The Rules of Goal Setting By Helaine Iris

Answer this question for yourself right now: Are you happy and attaining the things you've envisioned for your business and life? If so, congratulations, you're doing something right - if not keep reading.

There are certainly many factors and circumstances that determine whether you get what you want out of life or not. Some of them you don't have control over, some of them you do.

Goal setting - more specifically, learning HOW to reach your goals can be the most useful skill you can learn in order to maximize what you can
control and get what you want.

Goal setting is simply an organized and intentional personal planning process. This is the definition of a goal: The purpose toward which an
endeavor is directed.

Here's yet another way of saying that: Goals are the objectives you are moving toward achieving. Having defined goals will be essential to setting direction and providing a focus point for you to follow as you are building your business. A friend of mine often says, "If you don't set goals, you probably won't reach them".

It's important to understand the difference between making decisions and setting goals. Making decisions is where you start, but making a decision is not the same as setting a goal. Setting goals is putting action to your decisions. And action is the only way I know to get things done.

Outcome vs. Action
There are two types of goals - outcome goals and action goals. An outcome goal is an objective that is focused on accomplishing a specific task, such as earning a certain amount of money each year. Action goals are objectives that are focused on your commitment to take a certain action each day, such as showing up to work at 8:30.

Both types of goals are important, and it's imperative that you combine both outcome and activity based objectives in your planning. Your outcome goals will compel you to shoot for the stars, and will help you clearly define what you want to achieve. Activity based goals will allow you to feel a sense of accomplishment each day, and condition successful patterns of behavior.

Goal Anatomy
When setting goals it's important for them to be specific, measurable, attainable and in alignment with your values. This is where it can get tricky. You'll want to find a mindful balance between setting realistic goals you know are achievable, yet not letting fear limit or stifle unlimited possibility.

Call To Action Activity
Commit to not only setting a goal today but following through with creating the action plan necessary to achieve it. Start by writing down what you want. Next, list all the tasks you need to accomplish to meet that goal. Be sure to include the timeline you intend to follow.

In addition include any resources needed to accomplish the task. Finally, write a short narrative on WHY you want to reach the goal, what benefit will it provide you? And, how is reaching this goal consistent with your values and overall vision for your life?

This process works ONLY if you do it rather than just think about it. I challenge you - learn the rules of goal setting, take action today and I guarantee, you will get what you want.

It's YOUR life... imagine the possibilities!
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Helaine Iris is a Life and Business Coach, who has been featured in numerous publications, including "O" The Oprah Magazine. She helps entrepreneurs and professionals accelerate their success, while achieving a more complete and fulfilling personal life. She combines a broad range of professional experience in her work, including management positions in the education, training, retail and international non-profit sectors. For a free consultation, contact her at 603-363.4252 to discuss how she can help you accelerate your own success. You may also visit her website, www.pathofpurpose.com, for additional information, or email your questions to helaine@pathofpurpose.com.

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Are your goals Learnable? Bob Garvey

It surprises a lot of people to learn that 95% of all thought is at the subconscious level. This is a good thing. Do you know what you would do if your subconscious decided to take the day off?

Chances are that you would lie in bed all day long staring at those little dangly things at the end of your feet. Sometime in the evening, you would proudly exclaim, “Ohhhh! I remember! Those are my toes!” and then it would be time for bed.

Your subconscious being in charge is a good thing! Everything you and I have ever learned is stored in the subconscious. For this reason, one of the most powerful goal setting strategies you can use is to make your goals learnable, repeating them over and over again.

Learnable goals enable you to gain new skills and insights and eventually store them in your subconscious, making them a habit.

By definition, anything that you do without much conscious thought, ie. subconsciously, is a habit. Learnable goals help create positive habits. If you want to become healthier, set a learnable goal of walking for 20 minutes each and every day.

If you want to become more organized, set a learnable goal of 30 minutes of planning each day. As you do these activities, they will get easier and easier, eventually using only a fraction of the energy initially required.

The more positive habits you build, the quicker and easier you move toward your overall goals!

Yours on Purpose,

Bob Garvey
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Bob Garvey is a completely ordinary person who believes Purpose matters! And he’s out to convince you that it matters as well. For more advice and helpful tips on goal setting, download a complimentary copy of Bob’s new book, Purpose Takes Guts! at PurposefulGoalSetting.com.

