Archive for Goals
Treasure Maps can help you attain your goals faster
Posted by: | CommentsIn my international bestselling book, This is Your Life not a Dress Rehearsal, I wrote about using a technique I learned, known as “Treasure maps,” as an aid to manifesting your dreams and desires. You may have heard it referred to as “Dream boards” or some other name. The idea is the same, however, I can trace the use of the phrase “Treasure Maps” back to Catherine Ponder in the 1950′s. Of course, I learned it much after that:-)
A treasure map is one of the most powerful visual aids you can employ and is well worth explaining in more detail here.
The first time I used a treasure map was many years ago when I was beginning to rebuild my life. At the time I owned an old beat up car. Actually that is an understatement.
It was a twelve year old hunk of metal that barely ran. It had a vinyl top but most of the vinyl was worn away and what was left was peeling. There was a hole in the floor on the driver’s side that let cold wind in during the winter. I used to place my foot over it. The paint was fading and it did not run very well. My wife, who I was dating at the time, did not even want to ride in it. Whenever we went out we took her new luxury car.
My goal at the time was a new, top of the line Honda Accord. Knowing about the power of treasure maps, I had visited the Honda Dealer and obtained a brochure of the car I wanted. In addition to having a written goal of driving the new Honda, I placed a picture on the wall above my desk where I would see it throughout the day.
One day I took the picture down because the car was in my driveway. I owned a new Accord.
Please do not misunderstand, I am not suggesting that this just happened by itself. The car dealer did not drive by my house looking for someone to give the car to. I had to do certain things to improve my life to be in a position to make it possible. The treasure map helped speed things up by consistently imprinting on my mind that which I wanted.
Whatever you want to have in your life, use visuals to help your subconscious see what it is that you want. For example, if you want to go on a fabulous vacation to Hawaii, get some travel brochures and make a collage of the pictures of beach scenes, hotels, and other images that will give you visual reinforcement for your goal.
When we were looking for our current home in Bucks County, Pennsylvania, I created a treasure map using a picture of Georgia and myself, pictures of Bucks County, a headline that said “Bucks County Pennsylvania,” ads for homes, and a picture of the kind of house we wanted. I wrote phrases and affirmations on it as well and hung it where we would see it daily. This helped reinforce our goal in our minds and helped bring it to us.
Visual aids are very powerful, if you doubt this just look at the impact television has had on people’s buying habits. The next time you look at a magazine, notice how much more powerful the ads with photos are as compared to those with just text. You too can use the power of the visual media to help you obtain what you want.
Follow this link if you want to know more about how you can learn to create the life you were born to live.
Goal setting without an action plan is a recipe for failure
Posted by: | CommentsOne of the “secrets” to creating a life that you’ve always wanted, accomplishing your goals, and making your dreams come true, is taking regular focused action towards their achievement. One tool that has had a profound impact in my life, is something that I learned during one of my coach training programs.
You have created a long-term vision, set your one-year goals based on that vision, and then broken those goals into smaller three month goals. We will now take it one-step further.
Look at your three month goals and see what you can do in the next thirty days to move toward this accomplishment. Then, write each of these on an index card, on your smart phone or iPad. These are something you can carry with you and read whenever you want.
You may want to complete a mini version of this exercise for a specific area of your life. I have a mini version for my books and writing, as well as, my seminars and business programs.
I also have one for my health and fitness goals. These simple tools help keep me focused and on track as I actively create the life I want to live.
I use my cards like this: On one side of the card I write the goal in an exciting and positive way, being sure to put a great deal of emotion into it, include why I want this, and how I will feel when it is accomplished.
Then, on the other side I listed specific actions that I will take during the next thirty days that will move me toward making the goal a reality. After using these cards for a period of time, I discovered some interesting things. Before I begin my day, or prior to working on a particular area I will read the card.
This puts me in the high, positive emotional state and I’m already attracting what I want to me. Additionally, I found when I do this, and then turn the card over and read my actions, more often then not, I will think of another small action that I can take to move me toward my desired outcome. I call this inspired action.
For example, in working with the card for my seminars recently, as I read my goal and looked at my list of actions, I was inspired to contact a non-profit agency and discuss how I might help them by leveraging my seminars. This “inspired action” will produce additional income for me and help the struggling charity raise some much needed money.
The reason this is so effective is that by first reading your goal, with feeling, you create a mental and emotional state that is conducive to manifesting it. The ideas that come while you are in that state tend to be more inspired and creative then what you might normally think to do.
The more passionate and excited you are about your goals and the more that you’re in that state of feeling as though they have already happened, the more you are tapping into the Higher Guidance that is available to us all.
Your sub-conscience mind will go to work to find new ways for you to accomplish your goals. Doors will open. The right people will come into your life. All sorts of things will occur to help you along your path.
