
What kind of person are your thinking habits helping you become?
Do you like what you see so far? Or are some changes necessary to help you
become the kind of person you really want to be?
Becoming aware of your current habits is a great first step toward healthy
and lasting change. The next step is to consciously decide which habits you
want to develop and cultivate, and which habits you need to change or
eliminate.
Thats why The Magic Of Habit program from Goals to Action is so important
and so powerful in helping you achieve your goals.
Exercise # 4 Setting Up Empowering Conditions
Use inevitability thinking and ask yourself, What conditions do I need to set
up in my life right now so that the outcome that I want becomes inevitable?
Environment What can you change in your environment to help you
plant the right seeds consistently?
People What people do you need to bring into your life? What people
do you need to stop hanging out with?
Systems What systems do you need to develop or create?
Brainstorm a couple of ideas and take action to begin setting up one of these
conditions so that planting the right seeds for your focus goal becomes
automatic.
Principle # 4 Develop Your Personal Core
Youve probably heard me mention the concept of your personal core
before. To help you understand what I mean by that, lets compare it with
what Ill call the athletic core of professional athletes.
When you look at the factors that contribute to the performance of a
professional athlete, for example a basketball player, you might come up
with a list like this:
Natural basketball talent
Specific basketball skills like rebounding, shooting, passing, dribbling,
etc.
Strategy
Coaching
Conditioning
Strength & Power
Speed, agility and hand-eye coordination
Flexibility
Mental toughness, focus and concentration
Raw athletic ability
In this list, youll find that some things are specific to basketball, like
basketball talent, skills like rebounding, shooting, and passing, coaching and
overall strategy. Others are more general, like conditioning, strength, power,
flexibility, speed, agility, mental toughness and focus.
These general athletic traits form part of the athletic core of the basketball
player. They are not specific to basketball, but they can make a significant
difference in the performance and overall results.
For example, a basketball player with poor conditioning gets winded easily
and may start missing shots and playing poor defense when his legs get
tired, especially toward the end of a game.
Its not that the players shooting or defensive skills suddenly get worse as
the game wears on, but rather her body becomes less and less capable of
executing those skills because of poor conditioning or because of the mental
pressure when the game is on the line.
Legendary football coach Vince Lombardi liked to say, Fatigue makes
cowards of us all to stress the importance of conditioning to his players.
A player with a weak mental game may have trouble performing when it
matters most because of interference from limiting beliefs, self-doubt,
negative emotions, lack of focus, and inability to bounce back from minor
setbacks.
Developing the athletic core of a basketball player does not increase her
natural basketball talent or skills directly, but it does enhance her
performance and ability to use those skills on the court in various situations.
A strong athletic core enables a basketball player to fully express her
potential and natural basketball talents on the court. It makes it easier for
her to perform at the top of her game and get the job done.
One of my favorite examples of a top athlete who put in a great deal of time
and effort in order to develop his athletic core is Michael Jordan.
Michael Jordan is arguably the best basketball player ever. He had an
enormous amount of natural talent and athletic ability, which was evident
even back in his college years.
Yet, even though he could have easily coasted through the NBA and still
been better than everyone else around, Michael Jordan also has a very
strong work ethic and motivation that pushed him to get better physically
and mentally.
He not only spent countless hours in the gym honing his basketball skills,
but he also worked on his athletic core with coaches to improve his
conditioning, strength, power, speed, focus and mental toughness.
Here was one of the greatest and most naturally gifted basketball players
ever - outworking everyone else around him to get even better.
Would Michael Jordan have been considered one of the greatest players if he
hadnt spent so much time improving himself? Perhaps.
Would he have been as good as he was at the peak of his career or have
been able to accomplish as much as he did? I cant say for sure, but I doubt
it.
Developing Your Inner Power
The concept of your personal core is very similar to that of the athletic core,
but instead of relating to the use of your body in athletics, it works with your
mind. It includes your mindset, thinking skills, emotional intelligence,
energy, imagination, attitude, and beliefs.
A strong personal core doesnt increase your natural talents or abilities, but
it does enhance your ability to use them. It helps you fully express your
potential and it improves your overall performance and results.
In other words, it enhances your inner power, your ability to take
meaningful action when it matters most.
Most athletes have had the experience of knowing exactly what they need to
do in a key moment of the game. Perhaps they needed to make a play to
turn the tide in their favor, only to find that they just couldnt get their body
to actually do it.
It could be that theyre not physically capable of taking the right action
because of lack of preparation or conditioning, or perhaps they simply
choke mentally from the pressure of the moment.
In a way, your personal core works the same way when it comes to setting
and achieving your goals. A strong personal core enables you to use goal
setting techniques and tools more effectively, with less effort and to produce
better results.
Thats why your personal core is a critical component of goal achievement
and why its so important to continually develop it, just like Michael Jordan
did with his athletic core during his entire basketball career.
Achievement Mindset
Adopt the habit of continuously developing
your personal core and enhancing your
personal power.
Winning the Inner Game of Goal Achievement
In the 1970s, Tim Gallwey wrote a popular book called The Inner Game of
Tennis in which he described the inner game as the mental struggle with
limiting beliefs, self-doubt, negative emotions and other distractions that
interfere with your ability to do your best while playing the outer game.
A strong personal core helps you win that inner game that we all struggle
with as we work to achieve our goals. It helps you decrease the interference
from emotions, limiting beliefs, self-doubt, distractions, and temporary
setbacks, so that you can perform at your best as you work on achieving
your goals.
Ignoring the inner game is like trying to drive your car with your emergency
parking brakes on. Many people go through the outer goal achievement
process with their inner brakes fully engaged, making the journey much
more difficult, challenging, arduous, and tiring than it needs to be. They let
fear, doubt, worry, and other psychological barriers slow them down and
interfere with their performance. Sometimes it can even stop them
completely and block them from getting what they want.
Winning the inner game of goal achievement by developing a strong
personal core is like releasing those emergency parking brakes that are
slowing you down. It helps you go much faster with less effort.
You Cant Hide Whats Inside
Imagine that you are walking by the side of a road on a hot summer day and
find a huge lemon tree. You are very thirsty from your long walk and decide
that some orange juice would be extremely refreshing.
You pick a lemon from the tree, grab some orange paint and paint that
lemon so it looks just like an orange.
Then you slice it open and squeeze it, sending the juice right into your
mouth.
Would you get refreshing orange juice, or bitter lemon juice?
The point is that no matter how you change the appearance of the lemon,
when you squeeze it, you always end up with lemon juice because thats
whats inside.
When life gives you a big squeeze in the form of a major challenge, a
painful setback, or a big opportunity to seize, the results you get will depend
on your personal core, because thats whats inside you.
In the end, no amount of preparation, goal setting, or even your best
intentions can hide whats truly inside you when such a moment of truth
arrives.
How to Create Lasting Change
The personal core concept is related to the idea that your outer results and
experiences are ultimately a reflection of your inner core.
Thats why developing a strong personal core is so important. By changing
and enhancing whats inside you, youll enhance the outer results you get as
well.
Mahatma Gandhi said, As human beings, our greatness lies not so much in
being able to remake the world as in being able to remake ourselves.
Starting From the Outside: Doing Having Being
People operating from a do, have, be mindset believe that the way to have
lasting change is to DO whatever it takes to HAVE what you want.
Once you HAVE these things, then you will BE successful and happy.
The question is does life really work this way?
It does for some, but not for the vast majority. Trying to DO without BEING
may work for a while, but eventually our actions will start to reflect our true
selves, especially when we get squeezed by life.
Remember than you cant hide whats inside you cant get orange juice by
squeezing a lemon.
Starting From the Inside: Being Doing Having
Be, Do, Have is a much more effective mindset to operate from because it
is based on long-standing principles of personal effectiveness. This mindset
is thousands of years old and found in the wisdom literature of many
different cultures and traditions.
One of the key insights of this mindset is that BEING comes before DOING or
HAVING, because your actions are a natural expression of who you really
are, and you actions ultimately determine what you have in life.
This is the approach weve been using all along in this program. Youve
learned how important the WAY YOU THINK is, and how much it affects the
actions that you take and the results that you create.
Weve been looking at these fundamental principles with the aim of adopting
more effective mindsets, more effective ways of thinking about your goals.
Well, thinking and being are almost inseparable.
You cant really change the way you think in a lasting way without also
changing who you are on the inside. When you truly SEE things differently,
from a different and new perspective, you automatically become a different
person. Thats how we all grow.
This same principle applies in other areas of your life.
If you want to have a better relationship with your partner, then start by
being a better partner. If you change the way you think about your
relationship, what it means to be a good partner, and the way you see the
problems and opportunities youre facing in your relationship, then youll
understand why you need to change the way you behave. Youll understand
why your current behavior is not working and what you need to do instead.
If you want to have better health, start by being more health conscious;
start by changing the way you think about health and fitness. Then that new
perspective will help you SEE why your behavior needs to change and it will
help you adopt a healthier lifestyle.
If you want to have better finances, start by being better around money.
Change the way you think about money, about saving & investing, and
about being wealthy, and youll understand the actions that you need to
take.
If you want to have more success setting and achieving your goals, start by
being a better goal achiever. Keep practicing these principles and mindsets
youll SEE your goals differently. Practice using the goal achievement system
in part two of the program. Keep improving your goal achievement muscles
starting with small goals and moving toward bigger goals.
With time, youll become a master and youll understand what you naturally
need to do to achieve your goals.
One of the most powerful choices you can make in your life is to decide to
BE more than you are now. For example, if you decide to BE a healthier
person, that single choice can translate into different goals and can change
your life for the better. But it all starts with that first choice to be healthier.
Achievement Mindset
When you change the way you think, you
automatically start to change the way you see
yourself and the world around you, and this
begins to gradually change your whole being
from the inside out.
Why Only Changing the Way You Think Is Often Not
Enough
While changing the way you think your mindset is one of the best and
most effective ways to make positive changes in your life, its often not
enough to create lasting change by itself.
The reason is that your mindset, thoughts, emotions, and actions are all
interconnected: they all influence each other.
Mindset Thoughts
Actions
Emotions
If you move your mindset to a new level of thinking, but your thoughts,
emotions, and actions remain stuck at a lower level, your new mindset is
gradually going to get pulled back down by the other components.
Thats what usually happens when you have a flash of insight about
something important in your life but you dont do anything about it. For
example, you get inspired to be a healthier person and see why your
lifestyle needs to change.
You have this temporary moment of awareness where you see things from a
new and fresh perspective that you couldnt see before, but you gradually
start to forget about it and things slowly return to normal.
If you dont want this to happen, you have to take advantage of your new
mindset and use it to consciously pull up your thoughts, your emotions, and
your behavior and make them more consistent with your new way of
thinking before you start to forget.
You can do this by practicing your new mindset. By thinking about it, what it
means and how it can change your life, by using it to evaluate and influence
your emotions, and by taking action and aligning your behavior with it.
Then, you need to develop empowering habits that support your new
mindset and behavior. Aristotle said, We are what we repeatedly do.
Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.
Developing great habits and setting up empowering conditions around your
new mindset is the best way to cement it and use it to create lasting change
in your life.
Once you get a flash of awareness and insight about your health and decide
to become a healthier person, you need to take advantage of this and
develop healthier habits and establish empowering conditions. Thats the
only way youll become a healthier person and stay that way over the long-
term.
Thats why I encourage you to actually do the action exercises in this course
and start using these new mindsets to make small changes in your current
habits. Figure out where you can apply them and start using them.
Another way to avoid forgetting your new mindsets is to keep them fresh in
your mind through regular review and study. Make it a point to review this
material from time to time and use the mindset conditioning resources
included in this course to burn these new mindsets into your brain.
Achievement Mindset
Practice and review your new mindsets
regularly to align your thoughts, emotions and
actions and pull them up to your new level of
thinking.
Creating Lasting Change For Your Focus Goal
This idea of mindsets, thoughts, emotions and actions also works directly
with your focus goal. Start by figuring out the mindset shift that you need to
make to achieve your goal. What kind of person do you need to be? How
does your mindset or way of thinking around this goal need to change?
