“The starting point of great success is when you sit down and
decide exactly what you really want, in every area of your life.”
- BRIAN TRACY

Why is it that goals are so important? Well, with goals you create your future in advance. This is true on many levels, but the most significant is that once you set a goal you actually ‘create’ something. You bring thoughts together to form ideas and images. Everything in your life, both what you are thrilled about and what you are disgusted by, started as a thought. When you set a goal you create and direct your focus; your attention and you thoughts towards what you do want, instead of allowing ‘random’ events and circumstances to direct your life.

Goals are like a map with which you create a direction and a destination for anything you want to be, do or have in your life. With this map you can create a vision for where you want to go and without it you will just wonder through life - and like most people, get lost on their way to nowhere. Goals give you a sense of purpose, it gives you direction and focus and serve as a very important psychological mechanism for directing your mental, emotional and physical focus.

There is a part of your brain, called the Reticular Cortex that influences your every experience of life. The Reticular Cortex, or Reticular Activating System (RAS) is like a filter to your cognitive experiences. Right now there are literally millions of things happening around you (and inside you). It’s impossible for you to notice of all of this as you will probably go completely mad. The background noise, the beating of your heart, the taste in your mouth, your breathing ec. All these things are happening and you only pay attention to them once you put your attention on them. What your RAS does is to ‘block out’ everything that you do not want to notice. This does not mean that the other millions of things are not there anymore – they are still there. You are just not paying attention to them at that moment in time.

This is of great significance when we look at goals. When you set a goal (properly) in actual fact you are programming your RAS. You are instructing your mind on what to pay attention to and what to allow into your perceptional experience. Consequently your mind will start to pay attention to everything that can help you achieve your goal. Right now, whatever you need to achieve any goal is available to you. You are just not paying attention to it and you are probably not noticing it. With goals you ‘tell’ your mind what’s most important to you and what you want to allow into your life. A good illustration of the working of the RAS is when you want to buy a specific car, or iPod or a pair or shoes. All of a sudden you start noticing it everywhere. It’s not that it hasn’t been there all along. It’s just that you never noticed it before.

The real challenge with setting goals is not in whether you do it ‘right’ or which ‘technique’ you use, but rather are you actually doing it? It’s become so numbing in many ways and the Law of Familiarity keeps most people from both setting and achieving goals. When you are too familiar with something you tend to miss it – you become so used to it that you don’t really pay attention to it anymore. Be wary of this! I want to challenge you to set your goals afresh. Even if you’ve done it before, do it again! Maybe this time you will make a new and vital distinction – maybe this time you will find that missing piece of the puzzle.

There are many strategies to setting goals, some more effective than others. It’s important to find what feels right for YOU and follow that. There’s no real ‘right’ or ‘wrong’. The important thing is to create a vision for your life; a compelling future that will pull you forward with enthusiasm and a sense of passion for life. There are many mentors that are very well qualified to teach you exactly how to set goals to get the most out of your life. Some names that come to mind are people like Tony Robbins, Jim Rohn, Earl Nightingale, Denis Waitley and Brian Tracy (just go to Nightingale Conant and have a look at all their programs). They all have programs that can guide you through this goal setting process. It’s important to note that ‘goal setting’ is not a one off thing, but rather a consistent process that evolves as you progress towards the realization of your ultimate dreams.

You simply cannot deny the importance of having clearly defined goals for your life, however clichéd it might sound. In 1953 a very important study was undertaken by Yale University. They took the graduating class of that ear and interviewed each member to create a profile of each member of the class of ‘53. The purpose of the study was to try and establish what really makes the difference in people. One of the questions that every member was asked was whether they have a set of clearly defined goals for their life. It was found that only 3% of the class actually had goals and a plan for it’s achievement. Twenty year later in 1973, they went back to check in with the surviving members of the class of 53, to conclude their study. What the researchers found was phenomenal. The 3% who had clearly defined goals were not only more successful, but seemed to be happier and better adjusted to life overall. The most significant thing, however was that the 3% who had goals where worth more in financial terms than the other 97% combined!

In a separate study, the importance of goals were once again clearly illustrated. It found that out of 100 people, who start even at the age of 25:
1 will be rich,
4 will be financially independent,
5 will still be working,
54 will be broke,

…by the time they reach 55. Surely all of them started off with the intention of being as success. But what happened? Why did more than 95% end up on the wrong end of the stick? Once again it boiled down to the 5% who had goals; who decided what they wanted and then progressed towards the realization of these goals.

The late Earl Nightingale once said that ‘People with goals succeed because they know where they are going. It’s as simple as that’ Let this be a wake up call to you.

Do you have clearly defined goals?
Do you know where you are going with your life?
Do you have a vision for your life and have you started creating a plan for it’s attainment?

Brian Tracy’s program, The Ultimate Goals Program, is considered to be the most complete and effective goal-setting (and goal-achieving) program ever created. Some of the most successful people from all areas of life accredit their success to this program. In this exciting program, Brian Tracy takes you through a simple, proven step-by-step system that you can use immediately to develop your compelling future to achieve anything you really want in your life.
Click here to read more… (Audio Clips and MP3 Downloads available)

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Developing a sense of clarity in your life is immensely powerful. The real obstacles in life are not external circumstances, events and challenges, but internal ‘clutter’. When you get clear on exactly what you want from your job, your relationships, your health or your life for that matter, you remove the clutter. Clutter is what distracts most people from ever focusing on anything for long enough and with enough precision, to actually achieve it. Clutter tends to suffocate your true power to focus and direct your power towards the attainment of a single goal. When you develop a sense of clarity you remove the biggest obstacles and obstructions which are mental and emotional.