If you find this idea a bit to far out, I challenge you to use it for a few months and see if you don’t agree that the actions you are being inspired to take are significantly more creative than you have been used to.
This is not just a nice theory. All of the ideas, tools and techniques I write and speak about have been used successfully by myself and others.
I have never written anything without first using it in my own life for validation. I believe that this is one of the reasons people have responded so well to my books. I am able to write with certainty, having appointed myself as the guinea pig in my own life’s experiment.
Goal setting made simple
Posted by: | CommentsAssuming you’ve completed the earlier post about creating your vision, you now have a clear idea of where you want to be and what you want your life to become. If you have not done so, please go here and complete this important first part of goal setting.
Next, it is time to extract some specific measurable goals you can achieve in the next twelve months. We will then break these down even further and, finally, develop an action plan to keep you on track.
Looking back over each area of your vision find one or two specific goals that are in alignment with your overall vision. Goals that you can accomplish in a year’s time that will move you toward fulfilling your vision.
For example, if in your vision you are living a carefree life, with plenty of money, doing work you love, a one-year goal that would lead you towards your vision might be to start your own business and begin earning a specific amount of money from it.
Write your goal in the present tense as though it has already happened and state it in the positive. Be sure to make it exciting and colorful too. Your one-year career goal might look like this, “I am so excited having my successful business, making a difference and earning an additional twenty five thousand dollars a year from it.”
If, in your vision you have a great, loving, supportive, respectful, special relationship with another person, your goal might look like this: “I am so happy that I am in a warm, loving, passionate relationship with the perfect person for me.” Another might be, “I am blessed with supportive and loving friends who I enjoy spending time with.”
In your journal complete this exercise, choosing one or two goals from each of the key areas in your vision. Think about what goal you could accomplish in one year that will support your overall life’s vision.
Next, beside each goal, write a short sentence about why you want this. What will having this do for you and your family? It’s been said that you can accomplish any goal if you have a big enough why.
For example, none of us want more money for the sake of just having money. We want more money for the things it will do for us, whether to buy something, pay for a great vacation, college tuition or simply to have a better lifestyle.
By the way, if you already have your own business, you may want to complete a vision and goal session for it and if you have employees or a team, have each of them do the same. Companies using these principals have produced quantum leaps in their revenue. As I said before you can use these techniques for any area of your life.
The alternative is leaving your life to chance. The fact that you’re reading this tells me that you are not one of those people willing to settle and live, as Henry David Thoreau said, “in quiet desperation.” You have within you the power to change your life.
Your three month goals
Once again I’m going to ask you to extract measurable specific goals. This time you will look at your one-year goals and ask what you can accomplish in three months.
Take each goal that you set earlier and break it down into a three-month milestone.
For example, in your business area, your one-year goal of highly successful business could become a three-month goal like the following: “I have happily begun my new business part-time and it is growing steadily.”
Your relationship goal may become something like this: “I am so happy having met a wonderful person who I enjoy being with.” Again, do this for each of the one-year goals you identified.
I realize this seems like a lot of work, but it will be well worth it. This is one of the best activities you can do for yourself. You are really taking charge of your own destiny and creating the life you want to live.
You may want to do this with your family and those people close to you, especially your children.
Next, I’ll share with you my little known but simple strategy for incorporating the power of the law of attraction into your action plan for faster and more powerful results.
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How to make this your best year ever, even if you already broke your resolutions
Posted by: | CommentsImagine, if you will, that it is December 31, 2012 and we meet at a New Year’s Eve party.
After exchanging a few pleasantries, I ask you about the year just passed; what happened, how your year was, what you did, where you went, and so on.
How would you respond?
Would you excitedly tell, me you had your most amazing year? One in which your business and income grew even beyond you expectations?
Would you tell me, with absolute joy in your voice, about the wonderful person you met and began a relationship with?
Would you tell me how terrific you felt and how you were in better physical health and mores fit than ever before?
Would you show me pictures of your wonderful vacation or the home you always wanted and now live in?
Would you, almost bragging, tell me about your family and how proud you are that your children are doing so well?
Or would you take a sip of wine, mumble something about how it was “Okay,” excuse yourself and walk away?
The tone of this hypothetical conversation will be determined by what you do right now at the beginning of this new year.
It will not be a matter of “luck” or good fortune or some other force out of your control.
The vision, goals, plans, and actions you take today will set the stage for what your future will be. You are creating your life with the thoughts you think, the words you speak, the feelings you feel, and the actions you take.
Decide, right now, to make this a year you will celebrate. Decide now to create your life the way you want it to be.
Remember the age old principle “As within, so without.”