For example, do you need to become a healthier person? Or a better
partner? Or a better money manager?
Then, use that new mindset to help you think and see your focus goal in a
new way. Think about your focus goal regularly; what will it mean to you?
What it will take to achieve it?
Then, allow your thoughts to influence your emotions. How will it feel to
achieve your goal? How will you feel as you are working on it? Use your
compelling vision to create powerful emotions around your goal.
Also, think about how you can set things up so that your emotions are
working for you rather than against you. This is an example of setting
yourself up for success by creating conditions that move you toward your
goals.
Finally, use your mindset, thoughts and emotions to help you take action
toward your goal.
Every day, think about your new mindset, think about your goal, feel the
emotions of working on it and achieving it, and take some form of action.
Emotional Intelligence
Daniel Goleman wrote a very interesting and powerful book called Emotional
Intelligence. In this book, Goleman argued that our ability to become aware
of, understand and control our emotions is a much better predictor of
success than logical intelligence.
The reason is that we are largely emotional beings. Most of the decisions,
preferences, choices and actions that we take every day are rooted in
emotions, not logic.
As an example, Goleman talks about a brilliant lawyer who suffered a brain
injury during surgery to remove a tumor in his brain. The surgeon
accidentally severed the connection between the emotional and logical parts
of his brain.
At first, everyone thought that the lawyer was going to be OK because all his
cognitive skills appeared intact. But it soon became obvious that the injury
was much more serious than anyone previously thought.
The lawyer became incompetent at his work, lost his job and was unable to
find employment as a lawyer. The doctors were completely puzzled until one
day one of the doctors asked the patient, When should we have our next
appointment?
The patient couldnt make up his mind. He was incapable of deciding. He
could list all the pros and cons for each available time during the next two
weeks, but he couldnt decide which one was best.
The problem was that without emotions or feelings to guide and give context
to his thoughts, the patient had no preferences. He couldnt make a simple
decision like when to have his next appointment.
This and other similar research shows that our emotions and feelings control
and trigger most of our decisions and actions, not our conscious logical
mind. Without emotions and feelings, out logical mind would be lost in an
endless sea of possibilities and pros/cons. Thats what happened to the
brilliant lawyer.
The weird thing is that most of us believe that our logical minds are in
control, but the truth is that most of these emotional impulses happen in our
subconscious mind, outside our conscious awareness.
We dont realize how much influence and power our emotions have over us
and because of that we never learn how to control them. Its only after the
fact that our conscious mind rationalizes our behavior to try to explain
what happened and why we behaved this way.
Emotional intelligence is a set of skills and abilities that allow us to become
aware of these powerful emotional influences and ultimately learn to control
and manage them.
Thats why your emotional intelligence (or EQ) is an integral component of
your personal core. It directly affects and influences your ability to achieve
your goals.
Without being aware of your emotions and without the ability to understand
and regulate them, youre going to have a much harder time achieving your
goals because youll keep struggling against them instead of using them to
get what you ultimately want.
There are two key takeaways from this section:
1) Emotional intelligence is something that you have the power to develop
and improve with practice. But its not going to happen by accident. You
have to put in the time and effort to develop this essential part of your
personal core.
2) Since your emotions play such an important role in your choices,
decisions and actions, you need to be aware of and proactively use their
influence as you work toward your goals. You cant ignore them.
That means creating strong, compelling, emotional reasons for setting and
achieving your goals. It means setting up conditions and planting seeds that
make your emotions work for you and not against you. It means realizing
when your emotions are getting in the way or when they are sabotaging
your progress so you can do something about it.
As you can imagine, understanding how to develop your emotional
intelligence and personal core is beyond the scope of this introductory
course. Im just mentioning it here so you realize how important it is. Our
advanced courses will deal with this important topic in much more detail.
Your Personal Health and Energy
In order to fully develop your personal core, you need to be aware of and
understand the relationship between your mind, your brain and your body.
Ive been talking about your personal core in terms of abstract concepts like
inner power, awareness, willpower, mental toughness, beliefs, focus,
confidence, attitude, etc. All those concepts are mind level concepts.
But if you think about it, your mind is directly linked with your physical
brain. Without the brain, there is no mind. Without a healthy functioning
brain, there is no willpower, no belief, no awareness, no inner power.
Similarly, your brain is part of your body. Your brain and your body are
deeply connected and interdependent. Your brain completely depends on
your body for oxygen, energy and nourishment. Without your body, your
brain cannot function or survive.
A healthy body helps your brain function better and more efficiently. It
provides more oxygen, more energy and better nourishments.
When you are tired, fatigued, out of shape or burnt out, your willpower,
confidence and mental toughness ARE affected by your physical state.
Thats why properly managing your personal energy and maintaining a
healthy body are integral components of a strong personal core. They affect
and influence everything else that you do.
If you are not leading a healthy lifestyle right now that gives you a strong
physical body, you may want to work on that first before you worry about
other aspects of your personal core.
Exercise # 1 Your Personal Core
Think about one aspect of your personal core, like your character, your
thinking skills, your health & energy, your values, your imagination, your
beliefs or your mental toughness, that has affected the way you execute and
perform your goals.
How much of a difference would it make if you were to start developing your
personal core to help you win the inner game in addition to learning more
goal setting techniques to help you win the outer game?
Where would you start? What aspect of your personal core would you
develop first?
Exercise # 2 Practice and Review Your New Mindsets
Begin to practice and review the new mindsets you are developing in this
course on a regular basis.
The resources section contains a PDF with all the Achievement Mindset
reminders in this eBook. Review these mindset reminders for at least 5
minutes once a day by repeating the statements as follows:
1) Read the statement aloud and spend a few seconds thinking about it. Just
let it sink in, then think about what it means and how you can apply it in
your life.
2) Read the statement again silently, close your eyes and visualize yourself
living in a way that is fully consistent with this new way of thinking. See how
its positively affecting your thoughts, your emotions and your actions.
See how your new way of thinking is changing who you are from the inside
out and how its helping you grow to the next level.
3) Read the statement again, and this time project yourself forward into the
future to see all the positive benefits that this new way of thinking has had
on your life and your goal achievement skills. Allow yourself to feel and
experience the positive emotions that youll feel as a result of your new level
of thinking.
As you think about and visualize your new mindsets you want to combine
the thinking, feeling, and doing aspects using your imagination.
Use this exercise in combination with the mindset conditioning tools included
with this program.
Exercise # 3 See Who You Can Become
Remember the quote from Einstein, Imagination is more powerful than
knowledge, which is true because imagination allows you to see whats
possible, not just what is?
Another reason why imagination is so powerful is that it allows you to see
yourself as the person you can become, not just as the person you are now.
Thats what I want you to do right after reviewing all the mindsets in
exercise 2. Spend just one or two minutes and see yourself becoming a
master of goal achievement. See yourself adopting and using all these
principles and putting them into practice whenever you think about setting,
planning, reviewing or taking action toward your goals.
See yourself having practiced and reviewed these principles so often, that
theyve become second nature to you. You cant help but think about them.
See yourself gradually becoming a natural goal achiever.
Exercise # 4 Winning The Inner Game
What are some of the inner game obstacles that you need to work on around
your focus goal to make sure that you release the brakes and allow yourself
to make progress toward it without unnecessary friction or effort?
What do you need to work on emotionally to make progress toward your
goal?
What do you need to work on physically (health/energy) to achieve your
goal?
Principle # 5 Progressive Realization
In order to create a desirable future, you first need to figure out what kind of
future you want. In other words, you need to define what success really
means for you.
Three common definitions of success are getting what you want, having a
life that you love and achieving something significant. Who could argue
with these definitions, right?
Well, there is one problem with defining success this way. What happens if
you dont already have what you want, or you dont already have a life that
you love, or you havent achieved something significant yet? Does that mean
you are not successful, or worse, a failure?
Defining success this way can lead to all or nothing thinking, which is the
belief that if you are not completely successful right now, then that means
you are not successful AT ALL. This way of thinking doesnt leave the
possibility for something in between.
People operating from this mindset assume that one day theyll take a giant
quantum leap from unsuccessful and frustrated to rich, happy and
successful. One day, theyll wake up and finally have what they want, or
finally have a life that they love. Then, and only then, they will be truly
successful.
The problem with this mindset is that it tricks you into looking for that
quantum leap, waiting for that big breakthrough that will take you from
nothing to everything in one fell swoop.
You wait and wait for that someday when youll have the time, the money,
the right strategy, or the right conditions to make that giant quantum leap
but that someday usually never comes.
Instead of consistent, focused, incremental effort directed toward your
goals, you wait for the big or lucky break, or you attempt a revolutionary
transformation that you hope will totally change you and your life overnight.
But as you learned in the previous lesson, thats not how life usually works.
Believing in the story of the giant leap or big break can actually keep you
from planting the seeds and taking the small daily actions that will ultimately
produce the results you want.
For example, many people dont exercise AT ALL because the only two
choices they see are getting a totally athletic and sculpted body like the ones
they see in the fitness magazines, or doing nothing.
Since all or nothing are the only choices they see, they often end up
choosing to do nothing they dont SEE the healthy possibility in between
the two extremes. They dont see the benefits of moderate exercise.
People operating from this all or nothing mindset also tend to act
inconsistently and give up too quickly or easily when facing struggle,
adversity, failures or setbacks, because they cant see the small daily
progress they are making toward their goals. They see all or nothing as the
only options, and therefore dont recognize the small victories in between as
true progress.
Another problem that usually comes from all or nothing thinking is the
snowball or what the hell effect that happens after a minor setback or
failure.
For example, someone who is trying to exercise and eat well could decide to
eat an entire pizza for dinner just because they were tempted to eat one
slice. In their mind, that one slice means theyve already gone from all to
nothing so they might as well blow their healthy diet in a really big way!
Someone operating from a progressive realization mindset would see that
one slice of pizza as a minor and temporary indulgence. Its not the end of
the world just a small setback. Because of their mindset, theyll find it
easier to get back on track and restore their healthy eating habits without
feeling like their healthy eating habit is shot and they might as well pig out
on the entire pizza.
Shift from All or Nothing to Progressive Realization
The progressive realization mindset takes another approach because it
understands that success is journey, not a destination; it rarely (if ever)
happens in one fell swoop. Rather, you go from making mostly poor or
destructive choices, to making better choices, to making great choices.
Legendary basketball coach John Wooden defined success for his players as
the peace of mind that comes from knowing that you made the effort to do
your best and to become the best that you are capable of becoming.
He didnt define success in terms or winning or losing games, but in terms of
playing the best basketball his team was capable of playing on any given
day. This definition starts to take success away from the outcome and
moves it inside of you and your actions.
One of my favorite definitions of success comes from Earl Nightingale, who
said, Success is the progressive realization of a worthy ideal.
People with the progressive realization mindset believe that success begins
the moment you make the decision and take the first step toward your own
worthy ideal, even when the external signs of success are not yet visible.
Progressive realization is important because successful people often fail
many times before finally making a breakthrough.
Most people only see the breakthrough, the rapid, explosive boom at the end
of the growth curve, but what they dont see is that all the previous failures
and all the slow, invisible growth earlier on in the process are what made the
big breakthrough possible.
But that part is not exciting, that part is not sexy. So the myth of the big
breakthrough and quantum leap from nothing to everything lives on.
Achievement Mindset
Success is the progressive realization of a
worthy ideal.
Take a look at the three stages below, and note the progression:
Poor Choices
- Self-doubt
- Inaction
- Resignation
- Self-sabotage
Better Choices
- Clarity
- Belief
- Taking small actions
- Focusing on strengths
Great Choices
- Building momentum
- Willingness to risk more
- Building a team
- Taking bigger actions
Results
- Poor results
- Stagnation
- Frustration
- Fear
- Limitation
Results
- Progress
- Growing confidence
- Optimism
- Eagerness for more
Results
- Greater progress
- Accomplishment
- Deepening belief in oneself
- Freedom
- Growing SUCCESS!