Sponsor Message: DO YOU SET GOALS BUT RARELY REACH & KEEP THEM? I DON'T CARE IF YOU'RE THE LAZIEST PERSON ALIVE...
If you just can't get yourself to do what you must do, if your willpower and persistence always seems to fizzle out, then join people from 54 countries who are now using the new paradigm in personal growth. Click here to learn about it all...

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Team Goal Setting - Support for Achieving Your Goals By Josh Hinds

Ask the question, "should I keep my goals to myself or share them with others?" and one things for sure -- you're going to hear more than your share of differing opinions.

Yet for the most part, the answers will come down to one of these two responses...

Some folks will say, keep your goals to yourself to avoid those people who might otherwise attempt to discourage you. There are yet others who suggest telling everyone and their brother about your intended goals. As if doing so were similar to the old story where the decision was made to burn the ship the soldiers arrived on, so they would have no choice but to be victorious in battle.

I would guess that one could make a case either for or against the ideas I just mentioned. It's not my intention to do either in this particular writing. What I am going to do is share a concept you may have not even considered yet. That being -- brining a group of people (that is, 1 or more) who can get together for the purpose of supporting one another in the pursuit of setting, and more importantly achieving their intended goals.

We'll call this... drum roll please...

Team Goal Setting

While I'll admit it could be as simple as sharing your goals with others, and setting up times where you all call each other to follow up and track each others progress -- if we were to leave it at that, where would the fun be? Besides, in this day and age, there's way to much handy, dandy technology we can put to good use. So with that in mind I'll offer up some ideas to make your adventures in Team Goal Setting not just more enjoyable -- but more rewarding too.

Collaboration Tools. There are any number of web sites and resources out there which make collaboration not only easy, but dare I say an enjoyable experience.

Here are a few of them (it's by no means an exhaustive list) if you have a preferred method, or want to suggest one that you think will work equally well, by all means feel free to do so in the comments section below.

Examples of Team Goal Setting -- Tools You Can Use

Google Docs is one solution that comes to mind. Implementing the Team Goal Setting approach using it could be fairly straight forward.

For example: You create a simple google doc (that's google's word processor by the way -- it's accessible via the web, and you can even share you're google docs with others if you'd like) where you list your goals, along with your name of course, so it's clear which goals belong to who among your chosen "team" of people who will be supporting each other on the team goal setting adventure. Each of you could either add your own goals to the google doc, or for that matter you could each create your own specific document with your goals written on each persons unique doc (i.e. document).

To take it a step further each person can leave comments, both track and leave notes of encouragement, etc. next to each particular persons goals. If you happened to choose to create separate documents for each individual person, the same applies, you would just be commenting individually on each particular persons doc, rather than having everyone's goals in the one file.

While I've used the example of Google Docs to put into place the idea of team goal setting, that's really only one of the countless number of web based resources which you could choose to use which would accomplish what we're talking about.

Another way to foster collaboration and garner support in a team environment with your goal setting would be to use a site like, stixy.com -- they explain it as an "online bulletin board" where you can share it with the people you choose. What's interesting is that at the time of my writing this, you could upload files created on your particular computer (or obviously created on the machines of others who you gave permission to collaborate with), you could also include photos, create notes, and to-do lists. My description isn't doing service as to what all you can accomplish by using a service like Stixy, but I think it gives at least a good glimpse into the possibilities.

To help, allow me to paint the following picture for you -- one in which you might find using stixy.com (or a similar service) helpful if you wanted to give Team Goal Setting a go.

You could create a specific place where you give permission to a select group of people, from there both you and the people you have allowed access could go about sharing goals, and supporting each other. Alternatively, you might opt to simply allow others to view your goals, but not create or alter what you've got written there. That's handled through the controls/settings which are pretty easy to get a handle on. Also, as mentioned there's an easy option you can choose which will give you a unique URL that you can use to share your stixy board (that's what they call it, not me :-))

Microblogging -- twitter and the like

If you're not familiar with microblogging, think services like twitter, or pownce just to name a few. Twitter for example, asks the question: "What are you doing" -- and then gives you 140 characters to type whatever that happens to be. Of course, people use twitter and services like it to answer (and communicate) in ways far beyond simply answering what they happen to be doing in the moment.