Or, as Marcus Aurelius wrote almost 2,000 years ago, “Our life is what our thoughts make of it.”
It’s true that we become what we think about and that our thoughts create our life experience. I am continually astonished as to how many people still do not know about or believe this since it’s been written about for thousands of years and appears in every religion, philosophy and spiritual study in existence.
The other day I wrote about the idea of taking time to give yourself credit for what you have accomplished as a way to begin setting new goals and making new plans for the year ahead.
If you have not done this, please do it now. It will put you in the energetic vibration of attracting what you want and make it easier for you to discover what you really want your life to become. If you want to read it again, go here.
Next, think about the year ahead. If, at the party I mentioned above, you were to tell me the details of what you considered to be the most amazing year you could imagine, what would you be telling me?
Think about the key areas of your life, such as your health, fitness, family, career, financial, social, spiritual, material.
What would each look like if you we living your most ideal life? Keep in mind this is your life, not what society or the media thinks your life should be.
All that should matter is what’s important to you and those close to you.
Invest as much time as necessary to describe, in as much detail as you can, your life as you would like it to be one year from now.
Of course, some parts may take longer. Things like having a business or being financially independent may take longer but you can envision them now and start on the path toward them.
Next we’ll extract specific goals from this vision, however, it is important to begin with an idea of what the ”ideal” looks like in order to select appropriate goals and actions.
Not taking the time to create their life’s vision is why some people wind up achieving goals and still not being happy with them. They simply chased after goals without knowing how the goals related to their overall life.
To avoid this happening to you, create your ideal life’s vision first. Then you’ll be in position to choose goals that will support that vision.
If there are people in your life you’d like to help, please share this with them. Below are several sharing tools to make it easy for you to do this.
Next, we’ll explore a simple, yet powerful goal setting process and then create a plan and specific actions to help you make this your most amazing year.
Don’t Set Goals For 2012 Until You’ve Done This
Posted by: | CommentsIt’s that time of year again. A time when some people make “New Years Resolutions” which, for the most part they’ll break before the end of January.
Some of us who are more serious about creating the life we want, will take the time to identify those areas of our lives we want to change or improve and actually set goals, make plans, and take action toward our goals.
While this is a good thing and certainly better than making some empty resolution you know you’ll break before the champagne goes flat, there are one or two things you can do before you even start on your goal setting process.
The first step, one that will put you in a better frame of mind for setting goals, is to take some time to list everything you accomplished, achieved or acquired during this past year.
This is a practice I began many years ago after seeing it used by big corporations as a way to evaluate employee performance and something I first wrote about in my book “52 Ways to a Happier Life.”
Looking back over the past year what did you do? If you started a business, write it down. If you wrote or began writing a book, write it down. Did you graduate college or start back to school again?
What activities did you engage in? How about travel? Did you take a fabulous vacation?
What else? Did you buy or sell a house, meet someone special and begin a serious relationship? Have you begun a lifelong health and fitness program?
What “things” did you acquire? Like me, did you buy a new iPad?
Or maybe, like me, you bought a generator. After eight days without electricity it became my new “it” gift:-)
How about your home? Have you made long overdue repairs and spruced things up?
Have you begun volunteering at a local charity, found ways to reduce your stress and become more peaceful, or maybe simply set aside more time for taking care of yourself?
Whatever you did this past year, write it down. The more the better. The purpose of this exercise is to get you into the vibration of attracting what you want in your life.
Remember “like attracts like” and when you are focused on what you’ve attracted into your life, you are in the energetic vibration of having more of what you want.
Next, before you start writing a bunch of goals that may or may not actually be what you want, take some time to really think through exactly what it is you want.
The fastest way to do this is to begin by identifying what you do not want. That’s usually easier for most of us. If I ask someone what they want, I usually hear what it is they do not want.
People say things like, “I don’t want to be stuck in this lousy job,” or “I don’t want my car to be breaking down all the time,” or “I don’t want to have to struggle to pay the bills.”
To uncover what you do want, simply write the opposite of what you wrote above.
Instead of saying you don’t want to be in a dead end job, what you actually do want is work that inspires you, pays well and offers opportunities for growth.
In the case of your bills, what you do want is to live financially free with plenty of money left over for fun.
While you’re making this list of what you do want, list everything you can think of without being concerned as to how you will accomplish it. That comes later. For now, just let yourself go and really reach for the moon.
As legendary speaker, Les Brown said, “If you reach for the moon and miss, you still have the stars.”
Unfortunately, to many people reach for little and get exactly that. Life will give you anything you ask for if you are willing to do something for it.
Next issue we’ll cover a simple goal setting process to get you moving in the direction of your dream life.
In the meantime, please share Jim’s Jems with your friends and network. Together, we can all have an amazing New Year.
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