Again, this is a PROCESS. It is virtually impossible to start with poor choices
and habits and then immediately quantum leap to the choices and actions
responsible for long-term success and accomplishment. This type of
transformation takes some time, which is why progressive realization is such
a powerful mindset.
Progressive realization helps you take small steps every day toward your
goals. This consistent, focused daily action plants and nourishes the seeds
that will grow into the future your want.
Thoreau said, If one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams,
and endeavors to live the life which he has imagined, he will meet with
success unexpected in common hours.
Achievement Mindset
You need to keep advancing in the direction of
your dreams in small, consistent steps because
its unlikely youll get there in one giant leap.
Creating a Desirable Future While Enjoying the Journey
Another reason for shifting to a progressive realization mindset is that it
helps you avoid the common trap of postponing your current life in
anticipation of your more desirable future.
Instead of postponing your current life, you can actively participate in and
enjoy the creation process starting right where you are now.
Just as an artist finds tremendous joy in the process of creating a beautiful
painting, you can also find joy in the process of progressively realizing your
worthy ideal and creating a great life for yourself. You can truly enjoy
yourself in the present while you actively create a brighter future.
The mindset shift here is to enjoy the journey, the goal achievement process
itself, as much as the destination you are trying to reach.
People operating from the all or nothing mindset often see goals as
tedious, boring chores that they need to endure in order to be able to enjoy
the rewards at the end of the journey.
But achieving your goals doesnt have to involve doing work that you dislike,
or even hate. The more you can enjoy the process of setting and achieving
your goals, the more likely you are to continue with that process, and there
more likely you are to achieve your goals.
If you are as passionate about your journey as you are about your ultimate
destination, that passion will give you the energy and commitment to keep
making progress day after day and to overcome obstacles and setbacks that
stand in your way.
Makes sense, doesnt it?
One of the main reasons why people dont enjoy setting and achieving goals
is because theyre going after the wrong goals. For example, they may be
pursuing what they think they should want, rather than what they really
want. Or they may be pursuing someone elses goals instead of their own.
Or they may be pursuing goals that conflict with their purpose or with an
important value in their life.
Thats why becoming really clear about what you want and discovering your
purpose, mission, vision and values is so beneficial. It helps you select and
work on purposeful, values-based goals fueled by the burning desire
originating from your true purpose and vision of what is possible in your life.
Another reason people dont enjoy working on their goals is that they are not
focusing on their signature strengths. They either pick strategies that do not
leverage their strengths, or the try doing everything themselves, even the
parts that weaken them or that they dont enjoy.
Leveraging your signature strengths is a great way to help you enjoy the
process because they represent the things that you are not only good that,
but that you also love to do.
If you set up your goals so that they involve and engage your signature
strengths, youll not only enjoy the process much more, but youre also
much more likely to get what you want.
Its All Up To You
Your goal achievement journey can be as easy and enjoyable - or as difficult
and painful - as you want to make it. Why not have some fun with it?
Learn how to relax and enjoy yourself. Be willing to make mistakes, do some
exploring, or take a scenic detour from the path before you every now and
then.
Robert M. Pirsig said, To live only for some future goal is shallow. Its the
sides of the mountain that sustain life, not the top.
Achievement Mindset
You dont have to wait for the future to be
happy, instead you can find joy in the process
of progressively realizing your own worthy
ideal and creating a great life for yourself.
Recognizing Your Wins, Accomplishments and Progress
A great way to enjoy the journey and shift toward a progressive realization
mindset is to start acknowledging and recognizing your wins, victories, and
accomplishments, even when they seem small or insignificant to you.
While natural goal achievers are future oriented, they dont ignore the
present or the past. They regularly take time to remember and enjoy their
past successes and accomplishments because they know its a source of
inspiration and confidence that will help them continue making steady
progress and overcome difficulties that lie ahead.
Progress Builds Momentum, Confidence and Desire
Another consequence of the progressive realization mindset is that you
naturally break up large goals into smaller intermediate targets and steps.
You naturally look for ways you can make progress now, instead of waiting
for a giant quantum leap later.
The result is that you make your goal much more real because you are
experiencing parts of it on a regular basis. Recognizing and experiencing
progress builds momentum and increases your confidence and belief in your
ability to get what you want. Progress also fuels your desire and helps you
push through obstacles and setbacks.
Gratitude & Appreciation For The Present
Natural achievers also develop an attitude of gratitude for the present
because they know that the present is the only time that actually exists.
They appreciate and enjoy what they already have even when thinking
strategically about the future they want. This helps them enjoy the journey
and puts them in a great frame of mind for pursuing their dreams and goals
with passion, energy and focus.
Exercise # 1 Clarify Your Definition of Success
Most of us have beliefs and rules about what success is or what it means
to be successful. The problem is that we are often completely unaware of
these beliefs, and most of the time they tend to promote all or nothing
thinking.
In this exercise, youre going to dig deep and identify your beliefs about
what success means to you in your career or personal life, and your rules
about when you can feel successful. Once you are clear about these beliefs,
you can start to change them into more empowering and positive beliefs.
Youll learn how to do this later in the program.
Exercise # 2 Become Aware of All or Nothing Thinking
Think about your current goals, dreams and aspirations, and consider if you
may be using all or nothing thinking to fool yourself into preparing to
someday take a giant leap, or into waiting for the big or lucky break to show
up.
Write about it in your workbook.
Exercise # 3 Convert to Progressive Realization
If you identified any goals, dreams or aspirations in exercise # 2 where you
may have used all or nothing thinking in the past, start the shift to the
progressive realization mindset by:
1) Selecting one small action step that you can take this week to bring you
one step closer toward one of those goals.
2) Identifying one small intermediate target, victory or milestone that you
can work toward now to prove to yourself that you are making steady
progress toward your goal.
3) Start taking small steps toward your goal and continue making consistent
progress over time.
Principle # 6 Follow a Winning Recipe
Almost anything you want to do or achieve has already been done by
someone else. Instead of reinventing the wheel and trying to figure
everything out on your own, its much easier to learn from others and follow
a winning recipe to get what you want. Theyve already made their mistakes
and theyve already found a good path. It only makes sense to learn from
them and follow in their footsteps.
If you can find someone who has already figured it out, you can leverage his
or her knowledge, skills, and experience. Its almost like getting a winning
recipe for you to follow.
Obviously, you also need to know and understand what you are doing, and
you need to adopt the right mindset, but having the winning recipe gives
you a shortcut on your journey. It means less time, less money, less stress,
and fewer problems along the way.
This process is called modeling; you are modeling what someone else has
done in order to achieve the kind of success they achieved. By studying the
activities, techniques and strategies that have brought success to other
people, and uncovering the process that they used to get to where they are
now, you can shortcut the learning process and speed up your own success
considerably.
Achievement Mindset
Instead of reinventing the wheel, follow a
winning recipe and save yourself some time,
money, stress and effort in the process.
How to Get What You Really Want
One of the areas where you can definitely use a winning recipe is in the area
of goals, because effective goal achievement is a repeatable process.
The Goals to Action system gives you a winning recipe for setting and
achieving your goals. But its also more than just a recipe because it
incorporates higher-level concepts, like the mindsets, programming, and
principles you are learning in this program, as well as other important ideas
youll learn about later.
Ingredients for the Ultimate Goal Achievement Recipe
Texas oil billionaire H.L. Hunt said that there are only two ingredients
necessary for achievement
1. Decide exactly what it is that you want.
2. Determine the price you have to pay to get what you want, and then
resolve to pay that price in full by establishing your priorities and
getting to work.
I think you would have a hard time finding any significant achievement that
doesnt include these two ingredients.
Now you may be asking, if its so simple, why doesnt everyone do it?
Simply put, Hunts insights are simple - they are not easy or obvious.
The reality is that many people never get past the first step. They never
decide what it is that they really want.
Mark Twain said, I can teach anybody how to get what they want out of life.
The problem is I cant find anybody who can tell me what they want.
People think they know what they want, usually something generic like,
being rich or, having a better job, but its just a vague notion. They
never get past that first hurdle.
Thats why the principle of Living Your Purpose and the clarity that it
provides are so important and why its the first secret you learned about in
this program.
Those who do figure out what they want often never take the next step of
paying the price for it. They dont understand that you have to pay the
price in full before you can claim the rewards.
Whats the price you need to pay? It all boils down to taking effective action!
Natural achievers understand that focused, consistent and effective action is
an essential part of paying the price; they know what they need to do to get
what they want, and then they do it.
Most people either dont know what they need to do, or even when they do
know what to do, they still dont do it. Just because you know what to do, it
doesnt mean that youll know how to do it, or that youll be able to do it.
Adding Some Missing Ingredients to the Mix
Hunt said that his ingredients were the only necessary ingredients for
achievement. While he was probably right, adding some missing
ingredients to the mix can dramatically increase your probability of success
and the quality of results you experience.
The missing ingredients are:
Believing its possible and that youre capable of getting it As
Henry Ford put it, Whether you believe that you can do a thing or
not; you are right! If you dont truly believe you can achieve your
goals, your chances of achieving them are almost zero.
Believing youre worthy of having it This is a crucial ingredient
because one of the biggest psychological barriers to higher levels of
achievement is the feeling or belief that, deep down, you dont really
deserve to get what you want. This barrier is much more common and
powerful than most people first imagine.
Persistence, learning & flexibility Your ability to bounce back and
continue through setbacks, obstacles and temporary defeats while
having the flexibility to change your approach is critical for long-term
achievement.
Your personal core Represents what you bring to the table in
terms of your inner power, character, mindset, beliefs and attitude.
Your dream team You can accomplish some goals by yourself, but
to achieve most goals, youll need the help of your own dream team of
mentors, advisors, supporters, and partners helping you each step of
the way. Youll learn more about dream teams in part two of the
program.
A Winning Recipe Can Make All the Difference
While most of these ingredients are present in virtually every success, by
themselves, they dont tell the whole story. After all, could you bake a cake
knowing only the ingredients that you need to put into the mix? Wouldnt it
be much easier if you also had the recipe?
Having a winning recipe or strategy for combining all the ingredients in a
meaningful way can make all the difference.
The Goals to Action system helps you get clear on what you really want and
then to systematically pay the price in order to get it. It provides the
ingredients and the recipe you need to get what you really want.
When you combine all these ingredients using the Ultimate Goal
Achievement Process youll learn about later in this program, youll discover
a winning strategy for achieving your most important goals.
If you also take the time to clarify your life purpose and discover what you
really want in life, youll be much more likely to meet your fundamental
emotional, physical, social and spiritual needs and experience the fulfillment,
satisfaction and happiness that comes from achieving what matters most to
you.
Unleashing The Power of Goals
Learning to set effective, meaningful goals is one of the biggest steps you
can take toward expressing your life purpose and progressively realizing
your own worthy ideal.
Yet, according to recent surveys, only one out of every five people even
bothers to think about goals seriously, and most only do so as part of the
New Years resolution tradition.
Of all the people who do set goals, the vast majority quickly forget about
them and never actually achieve them. Thats because only 5% bother to
write down their goals, and only about 3% actively plan and review their
goals regularly.
If goals are such powerful tools, then why dont more people use them
effectively?
Part of the reason is all the mindsets and principles you are learning in this
program. Without knowing and using them, achieving goals becomes much
more difficult.
But beyond the mindsets and principles, there are some common challenges
that prevent most people from using goals effectively.
Challenge # 1 Not Having a Good Reason to Use Goals
Like I mentioned before, goals can help you get what you want, but they
wont help you figure out what you want. You have to be clear about what
you really want before you can use goals to get it.
Setting goals becomes meaningless if you just pick them at random, you
select them because they sound good, or because they represent what
others expect from you. In order to be effective and meaningful, you must
derive your goals from a deeper sense of purpose, a compelling vision of a
desirable future, and what you truly feel is most important for a good life.
Thats where the Life Planning Workshop program comes in; it will help you
get clear about what it is you want out of life and why you want it. By the
time you finish, you will have discovered and defined your lifes purpose,
your vision and mission, your values, and your guiding principles. These
serve as a great foundation for setting inspiring and meaningful goals that
pull you toward them, rather than having to constantly rely on motivation to
push yourself.