Most people just chase more, more and more of the things that they think will make them happy. They end up never feeling truly fulfilled. Remember that the aim is not accumulation, but fulfillment and happiness along the way. We don’t achieve to be happy – we must instead strive to happily achieve. The reason why so many people just blindly follow the crowd is because they never really take the time to think about what it is that they really want and what would fulfill them on a deep personal level.

The purpose of getting clear on exactly what you want from your life is about developing a compelling vision for your life and a future that excites you. This exciting future makes life an adventure of self discovery and one that you look forward to with a sense of anticipation every day that you are alive. It frees you from the stress of chasing after empty ‘goals’ and ‘stuff’. It also liberates you from a stale life that is both boring and devoid of any real meaning. We ALL have things that excite us – things that really makes us tick and that makes us feel alive - things that makes us see the beauty and the meaning of life.

So how do you get in touch with this?
How do you discover exactly what you want from your life?
How do you get to this place of total clarity?

It’s as simple as asking yourself some questions and taking the time to really think about it and to answer them from the heart. Think on these questions and keep asking yourself these questions over and over again until you get clear on the answers. It’s a bit like building a puzzle and as you start putting some of the pieces together you will start to see the bigger picture. Here are some key questions that I believe will help you discover what you really want & to develop clarity as to exactly what you want:

1. ‘What are the things I love most in my life right now?’
2. ‘What about that do I love?’
3. ‘What do I really want from life?’
4. ‘What do I want MY life to be about?’
5. ‘What do I want to be? How do I want to be remembered?’
6. ‘What do I want to have?’ (not necessarily material)
7. ‘What do I want to experience?’
8. ‘What kind of person do I want to be on a daily basis? What do I want other people to say about me?

9. ‘What do I want to create with this masterpiece called my life?’

{ Side Note: Make sure you check your notes from Lesson 02 on what you don’t want, and make sure you do that exercise.
http://selfimprovement-gym.com/ontrack/what-do-you-really-really-want.html
Make sure you read the Alfred Nobel Story again as it will help you with some of the questions.}

Some of these questions might seem quite strange and even ‘impossible’ to answer. You might feel like there are no answers, but remember that this is really a process of introspection and you really have to ‘dig’ and stay with it. If you don’t know the answer, then just make one up (Freud found that even when we make things up it is still ‘your’ answer and contains something of personal value and some deeper truth – especially your immediate and instinctive reactions or impulsive answers).

When you answer these questions, it is important not to edit yourself. Just because you can’t see ‘how’ it’s going to happen doesn’t mean you can’t achieve it. Just because you haven’t done it before does not mean you can’t do it. Just let go and suspend your self imposed limitations. Just imagine that you can be, do and have anything.

“Whatever the mind of man can conceive and believe it can achieve.”
– NAPOLEON HILL

You might want to write this down in your journal and keep it close by. This process is by no means a ‘one off’, but something that you want to do often. Remember that clarity is power for it allows you to focus your attention on what you DO want instead of being scattered and attempting hundreds of things with little to no power. Much of what you will do in life is about experimenting and finding out what you really like and dislike. Even this is not always fixed as you evolve through your lifetime.

Remember that there are no ‘have to’s’ in life. Everything is a choice, even if it is only as fundamental as choosing what something means to you and how you process it in your mind. Life is not designed to be filled with constant striving and having to do the things you don’t want to do. There is nothing noble about that and you are not doing anyone any favors by sacrificing your own desires in favor of so called duties. Remember that a happier, richer and healthier you can give away so much more. You cannot give away anything that you haven’t got yourself. Strive to become more in order to give away more. This is true nobility and the real secret behind being truly fulfilled.

As you develop clarity you can start to build a clear vision for your life. In the Bible it says ‘without a vision people perish’ and this is very true. Without a compelling vision you will lack a sense of excitement for your life. With a vision your life is something that you look forward to and life becomes an exciting adventure. The more clarity you have the more power you will have. When you do set your goals, it is important to have a vision and a direction for your life. Developing clarity is a process and an incredibly important one. The (wise) word from Tony Robbins comes to mind:

“Most people over estimate what they can do in a year and the underestimate what they can do in a decade.” This is where clarity and vision comes in. Learning to focus with precision on exactly what you want is a recipe for a life filled with passion, joy and fulfillment.

Brian Tracy has a great program that can help you develop clarity. The Power of Clarity is a synthesis of the best ideas and strategies on personal management ever brought together in one place, in one simple, easy-to-use plan. The program consist of 13 audio sessions (that you can immediately download in MP3 format)

The Power of Clarity will show you to how to organize and simplify your life in the seven critical areas that are essential for complete balance and true peace of mind. You learn how to develop goals and plans in each of the areas that are important to you. You will also learn how to set clear priorities among the competing demands on your time and how to focus single mindedly on the one thing that you can do at any given time to achieve the most important results possible for you in that area. This program comes highly recommended and can take you a long way in creating focus, clarity and peace of mind. Click here to read more…

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