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