Most goal systems recognize the importance of having clarity of purpose, but
few do well in helping you achieve that clarity. The Life Planning Workshop is
designed to lead your through this specific process so that you have a clear
focus on what you are trying to achieve.
Challenge # 2 Something is Blocking or Limiting Them
Gibbons are small, slender apes that live in Southeast Asia. Exhibit designers
in the Khao Kheow Open Zoo in Thailand wanted to create an exhibit where
people could see gibbons going about their normal lives without cages or
other man-made obstacles obstructing the view. Their solution was to build
the gibbon exhibit on an artificial island.
Since gibbons have a strong fear of water, the water surrounding the island
serves as a very effective psychological barrier that prevents the gibbons
from leaving their territory. The designers were able to create an exhibit
without having to use meshes or fences because of the power of the
psychological barrier.
Our default biological programming and the psychological barriers that it
creates can also keep us trapped in our own little life exhibits reluctant to
face risks or take action. Psychological barriers such as fear, worrying too
much about what others think, limiting beliefs, and doubt can block us from
trying to escape the confines of our current life circumstances.
Psychological barriers can also create self-sabotage and other
counterproductive, self-destructive behaviors that limit our success and lead
us back to our old patterns, results and circumstances.
These barriers are sometimes more difficult to overcome than physical
barriers because most of the time we dont even realize they are there.
Thats why the Goals to Action system balances the inner game of goal
achievement, including your programming, mindsets and the personal core
concept, with the outer game how to techniques, methods and tools you
can use to set and achieve your goals.
As you can imagine, both are critically important and work together to help
you get what you want.
Challenge # 3 Not Achieving the Goals That They Set
Many people get stuck while trying to achieve their goals because they pick
flawed strategies that have little chance of actually working. Worse, they
dont realize that its not working and continue doing the same things over
and over again. They dont have enough awareness to recognize that their
strategy is not working, or they dont have enough flexibility to change their
approach.
Others operate under the assumption that they can just use force, effort or
hard work to make any strategy work. The truth is that if you are using a
flawed strategy, no amount of work, effort or force is going to make it work
well.
This is a difficult mindset to get around because most of us are raised to
believe that the solution to problems is simply to work harder, to push or
force our way through the problem. Our mind keeps telling us, If you
havent achieved your goal, its because you havent tried hard enough, you
havent worked enough, you havent put in the required effort.
In many cases, its not lack of effort but a flawed strategy that prevents
people from achieving their goals. When you run against a brick wall,
pushing harder and harder to get through the wall is not the answer; you
need to find a way around it.
That requires not only the willingness, but also the ability to change your
approach; some people are not flexible enough to do that because either
they dont see the other options, or they simply dont want to change. This
lack of flexibility can also be a challenge for setting goals in the first place.
Using a systematic goal achievement process that incorporates learning,
feedback and flexibility is a great way to increase your probability of
Another reason people dont achieve the goals they set is that they lose
motivation and momentum, especially when the going gets tough.
While its important to know how to motivate and push yourself from time to
time, if you constantly need to psych yourself up and force yourself to follow
through on your goals, then youre probably using a flawed strategy or you
are working on the wrong goals.
This is usually what happens when you set goals based on what you think
you SHOULD want, or what others expect from you, rather than what you
truly want.
Natural achievers dont need to constantly push themselves to work on their
goals because they feel inspired and drawn to work on them. They do what
they do because they want to, not because they have to.
They also know how to set themselves up for success by incorporating their
goals into their environment, habits, routines and lifestyle so that goal
achievement becomes part of their normal routine and doesnt require
constant motivation.
Sure, natural achievers go through periods where they do have to push
themselves to make progress, but these are the exception rather than the
rule.
Challenge # 4 Setting the Wrong Goals
Goals truly are powerful achievement tools, but they dont care whether they
are good or bad for you. They arent interested in whether they are
congruent with your values and purpose, whether youve set them for the
right reasons, or whether they are really your goals or someone elses.
If you are not careful, goals can help you achieve outcomes that you dont
really want. When that happens, achieving your goals wont bring you true
fulfillment or lasting happiness.
Remember the author who blamed goal setting for his spending countless
hours at the office, ruining his marriage and being stuck for many years in a
career he didnt enjoy?
He was so good at pushing himself and forcing himself to do what was
needed to achieve his goals that he never noticed the devastating effects his
goals were having on his life and relationships.
Blaming goals for your misfortunes is very much like using a power drill to
drill a hole in your skull and then blaming the power drill for your headache.
A goal is a tool. How you use it is entirely up to you.
Thats why being clear about what you really want before you set and
achieve your goals is so important and why Im emphasizing it so much in
this course.
Besides, you are much less likely to actually achieve false, inauthentic goals
that are not right for you because youll experience inner conflicts that will
sabotage your progress, and you wont feel the burning desire, the inner
drive that helps you persevere through challenges and obstacles.
Challenge # 5 Not Finding Enough Time for Goals
This is a common challenge. Some people come up with excuse after excuse
as to why they cant set goals right now. They might say, Ill set goals
someday when things settle down a bit and I find more time. Somehow,
they never end up finding the time.
If you wait until you find enough time, its never going to happen. You must
MAKE time for your dreams and goals.
The good news is that goal setting doesnt have to take up a lot of your
time. In fact, if you do it gradually using the incremental Goals to Action
approach, you actually end up saving time in the long run.
If you are truly overwhelmed by everything you need to do, then improving
your time management skills may be your number one priority right now so
you can regain some control over your life and get some room to breathe.
Once you get past this point, you MUST make time for goals.
Paradoxically, not taking adequate time for setting and achieving your goals
may be the very reason why you feel so busy, disorganized, and like you are
just spinning your wheels.
Challenge # 6 Falling Into the Goal Setting TRAP
The trap is simply setting too many goals all at once, or having unrealistic
expectations of what you can accomplish in a short timeframe.
Many people get inspired around New Years and set goals for every
conceivable aspect of their life: health, fitness, spouse, kids, community,
spiritual, learning, career, money, toys, etc. They quickly realize there is no
way they can handle all of it, get overwhelmed and give up before even
getting started.
Does this sound familiar? Take heart. By being interested in changing all
these areas in your life, it may indicate you know exactly what you want,
and thats good. You simply need to use a more gradual, focused approach
to set realistic and achievable goals.
Unfortunately, we often fail to realize that it is far easier to think about doing
something than it is to actually DO it especially if were trying to achieve
something radically different than what were currently used to.
With every goal you set, understand that there is going to be a period of
transition as you work toward it. You cant expect to make a giant leap from
mailroom clerk to CEO in a matter of weeks, or lose 50 pounds in a month,
or go from being a couch potato to a marathon runner without first
undertaking months of training.
Try to think of goal achievement as a muscle.
What would happen if you went into the gym and tried lifting too much
weight? You might strain or tear a muscle.
To get stronger, muscles need gradual increases in resistance. Like any
muscle, the more you use it the stronger it gets, but you have to do it
gradually.
Achieving your goals is the same: you have to start small and gradually
build up.
Overcoming the Challenges
These challenges are a direct result of the default mindsets that most of us
grow up with. Thats why its so important to upgrade your thinking before
you start trying to set and achieve your goals.
Adopting new and more effective ways of thinking will naturally address
these common challenges in profound and lasting ways.
Why Use Goals
The practice of defining, planning, reviewing, thinking about and taking
action on your goals can help you think the way natural achievers think.
If you approach goal setting the right way, youll see it as a tool to help you
develop and practice the thinking habits, beliefs and mindsets that top
achievers use to get the results they do.
This is the main reason why goal setting works. If you allow it, it can help
change the way you think, the way you see the opportunities and problems
in your life, the way you approach the solutions, and ultimately, the way you
behave and take action.
While some natural goal achievers may not go through all the motions of
setting, planning and reviewing their goals out in the open, its only because
the process has become so natural for them that they do it at an
unconscious level, often without even thinking about it. Theyve been doing
it for so long, that its become second nature for them.
For the rest of us, who havent gotten to the point where thinking this way is
completely automatic, goal setting is a powerful tool that helps us remember
to think and act the way they do.
Achievement Mindset
Unleash the power of goals to help you live
your purpose, create the future you want to
see, and progressively realize your own worthy
ideal.
Exercise # 1 Goal Achievement Challenges
In this exercise, you are going to review the common goal achievement
challenges to see if they have blocked your progress in the past. This will
help you pay extra attention to these areas as you progress through the rest
of the course.
For each challenge, make a small note of one key insight or lesson that
youve learned regarding that challenge from this course and what you are
going to do about it.
Exercise # 2 Find A Winning Recipe For Your Focus Goal
In this exercise, you are going to find a winning recipe related to your focus
goal that you can model. See if there is someone who has already achieved
what you want to do (or something similar) and learn as much as you can
about them and how they did it.
One of the most difficult things about modeling is learning to look for the
things that actually make a difference in results. Thats because there are
actually four levels to modeling
1) Actions and techniques At this level, you focus on specific actions or
techniques. An example of a technique could be a particular basketball shot,
a technique the writer uses to flesh out a character, or Gauss technique for
adding up the numbers between 1 and 100.
The problem with modeling only at this level is that youre likely to miss
something essential, like small nuances that can make a big difference
between mediocre and exceptional results.
Its also easy to overlook the stages of development that one must go
through to develop the knowledge, experience and skills needed to carry out
the behavior consistently.
Youll improve MUCH faster by learning and mastering the fundamentals,
rather than just trying to blindly copy the advanced techniques of someone
at a much higher stage of development.
2) Strategies This level focuses on strategies, which are sequences or
collections of actions arranged in a specific way to produce a more complex
result. Strategies are more difficult to model because you need to figure out
the connections between the different actions and how they are related to
each other. These relationships and connections are not always obvious.
3) Beliefs and Mindsets This level focuses on the beliefs, thinking and
mindsets (the programming) that lead to the strategies and behavior. This
is an even more difficult level to model, but its also much more powerful.
If you miss the mindset in your modeling, its possible for you to copy and
use the same strategies and techniques as someone else, but still not get
the same results. This usually means that theres something that you still
dont get youre missing something essential at the mindset level.
4) Development Process This level focuses on the development
PROCESS that someone else used to get to where they are now. This is
probably the most difficult level to model, but it can lead to the greatest and
fastest improvements.
This is the type of modeling that a good teacher or coach can bring to the
table, because they can show you what you need to do to grow from where
you are now and become the person that you want to be.
This level acknowledges that you dont go from novice to master in one
quantum leap, but that you need to go through a series of stages of
development. You need to learn the fundamentals and upgrade your thinking
before you can master more advanced techniques.
A professional athlete who really wants to improve would be smart to hire a
great coach who can help him or her master the game, and model the
practice habits, routines and strategies of better players, rather than just
focusing on copying the moves the better players use during the game.
Principle # 7 Take Small Steps in a Spirit of
Continuous Improvement
Two common reasons why so many people struggle to set and achieve their
goals are
1. They attempt to do too much right from the start. They get excited
about setting goals and getting better results, and they go all out trying to
set and achieve challenging goals in every area of their life at the same
time.
2. They try to make changes that are too big. When people consider
making a change in their life, many immediately think of a revolutionary
change a large radical transformation that occurs in a short burst of time.
This occurs every January when thousands of people all across the country
join a gym as part of a New Years resolution. They sign up and immediately
begin a strenuous exercise routine involving many minutes of cardio and
strength training.
But it ends up being too much for them to handle all at once and most quit
within the first month.
Part of the reason why people tend to bite off more than they can chew
when it comes to setting goals is that it seems natural that if you want big
results then you need to make big changes.
Its just common sense, right?
Making small changes is actually counterintuitive; its not obvious that small
steps can lead to big results down the line. Thats why youll often hear
about the need to make big massive changes to produce big results.
Two common examples are starting with a new strenuous exercise routine or
completely overhauling your diet.
Dont get me wrong. There is nothing wrong with revolutionary change, and
it can lead to some amazing results when it actually works.