That being said, it's a good lead in for how you can use the microblogging type services in your team goal-setting. One scenario that comes to mind is you share your goal, or goals as the case may be, and from there a dialogue can unfold which creates support of your groups goals. This might approach might not be as ideal (due to the fact that most people have public microblogging accounts). However, if the idea of your goals being public isn't an issue for you, this may very well work well for you.

Those are just a few ideas that come to mind. Again, ultimately it will be up to you to decide if something along these lines is for you or not. That's the beauty of personal development -- what works for one person, may not for another and vice versa. That being the case, if you don't try new things, you're guaranteed to miss out on something that might otherwise work for you. In summary, give the idea a try, if it's for you, wonderful, if not, by all means kick it to the curb, with the confidence of knowing that you've identified something that didn't work for you, but very well could have -- or as Thomas Edison might suggest to you, provided he were still around to do so -- you've not "failed" at all, but rather simply found something that didn't work, and in doing so you're now ever closer to finding something that will.

That's all for now...

Happy goal-setting ... and remember

It's your life, LIVE BIG! Josh Hinds :-)

* Grab your copy of Josh's Motivational Audio Program!

(c) All rights reserved.

Vision Boards and the Four Step Success Formula By Barbara Pellegrino

When I was invited to speak to 120 high school teenagers and share with them the basic principles of Treasure mapping, Vision boards, effective goal setting and understanding the law of attraction, I must admit I was a little anxious.

How would I get the message across succinctly, clearly and powerfully? What was the best way to to inspire, motivate and activate these young adults, to set goals, understand and believe they can achieve their dreams?

After careful consideration, I decided, I could teach them through a powerful and simple 4 step formula:

1. Goal: Know what you want.

The clearest way to get this point across, was to ask the kids if they ever went into a restaurant and ask for food because they were hungry. They laughed. They knew that when you order food, you order specifically what you want! Right? Who goes into a restaurant and says "I'm really hungry, just give me anything.." But how many of us ask that of the Universe! I am lonely I want someone to love, I need a job, any job... but when we aren't specific in requesting what we want, we are actually leaving it to other people to decide what we receive. and then we blame them for not fulfilling our needs, wants and desires. Its not their fault, if you don't ask specifically for what you want!

Did you know, most people don't have what they want because:

1) They don't know what they want.

2) They no longer believe its possible or

3) They don't believe they deserve to have it.

2. Clear Picture: Your powerful creative mind works in pictures.

Creating a Treasure Map/Vision board is an incredibly powerful tool for getting what you want. Your powerful subconscious mind only works in pictures, sounds, smells, tastes and feelings and will do whatever it can to bring YOU, your most predominant thoughts, feelings and belief systems, but it only relates to sensory information. So if you have a goal make sure you have a clear PICTURE, not only written goals. If you write "picnic" and try to list all the details of a great picnic and your subconscious mind still remembers and references, the picnics at the beach with sand in the potato salad, soggy sandwiches, bugs, flies and no bathrooms? What sort of results do you think you will get?

And then we wonder why we don't get our goals, or the law of attraction isn't working. It is working, but its attracting the pictures that are already in your "old filing system" instead of what you think you currently want.

With a Treasure map/ Vision board your subconscious mind will change its course and bring you what is on your map, not what is stored in its memory banks. You will overwrite the old non supportive programs. Your past will no longer automatically create your future.

3. Beliefs: "You'll see it when you believe it" - Wayne Dyer

Your belief systems give you exactly what you believe you deserve. If you want to know what you really believe, look at your life. Your subconscious mind always gives you exactly what you believe.

If you want something other than what you currently have, you will need to reprogram your subconscious mind. The most efficient way to to this is to:

1) Create a Treasure Map/vision board with the goals, dreams and desires you want.

2) Look at it and celebrate it for 30 days. Like attracts like. What you see in your mind and feel in your body you will soon see and experience in your life. Always visualize your desired result as if it has already been accomplished.

3) Now, you have programed your subconscious mind and it will bring you your new beliefs.

4. Action to Success: "NEVER, NEVER, Never Give up!" - Winston Churchill

This very famous phrase needs to be updated. Nowadays, we understand how the mind and brain work and we know that we must give our subconscious mind, the command stated in the positive. We have to state what we want, not what we don't want.