The problem is that revolutionary change is often difficult to implement, and
sometimes even more difficult to sustain. The same is true of trying to
implement too many changes at once it just gets too overwhelming.
Goals to Action suggests a gentler approach to goal achievement based on
the principles of a Japanese philosophy called Kaizen, which Dr. Robert
Maurer further developed in his book One Small Step Can Change Your Life.
Kaizen is a philosophy of continual improvement through small, incremental
changes. It is an approach to change that usually works better and more
reliably than revolutionary change, especially when you are just getting
started learning how to set and achieve goals.
Just because you take small steps doesnt necessarily mean that you have to
miss out on the big results, in fact, in many cases it may even make it more
likely that youll achieve them. Small changes can, and often do, add up to
produce big results.
Legendary basketball coach John Wooden said, When you improve a little
each day, eventually big things occur. When you improve conditioning a little
each day, eventually you have a big improvement in conditioning. Not
tomorrow, not the next day, but eventually a big gain is made. Dont look for
the big, quick improvement. Seek small improvements one day at a time.
Thats the only way it happens - and when it happens, it lasts.
The Kaizen approach to goal achievement has several other advantages
You learn and practice the process of achieving your goals while
focusing on a small number of goals
You learn how to incorporate goal achievement practices into your
daily life
You get your first goals off to a great start
You build momentum around goal achievement that can carry you
through your next goals
You gradually develop your personal core and build up your goal
setting muscles
You learn how to integrate time management and goal setting without
getting totally overwhelmed
You progress and grow through the stages naturally at your own pace
Once you feel ready to take on more, you can easily add new goals into the
system.
Achievement Mindset
Small changes can, and often do, add up to
produce big results. Dont look for the big,
quick improvement. Seek small improvements
one day at a time. Thats often the only way it
happens - and when it happens, it lasts.
History of Kaizen
The literal translation of the word Kaizen is change for the better or
continuous improvement. The philosophy of Kaizen combines these two
interpretations and represents a way of making small incremental changes in
a spirit of continuous improvement.
Kaizen got its start as a concept to help American manufacturers ramp up
production of military supplies during World War II.
The US government initiated a management training program to help
manufacturing companies develop ways to increase production. One of the
ideas in this program was the concept of continuous improvement.
Rather than asking managers to make big or radical changes in their
manufacturing process or equipment, it urged them to look for many small
improvements to increase quality and efficiency.
Dr. W. Edwards Deming, one of the strongest supporters of continuous
improvement, and others in the program recognized that revolutionary
changes in the manufacturing process were much too risky and difficult to
implement across all the factories in the US in the short time they had
available.
Instead, they involved the entire workforce and encouraged everyone, from
top executives to janitors, to think about and suggest ways to improve
quality and productivity in their work areas.
Managers took all suggestions seriously, irrespective of the source, and
quickly implemented many of the changes since they were small,
inexpensive, and easy to make.
While it may seem counterintuitive that such small changes could affect the
productivity of entire factories, the results speak for themselves.
The small changes added up and led to significant increases in both quality
and productivity. The resulting increase in production of military supplies
and equipment was an important contributing factor for the Allied victory in
World War II.
After the war, America lost interest in the continuous improvement principles
as factories returned to normal production levels. The United States was
far ahead in manufacturing compared to other countries, and with little
foreign competition, there was no need to keep or further develop the
productivity gains achieved during the war.
However, General Douglass MacAruthur introduced Japanese companies to
the concept as a way to boost their war-ravaged economy. They effectively
boosted production even with limited industrial resources and gave the
principles the name Kaizen.
Toyota Motor Corporation is perhaps the best known example of a company
that embraced the Kaizen philosophy early on and applied it to its
manufacturing process.
Toyota Motor Corporation recently overtook Ford as the number 2
automaker in the United States, a position that Ford had held for over 75
years!
The inescapable conclusion is that Kaizen works small changes can, and
often do, lead to big results!
Today, these ideas have evolved into practices like six-sigma and lean
manufacturing that many Fortune 500 companies like General Electric have
come to embrace.
Kaizen and Personal Change
While Kaizen is mostly associated with business and manufacturing
processes, the same philosophy of small incremental changes in a spirit of
continuous improvement can also apply to your goals.
The Kaizen approach is not based on the notion that we need to fix our
lives to be successful. Rather, it is based on the idea of enhancing our lives
in a spirit of balance and continuous improvement with the aim of growing,
expanding our horizons, and developing our full potential as human beings.
While its true that some goals do respond better to a revolutionary change
approach, most goals work much better with the Kaizen approach
especially when you are first getting started with goal setting.
Start by setting one manageable goal for one specific part of your life. Work
the goal achievement process on this one goal until you build momentum.
Then you can start working on the next goal, or on a slightly bigger goal.
Eventually, youll make enough progress that you feel comfortable with
setting goals in another aspect of your life, then another, and another, but
youll do it in a balanced and gradual way rather than trying to change
everything at once.
Natural Resistance to Change
People often associate goal setting and personal development with
revolutionary transformation. They see it as an all or nothing deal, where
you need to make a radical transformation in one or more areas of your life
in a short amount of time.
They read about and prepare to make some massive changes in their lives,
but in the end, they never actually take meaningful action because of all the
inner resistance and overwhelm that they feel.
Most people have a natural resistance to this kind of revolutionary change.
This is partly because our brain likes predictable routines and resists any big
changes in our daily life, even if they are good for us.
Homeostatic mechanisms deep within your brain are constantly urging you
back to your comfort zone the habits and routines youve become
accustomed to.
It works much like the thermostat that keeps your home warm during the
winter and cool during the summer. If the temperature in your house gets
too cold, the thermostat turns on the furnace. If it gets too warm, it turns on
the air conditioning.
In terms of behavior, your subconscious tries to keep your future actions
consistent with your self-image, past actions, and past routines. When you
stray outside your comfort zone, you feel uneasy, tense, and
uncomfortable and that tends to draw you back normal.
The level of discomfort you experience is usually proportional to the size and
speed of change. Quick or large changes create the most discomfort and
tension. It is important to realize that this happens whether the change you
are trying to make is good for you or bad for you.
Whenever you try to consciously move outside your comfort zone, your
internal thermostat uses three tools to hold you back:
1. Fear - Your brain uses your natural fear of change to trigger the fight-or-
flight response whenever you step into unfamiliar territory.
While this response can actually help you perform better in some
circumstances, like when an actor has to give a performance, it often
hinders your ability to make the changes you want, particularly if you feel
overwhelmed or unsure about what you need to do.
2. Discomfort Discomfort is another way your internal thermostat
encourages you to stop trying to change, because we all have a natural
tendency to avoid discomfort.
3. Overwhelm As you think about the change you want to make, the
enormity of it overwhelms you and leads to procrastination or paralysis.
Thats why so many experience the motivational speaker letdown after
attending a seminar. At first, people get really excited about making huge
changes in their life, but soon lose all momentum when the resistance kicks
in. Many dont end up making any lasting changes at all.
In addition to your own internal resistance, you may also experience
external resistance from others around you, like your significant other,
parents, family, friends, co-workers, and even your community. This is
because any change that you make also affects them and their comfort
zones, triggering their own resistance to the change.
Why the Kaizen Approach Works
The amount of resistance and discomfort you feel is proportional to the
speed and size of the changes you want to make. Think of a rubber band...
when you stretch it a lot, you can get quite a bit of resistance. But if you
only stretch it a little bit, you wont feel much resistance at all.
The Kaizen approach works so well because it involves making small
incremental changes that generate much less resistance, fear, and
overwhelm. It helps you stay close to your comfort zone while still making
steady progress.
Kaizen makes it easier to muster the courage, belief and willpower you need
to stick with the changes you are making, persist at those changes, and take
that next small step.
Over time, these small continuous changes shift your comfort zone toward
your new habits and routines until they feel normal and natural.
The Kaizen approach also helps you overcome external resistance from
others because it is easier for them to accept the small changes you are
making and gives them plenty of time to adjust.
Achievement Mindset
Small steps can help you make changes that
would have caused a great deal of resistance,
discomfort, and overwhelm if you had tried to
make them in one big leap.
A good friend of mine, who wanted to get in better shape and do more
exercise, joined a gym and signed up with a personal trainer.
I dont know if this trainer was particularly bad or inexperienced, but she put
my friend through a really strenuous workout on their first session together.
In fact, the next day he was so sore that he could hardly move. My friend
went back for his next session a couple of days later and had a similar
experience.
Its not hard to imagine why my friend quit the gym after just two sessions.
Because of this experience, he gave up exercise completely for about a year.
Even to this day, we still joke about how she would tell him to assume the
position before putting him through the ringer. It was like he was being
punished for bad behavior.
I think its easy to see that if my friend had used a more gradual approach,
he probably would have been much more successful.
If he had made the goal to spend just 15 minutes weight training, instead of
trying for 60 minutes right off the bat, or if he had attempted 1/4 mile of
jogging instead of going for 2 miles, then he would have given his body
plenty of time to adjust and recover to the new demands.
He would have been much closer to his comfort zone, had a chance to
become comfortable with working out, and been much more likely to
succeed.
How often have you started to make a positive change, whether
participating in a new fitness program, getting rid of an old habit, taking on
a new challenge, or learning a skill, only to abandon it after a short time?
Or even worse, how many times have you not even attempted to make a
positive change at all because it seemed too big and overwhelming?
Shift from Focusing Only on the Big Gap to Small Steps
in a Spirit of Continuous Improvement
Right now, you may be thinking that it will take forever to get where you
want to go in life. You may feel that the challenge is too big, the road is too
difficult, and the obstacles are too intimidating. You may not even fully
believe that its possible, at least not for you.
Thats usually what happens when you focus only on the big gap between
where you are now and where you ultimately want to be.
Dont get me wrong, its important to think regularly about your ultimate
purpose to help you see if you are still moving in the right direction, and
keeping in touch with your ultimate vision can be very inspiring and
motivating.
For example, athletes will often think about winning a gold medal in the
Olympics and draw a burning desire and inspiration from that vision to keep
themselves motivated to train hard and improve.
However, if you ONLY focus on the big gap, the motivation and inspiration
that it initially provides can quickly turn into frustration and disappointment
if you start to see the small steps you are taking now as insignificant.
When you only see the big gap standing before you, its easy to think that
only big, massive steps can get you across, and that taking small steps is a
waste of time that will limit you to small results.
The problem with this mindset is that big, massive steps are great when
they work, but they are often difficult to implement, and even more difficult
to sustain. Big, massive steps tend to create big fear, resistance and
overwhelm, and can even prevent you from getting started at all.
Instead of only focusing on the big gap between where you are now and
where you want to be, narrow your focus to each small step you take along
the path to your ultimate purpose and vision.
Continuing to Build Your Momentum
The best part is that the goal achievement process tends to create its own
momentum. You start by clarifying what you really want and then taking
small steps, both mentally and physically, to progressively move you in that
direction.
As you make progress, youll begin strengthening your desire for more,
increasing your belief in yourself and your capabilities, and taking more
steps toward the life you truly desire and then BOOM! More and more
opportunities begin to show up in your life as you get closer to the explosive
part of the curve.
As your knowledge, mindset, environment, support, habits and skills
improve, youll begin to NATURALLY gravitate toward choices and actions
that support your deepest desires.
Youll begin to feel a natural urge to do the things you know will express
your purpose, rather than shying away from them as you may have in the
past. Momentum will naturally increase your desire, confidence and belief.
But it all starts with a single, small step toward your dreams.
Kaizen in the Goals to Action System
The Goals to Action system uses the Kaizen approach to help you get started
with goal setting. Youll start small and work your way up. Instead of trying
to figure out everything about your life at the same time, you are going to
focus on your purpose and one specific area of your life to get the process
started.
This will help you go through the whole system from start to finish focusing
only on one or two goals. Youll not only learn how to work the system, but
youll build some momentum and get some real tangible results.
You can then add bigger and more challenging goals into the system and
incorporate other parts of your life but only AFTER youve started and built
some momentum.
Exercise # 1 Take One Small Step
Whats one small step that you can take right now to move you closer to
your most important goal?
Do you need to start reading a new book? Talk to someone? Make a call?
Walk for two minutes every day this week? Do some research on the
Internet? Put the Ultimate Goal Achievement Process into action?
What one small step are you going to take this week?
Principle # 8 Combine Wisdom and Execution
Goal setting and time management are very closely related, like two sides of
the same coin, because you NEED time in order to achieve your goals and
goals help you focus, prioritize and spend your time wisely.
If you boil down the process of effective goal achievement down to its bare
essence, you get two main steps:
1. Choose the right things to do,
2. Execute and get them done.
If you have taken some of our time management courses, youll notice that
these are the same essential steps for effective time management. Thats
because one of the best ways to spend your time is to use it to achieve goals
that help you create a desirable future and get the results you want in life.
The formula for effective goal achievement is
Results = WISDOM x EXECUTION
Wisdom means knowing what is true and right, and having good judgment
regarding the actions you need to take. Wisdom helps you choose the right
outcomes to pursue and choose the right strategies to achieve those
outcomes.
Execution means doing things effectively and efficiently
Effectively so you can get the results that you intended.
Efficiently so that you dont waste too much time, energy or effort.
Wisdom x Execution
Notice that the formula is Wisdom times Execution, not plus. The reason is
that you actually need both wisdom and execution to achieve your goals and
manage your time well.
(High) Wisdom (Low)
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Helpless
If someone has high wisdom but low execution, then they are a dreamer.
They may know what they want and have great intentions, but they
probably have no results to show for it.
If someone has high execution but low wisdom, then they are aimless. They
may get a lot done, feel very busy, but still not get the results that matter
most to them.
If someone has low wisdom and low execution, then they probably feel lost
and powerless.
To make excellent use of your time while achieving your most important
goals, you need both wisdom and execution. The good news is that virtually
anyone can improve both of these dimensions. You can gain more wisdom or
learn to execute better.
The Tower Model
Youll often see a time management tower model used to show the
relationships between these two important areas, with task-based time
management at the bottom and purpose/goals at the top.
The objective of this model is to link wisdom, which helps you choose the
right things to do, with execution, which helps you get them done.
According to this model, wisdom flows down from your purpose, mission and
vision, and execution happens down at the bottom with projects and tasks.
Goals serve as the bridge between the two parts of the tower.
The time management tower model is useful for showing the different
perspectives that each of the levels provides: Purpose sits at the top and
gives you a birds eye view of everything, while tasks and daily actions are
at the bottom because thats where the rubber meets the road.
This idea of having different levels of perspective is very valuable because
its often difficult to see the big picture when you are focusing all your
attention on your daily tasks and actions.
You sometimes do need to zoom out, take a step back, and view your life
from a different perspective in order to gain insights and wisdom that you
just cant get while executing tasks or living from moment to moment.
Connecting Your Daily Actions to Your Purpose, Mission,
Vision and Goals
In practice, many people get stuck at the lower levels of the tower and
dont take advantage of the wisdom, insight and perspective that the top
part of the tower provides.
Some people get stuck at the lower levels because they dont have a
systematic way of linking their purpose and goals to their daily actions. They
may go through the motions of the top levels at the start, but never find a
way to integrate them into their daily life.
Other people get stuck at the lower levels because they become so busy
getting things done that they get lost in the day-to-day details of their life
and they forget about the top part of the tower. They become so distracted
by their constant activity, that they cant see the forest for the trees.
You may be wondering, So what? Whats so bad about not paying attention
to the top part of the tower? After all, if Im getting a lot of stuff done, Im
well organized, Im not feeling overwhelmed or stressed anymore, and I
finally have a system that helps me feel in control, why do I need anything
else?
Theres an old story about a traveler who comes across a woodsman who is
frantically trying to cut down a bunch of trees. Although the woodsman is
working very hard, the traveler notices that his ax is getting dull and the
woodsman is making little progress cutting down the trees.
The woodsman is working much harder than he needs to be and he is not
really producing the results that he wants.
The traveler asks the woodsman why he doesnt take time to sharpen the
ax, since it would not only make his job easier but also more effective. The
woodsman replies that since hes so busy, he simply doesnt have time to
stop and sharpen his ax.
I love this story because it works on many different levels.
On one level, it gives us insights on how our actions relate to the results we
produce. If you just focus on the number of times the woodsman hits the
tree with the ax, which is a lot of work, you would say that he is actually
getting a lot of stuff done. However, if you look deeper, you realize that he is
not really cutting down that many trees at all. He is not really producing
results.
When your focus is only on getting things done, you run the risk of confusing
activity with true productivity and achievement.
Just because you are busy and completing tasks doesnt necessarily mean
that you are being productive or working on tasks that will make a
significant difference in your life.
This is what I call the efficiency trap. Working very efficiently doing things
that dont need to be done or that wont get you where you want to go.
Basketball coach John Wooden always told his players to avoid confusing
activity with achievement. You can work hard and stay very active on the
court by running around in circles, but that wont get you anywhere. It
certainly wont help you win any basketball games.
Working hard and being active is not enough. You fall into the efficiency trap
when you lose sight of the big picture because youre focusing too much on
the details.
Theres an old story about a young man who was very busy climbing the
ladder of success. He became an expert at getting things done and would
make tremendous progress on his to-do list.
After advancing for many years toward the top of the ladder, one day he
woke up and realized that his ladder of success was leaning against the
wrong wall. Instead of feeling happy and fulfilled, he only felt empty and
meaningless inside.
This man fell into the same efficiency trap as the woodsman, but at a
much deeper level, and with much bigger consequences for his life.
Sometimes a simple story such as the woodsman or the young man climbing
the ladder of success can shed light on our own life.
It may seem silly, but the same story repeats itself day after day all over the
world in the workplace and at home. Getting things done is only helpful if
it also helps you accomplish what is most important to you.
Getting the Right Things Done
In his classic book The Effective Executive, management guru Peter Drucker
says that effectiveness is the critical quality that distinguishes goal achievers
from everyone else.
Thats because true achievement is not just about getting things done. Much
more important than how much stuff you get done is whether your actions
are helping you create the results you truly want in your business and your
life.
Its about doing things that are significant, meaningful, and that will make a
difference in your life. Its about pursuing goals that you feel passionate
about and that lead you toward a happier, more balanced, and more fulfilled
life. In other words, true goal achievement is about effectiveness; its about
getting the right things done.
Your ability to identify the right things in any situation, and to then focus
your energy, talents and effort to get them done will have more of an impact
on your productivity and goal achievement than virtually any other factor.
Just like a magnifying glass can focus and concentrate sunlight to create
intense heat, the leverage created by focusing your effort, energy and
talents on a few key areas can help you perform exceptionally well and
achieve much more with less effort. Thats the essence of leverage.
Thats what the top levels of the time management tower bring to the table.
Let me ask you some tough questions
Do you have a clear sense of purpose and direction for your life and
your business?
Do you have a compelling vision for your life 3-5 years from now?
Do you have a clear strategy to help you make your vision a reality?
How often do you visit the levels of purpose, mission, vision, values &
goals and use them to direct your day to day actions?
If you dont have good answers for these questions, the Goals to Action
system can help you get there using simple but very effective practices and
tools similar to the ones you may already be using to manage your projects
and tasks.
Integrating the Higher Levels
While the tower model is helpful for realizing that all these different levels
exists, it is not very helpful for connecting them together and integrating
them into a unified whole.
To do that, Im going to use a slightly different model in the Goals to Action
system. This model makes it clear that all the different layers are not
independent levels, but rather interdependent components of a greater
whole. They all work together and support each other to combine wisdom
and execution in your daily actions.
The Goals to Action system helps you implement this new integral model of
goal setting and time management to connect your daily thoughts, decisions
and actions to your purpose, mission, vision and goals.
Personal
Core
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Lets look at each part of the model:
Purpose Represents your overall direction and guiding philosophy
Vision Represents a major, definite aim or future state that is 3-
10 years away
Mission Represents a 1-3 year strategy for moving towards this
vision
Values/Principles Values & principles represent what is most
important to you and reflect your wisdom, conscience and character
Result Areas Major dimensions or roles that are important in your
life
Dreams & Goals Various objectives or targets that you are aiming
for, ranging from big dreams to smaller intermediate goals
Strategies High level descriptions of how youll get there
Projects What you use to plan the details, implement your
strategies and track your progress
Tasks Action steps for your projects
You need these same components whether you are using the system for
your personal life or your business.
The Personal Core at the center serves as the glue that integrates and
holds all the other components together. The Personal Core component is
not included in the traditional tower model, but it is critically important for
personal effectiveness, goal achievement, and true productivity.
Achievement Mindset
Combine wisdom and execution to connect
your daily actions to your purpose, mission,
vision and goals.
Execution Is Critical
Although Ive been focusing mostly on the Wisdom part of the tower in this
program, an important insight from this model is that execution is critical to
get the results that you want.
Knowing what you want is not enough. Having a compelling vision and
setting inspiring goals from it is not enough. Making plans is not enough.
You cant achieve your goals through the higher levels alone. You can only
achieve your goals through effective action, and that only happens at the
execution levels. Thats where the rubber meats the road.
Thats why I say that time management and goal achievement are like two
sides of the same coin, you cant really do one effectively without the other.
If you dont manage your time well and you dont know how to get things
done, its going to be much harder to achieve your goals.
Business coach Brian Tracy goes one step further, saying that success is not
possible without excellent time management skills.
Why? Because disorganization, diffused effort, wasting time, and lack of
focus are just not compatible with high achievement. The habits, practices,
and discipline that are necessary for effective time management directly
contribute to success and high achievement in all areas of your life.
Great execution, which helps you take consistent, focused action toward
your goals, comes down to four things:
Developing great habits and routines (see Magic of Habit),
Setting up empowering conditions and systems that naturally lead you
to plant the right seeds,
Converting your dreams and goals into projects and tasks that you can
actually execute,
Developing your time management skills and using a productivity
system to help you execute consistently at the project and task level.
The Effective Time Management program from Goals to Action helps you
develop your time management skills and focuses on the execution part of
the model in much more detail. Youll find a sample in the resources section.
Exercise # 1 Grade Yourself
Give yourself a score from 1 to 10 in each of the components of the Goals to
Action model like purpose, vision and goals. Give yourself a score of 1 if you
feel this component is not well connected to or represented by your daily
actions, and a score of 10 if you feel its very well connected or represented.
Exercise # 2 Improve Your Execution
Think about what you need to do to improve your execution for your focus
goal. Do you need to establish better habits and routines? Do you need to
setup an empowering conditions or systems? Do you need to define projects
and tasks to implement your action steps? Do you need to improve your
time management skills?
Principle # 9 Balance Learning, Planning and
Doing
Theres an old joke about three frogs that are sitting on a log, when one
decides to jump off. How many frogs are left?
Why three, of course, because deciding to jump off a log is not the same as
actually doing it.
This illustrates what happens to many people who become interested in
goals or personal development. They may learn everything there is to know
about goal setting, how to set goals, how to plan them, how to track them
etc., but they never actually do any of those things in their real life.
They get stuck in learning mode and say to themselves I already know this
stuff or Ive heard it all before, but they never seem to take the time to
master what they learn through real experience.
Its almost like they are preparing and training to win a race that never
takes place. They learn everything there is to know about running, training,
and winning, but they never bother to sign up for or participate in an actual
race.
Just thinking about your goals and getting prepared for the future is not
enough.
Many years ago, I attended a weekend seminar by a well know motivational
speaker. He was a very good speaker, gave an excellent speech and shared
some great stories. I left the seminar feeling inspired and very good about
myself.
A couple of days later, the inspiration faded and life returned to normal. I
spoke to a friend who attended the same seminar and he also had a very
similar experience.
While this speaker was very good at giving the audience a powerful shot of
motivation, he didnt provide the system we needed to continue on our own.