Your subconscious mind doesn't hear /see the qualifying word, (never, cant, don't) and only moves in a forward direction. Can you see a picture of "never give up?" No, in order to do so, your mind will see the picture of giving up before you can imagine NOT giving up. The better more effective and powerful way to say "never give up", is to say:

ALWAYS, ALWAYS, ALWAYS KEEP GOING UNTIL YOU SUCCEED.

So many people start out enthusiastically towards their goals, but soon give up, when the going gets a little tough and again, they blame the situations, circumstances and anything, except the fact that they just Gave Up! If you take action and persist and continue till you succeed, you will find the journey to your goals, dreams and desires will be shorter and easier. The difference between a winner and a loser is, a loser falls down once and stays down. The winner falls seven times and gets up eight.

You know what you want, you have a Treasure map, a clear picture of your goal, you believe IT IS possible and all you have to do is keep going and persist until you succeed.

Enjoy this 4 step formula and share it with your FAMILY AND FRIENDS today.

© 2008 Barbara Pellegrino - All Rights Reserved.
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From the reefs of Australia to the rainbows of Hawaii Barbara is a renowned speaker, trainer, author and coach. She presents her workshop, Treasure Mapping Your Way to Success, in Hawaii. Mainland USA and Internationally. She is renowned for teaching people HOW to make their dreams come true using, Practical, Powerful, Proven techniques for rapid and successful manifesting. Visit Barbara Pellegrino at www.VisionBoards.net.

Sponsor: Learn more about having inspirational speaker Josh Hinds appear at your next seminar, event, or company meeting (Josh is your host here at GoalsSuccess.com).

Why Does Accountability Help You to Reach Your Goals? By Cheri Alguire

We have all heard the word "Accountability" used around goal setting, but why? Is it really that big of a deal? Can't we just do it on our own?

Think back to all the goals you've ever made - from the simple ones to the large ones. Which goals were achieved and which weren't? Make a list of at least ten goals you can think of, writing "MET" or "NOT MET" next to each one. This visual exercise may help you understand at least one of the reasons why the NOT MET goals were - well, not met.

My guess is your MET goals were accomplished with the help of at least one other person. A friend, spouse, parent, or colleague who was in on your goal, perhaps because it was a goal they shared with you, or perhaps only because they were interested in you and how you were handling it.

Regardless, every time you bring another person into a goal, you have a better chance at realizing that goal. Without accountability, most people are likely to forget why it was so important to them, quit progressing toward it, or simply decide it's not worth the hassle.

However, with accountability - meaning you know exactly what you want, when you want it, and there is at least ONE other person who has the same knowledge - guess what, you will more than likely continue toward the finish line.

While humans are really good at admitting defeat to themselves, they are far less able to admit defeat to another person. It's actually (in most cases) easier for them to keep working toward their goal just so they DON'T have to admit they "gave up" to another person.

Accountability works for the following reasons:

* Shared Intention - When you share your intention with others, it becomes more real to you, which raises the stakes.

* Responsibility - By confiding in another person, you're claiming responsibility to the goal you want to pursue. This creates a more focused outlook as you pursue your goal.

* Ownership - Own your goals by bringing another person or persons into the loop. When you take control by placing ownership on your goal - success is far easier reached.

* Commitment - Simply by communicating your plan with others forces you, like little else does, to commit. You know they'll be asking about your progress, checking in to see how things are going, and they'll be very interested in the entire process. You almost have no choice but to commit at this stage!

So who can help you keep accountable to your goals so you can move them from the UNMET to the MET category? Do you need an accountability partner? Do you really own your goals by bringing another person into the loop? Who is that person going to be? Just make sure it is someone who will really stretch you, and won't hold you back to their level. It can be a friend, colleague or professional coach. Whoever it is, make sure they will REALLY hold you accountable to setting and moving those goals to the "MET" category!
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Business and Life Coach Cheri Alguire has partnered with hundreds of Real Estate Professionals and Small Business Owners to help them become more successful in business and in life. Coach Cheri specializes in Coaching and Training for Small Business Owners, Working Mothers, Real Estate Agents and Managers. You can learn more at NextLevelServices.net and CoachCheri.com.

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