Getting motivated by someone else is great, but it is not nearly enough to
make a real difference in your life unless you also learn how to inspire
yourself and learn how to convert that inspiration into practical action.
Planning and Doing
Like learning, planning is also critical. Its also easy to get stuck in this
mode, using planning as an excuse to avoid taking action. To prevent this
analysis paralysis, you can use some effective planning methods to put
together a basic plan and then launch purposefully into action.
Natural achievers definitely take the time to do proper planning, but they
also have a strong action-orientation that propels them to move forward
when the plan is good enough.
Why do some people get stuck in analysis paralysis, while others rush into
action without adequate planning? It actually has a lot to do with our natural
preferences.
Some people prefer structure in their life while others prefer a lack of
structure. This applies not only to the way we like to lead our lives (external
structure), but also to the way we think and process information (internal
structure.)
Structured people, the ones that prefer structure, are planners. They find
that having structure in their environment and in their schedule makes them
feel more comfortable and energetic. They dont like to act spontaneously;
they prefer to make decisions sooner rather than later so that they can
create structure and act according to a predefined arrangement or plan.
Because they are conscious of their structure, they are much more aware of
the passage of time.
Unstructured people are just the opposite. They are open and spontaneous
and find that not having structure in their environment and schedule helps
them feel more comfortable and energetic. They dont like to plan and prefer
to make decisions later to keep their options open as much as possible. They
are less aware of the passage of time and can easily get lost in an activity.
As you can imagine, structured and unstructured people often dont have
very good impressions of each other.
Structured people think that unstructured people are irresponsible, careless,
indecisive, and often feel that they cant rely on them to deliver when it
counts.
Unstructured people think that structured people are rigid, opinionated,
inflexible, intolerant, and miss out on all the best parts of life because they
dont know how to have fun or experience the moment.
The truth is that neither type is better than the other each one has
advantages and disadvantages in different contexts.
Structured thinking helps you think about the future and consider the long-
term consequences of your current actions. It also helps you develop plans
and strategies for moving from where you are now to where you want to be.
The problem is that structured people sometimes get stuck planning in the
future and postpone living their lives in the present. They also tend to
overplan and use planning and preparation as an excuse for not taking
action, and they sometimes become too attached to their plans and are not
willing to change them when they are not working.
Unstructured thinking helps you enjoy and experience the moment, execute
while focusing on the present, and respond to changing circumstances in a
creative and flexible way.
The problem is that unstructured people sometimes get stuck living in the
present and they dont stop to think about their future. They sometimes
focus too much on short-term gain and end up with long-term pain, or they
drift aimlessly through life without a clear sense of direction or purpose.
The ideal is not to be one type or the other, but to balance the two
approaches and have enough flexibility to switch between them depending
on what is most appropriate for the situation.
Sometimes its good to think about the future and make plans, other times
its better to execute while fully focused on the present. To get the best
results, you need to be able to balance both approaches.
Fortunately, this is a skill that you can learn and develop with practice.
Achievement Mindset
The ideal is to balance learning, planning and
doing to help you take consistent, effective,
focused action over the long-term.
Dont Wait for Perfection
Robert Downey Jr. said, Anything worth doing is worth doing poorly at
first.
This simply means theres no need to knock one out of the park on your
very first try. This takes the pressure off you to wait for things to be perfect
before beginning.
Many people agonize over perfection: choosing the perfect goal, creating the
perfect plan, waiting for the perfect conditions and time to get started.
Others wait and wait because they dont feel ready; they feel the need to
get more information, better skills, or greater knowledge before they can get
started.
But that wont be you. As you work on your goals, remember that anything
worth doing well is worth doing poorly, at first.
It doesnt matter if you pick the perfect goal, or the perfect life purpose.
What matters is that you went through the process to think about it, put it in
writing and you now have a great starting point to keep improving over
time.
You can change your mind at any point if you dont feel its right for you.
Not Knowing How Before You Start
One common mistake with goals is thinking that you need to know exactly
how you are going to get from start to finish before you can begin.
The truth is that you often wont know exactly how to do something until you
actually go out and try to do it. The feedback and experience that you get
from taking action will help you learn and improve, as well as figure out
what works and what doesnt work. For many goals, you wont be able to
figure out how to get to the end until you are well on your way.
Now, that doesnt mean that you dont have to do your homework and to
prepare yourself for the journey. What it means is that you need to balance
your theoretical book smarts knowledge with practical street smarts
experience that you get from taking action.
As you go through the Goals to Action process, there will be times when you
get stuck, there will be times when you feel a bit overwhelmed and
confused, and there will be times when you dont seem to be making much
progress, but if you keep at it, eventually everything will start falling into
place.
Next thing you know, youve become a master at setting and achieving your
goals. Its when you get stuck in analysis paralysis, or mindless action
without feedback, without learning, and without improvement that you really
get yourself into trouble.
Achievement Mindset
Instead of waiting for everything to be perfect
before getting started, focus on making
consistent, steady progress in incremental
steps.
Practice, Practice, Practice
We sometimes hear that raw talent is what makes the difference between
those who have what it takes and those who never make it very far in their
chosen careers. Theres something appealing about the idea that someone
with a great deal of talent can just show up and instantly be great at
whatever he or she does.
However, recent research by Anders Ericsson and his colleagues in the
expert performance field that followed experts, masters, and great
performers from a huge variety of fields including sports, business, the arts,
music, medicine, and even chess, suggests that this is just a myth. Raw
talent alone simply isnt enough to achieve excellence.
Becoming very good at something, reaching the level where one can
consistently give a high performance, requires a lot of hard work, discipline,
and practice. Theres no getting around it, and theres no substitute for it.
In fact, the researchers working on this study found a consistent pattern
that they call the Ten Year Rule. They found that it usually takes a
minimum of ten years of hard work and deliberate practice to become great
at something, no matter what the pursuit. And in some fields it can take
considerably longer.
The idea that talent alone can make you an overnight master or success
turns out to be flat-out wrong. Its a myth. In virtually all cases, there are
years and years of practice and hard work behind great performers.
Yes, talent is certainly a very important factor, but it is not enough to
achieve excellence.
Deliberate Practice
However, the same research revealed that hard work by itself isnt enough
either! Thats right. There are plenty of people out there who spend a lot of
time working in a specific field, or doing some very specific activity, and
even after a long period of time, they never seem to get any better at it,
much less achieve a level that we would call excellent.
The key difference between those who improve and those who dont, given
the same amount of time, is what those researchers call deliberate
practice.
Deliberate practice is a form of practice that is very specific and focused, and
involves a lot more than just doing the same thing over and over and hoping
for the best.
Deliberate practice is goal-oriented, and is aimed directly at improving ones
performance in a particular skill. Virtually all great performers spend a lot of
time engaged in deliberate practice, and this is what leads them to become
great at what they do.
The best basketball players, for instance, dont just play a game of hoops
everyday and expect to improve. They practice the fundamental skills like
shooting from a variety of spots, dribbling, passing, rebounding, etc.
Researchers estimate that it takes anywhere between tens and hundreds of
hours of deliberate practice just to become average at performing a new
skill.
If you want to go beyond average, youll need around 2,000 hours of
deliberate practice in order to become really good at it, about 5,000 hours of
practice to become excellent, and about 10,000 total hours of hard-core,
focused, deliberate practice to become great.
Im not telling you this to depress you or make you feel that you have an
impossible mountain to climb. The reason Im telling you this is that if you
want to become good at anything in life, theres no substitute for deliberate
practice. You have to put in the time and effort.
It also means that most people will suck the first time they do anything
new. Its not that you lack the talent, or that youll never be able to learn, or
that you cant do it, it just means that you need to use deliberate practice to
help you improve and get better. You have to be willing to put in the time.
How To Practice Deliberately
To shift from regular practice to deliberate practice, you need to include the
following essential components:
Deliberate practice requires that you be fully aware and conscious of
the specific skill, talent or technique that you want to improve, not just
the overall activity. For example, a basketball player might focus on
improving shooting technique first, and then on using that shooting
technique in game-like conditions. He or she may also focus on specific
types of shots, like jump shots, fade aways, pull-ups and hook shots.
Deliberate practice requires a certain mindset; the understanding that
your goal is to improve a specific skill or develop a talent, and not just
to practice for the sake of practice.
Deliberate practice includes specific performance goals and targets
that are challenging and push you to stretch your abilities.
Deliberate practice includes feedback mechanisms that help you
measure your performance against objective standards and help you
make adjustments for improvement.
Deliberate practice focuses on improving both technique as well as
overall performance.
Deliberate practice is based on routines that provide repetition and
consistency over a period of time. Whether its every other day, or
three times a day, its a matter of routine consistency, not just when
you feel like it.
Going back to the basketball example, deliberate practice might involve
things like focusing on your technique while shooting basketballs from
different areas of the court to develop the shooting skill from various angles.
More advanced forms of practice would also mimic situations you might face
in a real game, like shooting the basketball from a specific spot after moving
through a series of screens and catching the ball from a teammate.
Deliberate practice would also incorporate performance goals, like for
instance, being able to hit 75% of free throws, 60% from a given spot when
unguarded, 45% when mimicking the game situation, and 30% from three-
point range.
Once those performance goals become consistent, then the basketball player
would increase them slightly to make them more challenging, forcing him or
her to stretch and continue to improve.
What skills do you need to improve through deliberate practice to help you
reach your goals? How much time and effort are you willing to dedicate to
them in order to get good?
Focusing on Mastery In Addition To Outcomes
Natural goal achievers often focus their goals on achieving mastery, rather
than just achieving a specific outcome. They use deliberate practice to
become good, sometimes even great, at skills that are important to them
and their future.
Instead of just focusing on whether they succeed or fail, they focus on
improving and getting better. This focus helps them persist through
setbacks, learn from their experiences and continue to improve over time.
They realize that improving and practicing these key skills will naturally lead
them to get the outcomes they ultimately want. They are planting the right
seeds and using inevitability thinking to virtually guarantee that theyll
achieve their goals.
Getting Results
As you go through the Goals to Action process, youll naturally become more
results oriented.
In the end, results are the only real way to measure your progress as you go
from Goals to Action, but keep in mind that not all results are visible. Just
like the bamboo tree can spend years developing its underground root
network, some invisible results like developing your personal core, becoming
a happier person, using deliberate practice to improve a key skill, developing
an attitude or gratitude, or enhancing your confidence and self-esteem are
very valuable, yet often only you can truly feel or see them.
Also remember that even if the results you are getting are not the results
that you ultimately want, they are a source of feedback and learning that
you can use to enhance your knowledge, improve your skills, adjust your
strategy and continue making progress.
How To Balance Planning, Learning and Doing
When you are first getting started with something completely new, whether
its going after a new goal, starting a new project or learning a new skill, you
need to devote more time to learning and planning.
A good rule of thumb for when you are first getting started is to spend 40%
of your time learning, 10-20% of your time planning, and 40-50% of your
time taking action, even if you dont fully know what you are doing.
Your learning time can be divided evenly between theoretical book smarts
study time and looking for winning recipes through observation and
modeling of people who have already achieved what you want to do.
But you need to balance that learning with actual street smarts experience
and feedback that only come from taking action and moving toward your
goals.
The practical knowledge and experience you gain from taking action and just
trying stuff is invaluable and cant be replicated with theoretical learning or
planning.
More Experienced
Once youve built momentum, gained more experience and are making
steady progress, you can focus much more on execution and less on learning
and planning.
For example, you could switch to a 20% learning, 10% planning and 70%
doing model. Youll need to experiment to see what model works best for
you in your own goals.
Exercise # 1 Structured vs. Unstructured
As I discussed in this lesson, one common challenge is getting stuck in either
structured or unstructured thinking. Which style do you most resonate with?
If you are a structured person, what are some of the challenges that being
structured has caused in your life (for example, not living in the moment
enough, postponing the present in anticipation of the future, or using
planning as an excuse to avoid action, analysis paralysis)?
If you are an unstructured person, what are some of the challenges that
being unstructured has caused in your life (for example, not thinking about
my future enough, being too impulsive, lacking direction or purpose)?
Whether you are structured or unstructured, do you see the advantages of
being flexible enough to incorporate some aspects of the other mode to add
more balance into your life? What are some of the main benefits you would
get by doing so?
Exercise # 2 What Do You Need To Learn?
In this exercise, brainstorm what you need to learn to help you achieve your
focus goal. Do you need to read some books? Do you need to do research
online? Do you need to signup for a course? Do you need to learn from a
teacher, mentor or coach?
Commit to never stop learning as you make progress toward your focus
goal.
Exercise # 3 What Do You Need To Practice
What skills, talents or abilities do you need to practice and improve in order
to help you achieve your focus goal?
How can you use deliberate practice to help you improve your skills?
What practice schedule do you need to set up (how often and for how long)?
Youll learn more about planning for your focus goal in part two as part of
the ultimate goal achievement process.
Just remember to balance learning, planning and doing.
Principle # 10 Use the Power of Synergy
Action orientation, the ability to turn your knowledge into practical action, is
one of the key traits that separates natural goal achievers from everyone
else.
Tony Robbins puts it this way, Lots of people know what to do, but few
people actually do what they know. Knowing is not enough! You must take
action.
Action oriented people make consistent progress on their goals because they
keep moving and they keep building momentum. If they get a good idea
that will help them with one of their goals, they take action on it. If they see
something thats not working, they adjust it. If they learn something new,
they find a way to put it to good use.
Jack Welch said, The ability of an organization to continuously learn from
any source and to rapidly convert this learning into action is the ultimate
competitive advantage.
The key mindset shift here is the realization that just taking action, while
necessary, is often not good enough. Eventually you must take purposeful,
strategic action that moves you in the direction that you want.
Taking random action can sometimes be a good way to start because it
builds momentum, creates confidence, and provides valuable feedback, but
at some point, you have to figure out the right kind of actions to take.
Otherwise, youll just end up going around in circles.
Thats another key differentiator between effective goal achievers and
everyone else. People who achieve their goals consistently eventually figure
out how to take effective action that will lead them to the results they want.
They dont keep doing the same things over and over again if they are not
working. They learn and adapt their strategy based on the feedback they
receive.
Theres a big difference between just keeping yourself busy and being
effective and productive. The wrong kind of action, based on an ineffective
or flawed strategy, wont produce the results you want no matter how much
you do or how hard you work.
Thats why the process of clarifying what you really want is so important. It
helps you understand and distinguish purposeful, strategic action from just
random action or action that doesnt work.
The key is to adopt a testing mindset and not become too emotionally
committed to any single goal, strategy or idea. Notice if what you are doing
is working or not, and if its not working, have enough flexibility to figure out
why and do something else instead.
The Circle of Results
If knowledge and action arent always enough, what are the missing
ingredients? The answer lies in something I call the Circle of Results.
Personal
Core
Knowledge
Wisdom
Environment
Support
Tools
Action
Skills
Habits
Mindset
Beliefs
Attitude
These are the five main components:
1. Knowledge & Wisdom While knowledge is important, I consider
wisdom even more critical. Wisdom means using knowledge in the right way
based on what is most important for the current circumstances.
Wisdom is something that you gain through experience as you combine
theoretical and practical knowledge with action.
As you work on and make progress toward your goal, ask yourself regularly,
What do I need to LEARN to take me to the next step? What knowledge
and wisdom do I need to gain to achieve my goals?
2. Action, Skills & Habits Action is essential to get any results, but as I
said before, it needs to be the right kind of action, and that means learning
what works and what doesnt work.
Even when you know the right actions to take, you wont always be able to
take them unless you also have the right skills to go along with your
theoretical knowledge.
For example, if you go to a ski resort and view a one-hour video lesson
teaching you how to ski, does that mean that youll be able to go out to the
slopes and instantly know how to do it? Probably not.
Having a theoretical knowledge of what actions to take is not enough. You
need the practical skills to back up your knowledge, and those skills come
with deliberate practice, hard work and experience.
To get the best results, you also need consistent, focused action over a
period of time, and that usually means developing empowering and
supportive habits and conditions that help you take those daily actions.
Ask yourself, What skills and habits do I need to develop to help me take
effective action toward my goals? Think about how you can use deliberate
practice to help you gain those skills.
3. Mindsets, Beliefs & Attitude Some people fall into the trap of
focusing too much on the goal setting techniques and tools and neglect this
important component, but as youve learned in this course, operating from
an effective mindset can make all the difference. It helps you translate
knowledge into effective action, and helps you see things the right way.
One of the most important differences between natural achievers and
everyone else is the quality of their thinking. The way they think about their
goals and goal setting in general can make a huge difference.
Ask yourself, What new mindsets, perspectives or ways of seeing/thinking
do I need to adopt to help me reach my goals?
4. Environment, Support & Tools People greatly underestimate the
power and influence that your physical, mental and emotional environment
can have in the results you produce.
The things you see and surround yourself with, the kind of people you hang
out with, your lifestyle, and the routines that you follow every day all have a
significant impact in your life, but people often overlook or simply ignore
them.
Natural goal achievers see their life as a system of interdependent places,
people, events, situations, habits, systems, conditions and routines that are
all linked together. They understand that changing the system to support
their goals greatly increases their probability of achieving them.
Thats why creating a supportive and empowering environment, including an
empowering lifestyle, routines, and habits is crucial in achieving your goals.
Having adequate support, and the structure it provides, is also critical
because its almost impossible to achieve anything significant by yourself. A
good support network holds you accountable, helps you rebound from
setbacks and can help build your momentum.
Michael Jordan had a great support network that included coaches, trainers,
teammates, agents, family and more. He also had winning habits and
routines that helped him prepare, practice and win.
Having the right tools can make you much more effective and productive. It
can also significantly reduce the amount of work you need to do to achieve
positive results.
Hugh Young said, Often there is an easy way and a hard way to do a job;
the easy way sometimes involves nothing more than having the right tools
to use.
If you want a practical example, try removing a screw from a wall using a
hammer, and then try the same thing with a power screwdriver. The right
tool for the right job can make all the difference.
Dont underestimate the power and importance of using the right tools,
developing a strong support network, creating an empowering environment,
and developing good support habits and routines.
Ask yourself, What changes do I need to make to my support network and
environment to help me reach my goals? Who do I need to start hanging
out with? What tools do I need to start using?
5. Personal Core Your personal core forms the foundation and ties all
these different components together.
Just as a strong athletic core helped Michael Jordan be the best basketball
player he could be, a strong personal core will help you get results and be
the best goal achiever you can be. It will help you win both the inner and
outer games of goal achievement.
Ask yourself, What personal core elements do I need to develop or
strengthen to help me reach my goals?
The Power of Synergy
The most interesting part about this model is what happens when you
combine the five elements together. The results can grow exponentially
because of the power of synergy.
Synergy is a very interesting concept that, in very simple terms, means that
the whole can be much more than just the sum of the parts.
Weve all been told that mixing medications, or taking alcohol with sleeping
pills is a bad idea. The reason is that synergy between the drugs can cause
their effects to multiply rather than simply add up.
If you just have knowledge, or action, or an effective mindset, or great
support & tools, by themselves, you may get some results. When you
combine them all together in a meaningful way, your results can be truly
outstanding.
The whole really can be much greater than the sum of the parts because the
contribution of each element is multiplicative, not just additive.
Adding missing ingredients to the mix, whether it is better thinking, strategic
action, wisdom, better habits, the right environment, or better tools, can
dramatically increase your results.
You can double, or triple, or even quadruple what you get, just by adding a
single missing ingredient.
If you are having a problem or challenge in your life, its likely that one or
more of these five critical elements is at the root of the problem. So find out
which elements need an upgrade, take constructive action and youll see
your results start to improve, often dramatically.
One of the best ways to do this is to adopt a systems thinking mindset
where you take a step back and look at the whole rather than focusing on
only one specific part.
Achievement Mindset
Unleash the power of synergy by using
systems thinking to combine knowledge,
action, skills, mindsets, supportive
environment, team, tools and your personal
core in support of your goals.
Synergy with the Goal Achievement Principles
Earlier I mentioned that the achievement principles all work together and
reinforce each other, so there is synergy when you use them together as a
whole rather than just focusing on one or two individually.
Keep that in mind as you go through the specific steps of the Ultimate Goal
Achievement process in part two of the program. Look for ways in which the
ten principles can work together in each step to produce even better results.
Exercise # 1 Which Elements Are Missing?
Pick one of your most important goals right now and notice which of these
elements are well represented in your current approach, and which ones are
missing?
How can you start incorporating some of the missing elements into the mix?
Do you need to change your environment, routines or lifestyle?
Do you need to hang out with different people? Do you need to learn from
mentors or people whove already done what you want to do?
Do you need to develop a better team or support network?
Do you need to increase your knowledge and wisdom?
Do you need to gain some new skills or take more effective action?
Do you need to develop better habits?
Do you need to upgrade your mindset or bring the way you think to a new
level? Do you need to develop better thinking habits?
Do you need to develop your personal core?
Whats one small step that you can take right now to move you in the right
direction?
The Goals to Action System
In this program, you learned ten high-leverage principles and mindsets that
make goal setting work.
The Goals to Action system combines practical tools, techniques and
strategies to integrate all these principles in a way that helps you achieve
your goals and get the right things done.
These are some of them:
Ultimate Goal Achievement Formula A simple repeatable process
for effective goal achievement.
Strategic Life Plan A short, one to two page document where you
describe your purpose, create a compelling vision of the future, define
your mission and clarify your values and strengths. Your life plan
serves as a foundation that gives you more clarity, motivation,
direction and focus.
Goal Plans Individual plans for your result areas and major goals.
Goal Reviews & Tracking Regular review sessions that help you
identify, plan, track and convert your goals into daily action. The
review process also helps you learn from your actions, figure out
whats working and whats not working, and persist through setbacks
in a smart, flexible way.
Personal Productivity System Your personal productivity system
helps you execute consistently at the project/task level and use your
time productively to get things done.
The final piece of the puzzle is the personal core component and the
mindsets that serve as the glue that holds all the other pieces together and
helps you interconnect them in a meaningful way.
Youll learn more about the Ultimate Goal Achievement process in part two
of this program. You can learn more about some of the other components in
other Goals To Action training programs.
Upgrading Your Thinking
Albert Einstein said, The significant problems we face cannot be solved at
the same level of thinking we were at when we created them.
What this means is that if youve want to become better at setting and
achieving goals than you are now, youre going to have to change your level
of thinking.
In this program, you learned ten powerful, high-leverage principles and
associated mindsets that can help you raise your thinking to a completely
new level. Whether or not you adopt this new way of thinking is completely
up to you.
You have to put in the effort to review these mindsets regularly, think about
what they mean, figure out how to apply them in your life, allow them to
influence your emotions, and use them to take constructive action.
If you do this, you gradually add some of the other ingredients into the mix,
and you follow the ultimate goal achievement process, youll significantly
increase your productivity and personal effectiveness, and youll KNOW what
you really need to know to achieve your most important goals.
I highly encourage you to spend at least 10 minutes every day reviewing the
principles and mindsets that you learned about in this course using the
mindset conditioning resources in this course, and to do this for at least 90
days.
Commit right now to spending at least 5 minutes every single day for the
next seven days reviewing and practicing these mindsets.
In fact, pick the time and place when you are going to do this and schedule
it in your calendar. Do this now.
If you cant spare five minutes every day for one week, or discipline yourself
enough to follow this simple practice, then youre not really serious about
At the end of the week, you can decide if you want to continue with this
practice for another week and increase the time to 10 minutes per day.
I sincerely hope you decide to continue.
Whats Next
Now, lets shift our focus toward the outer game of goal achievement as we
take a closer look at the Ultimate Goal Achievement Process. This process
serves as the foundation for the system youll use to achieve your most
important and meaningful goals.
I wish you all the best in your journey to achieve your goals, realize your
dreams and live your purpose.
Rodger Constandse
Additional Resources
You can find all our goal achievement courses and programs by clicking on
the link below:
Goals To Action Catalog

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