Brain-Compatible Goal Setting: How and Why Goals Drive Motivation By Brian E. Walsh PhD

It is important to hand-write your goals on paper, the action of writing them helping to imprint them on your brain. However, before writing them – be they material, emotional, or spiritual goals - identify what price you are willing to pay to achieve them.

At some point, expose to yourself your barriers and excuses, and confront them, writing them on another piece of paper. This list is not intended for you to dwell upon, but merely to show your acknowledgement. Compliment yourself and celebrate as you conquer each barrier or excuse.

If you are finding it difficult to decide on what you want, you could consider the advice of Michael Losier in his book, The Law of Attraction. He suggests listing what you don't want as a prelude to making your definitive list of what you do want. Mark Victor Hansen, co-author of Chicken Soup for The Soul says, "Once focused on the positive, you act as a magnet, to attract those things you hold in your mind."

You may have heard of S.M.A.R.T. goals i.e. Specific, Measurable, Attainable/agreed, Relevant, Timely. My colleagues and I have created an alternative set of guidelines for you for formulating effective statements of goals:

* Make your statement of goals, or goal statement, succinct, positive, and in the present tense, use action and emotional words, and avoid negative words, future tenses, and comparisons. To understand why it must be positive and in the present tense, consider your powerful subconscious mind.

Highly literal, processing in images, and with no concept of time, the subconscious mind operates only in the NOW, and does not recognize or act upon the use of future tense such as in “I will..." Since there are no pictures for such negative words as not, never, won't, it just ignores them. In "I am not attracted to chocolate cake," the subconscious only processes "chocolate cake", so a better wording would be "I love foods that contribute to my body's health and vitality."

* Make your goal statement realistic, and also make sure that it is slightly stretching, so that you have to push yourself just a bit.

* Make it specific, but allow flexibility in measuring and assessing your level of success. In being specific, avoid comparative words and too-vague statements like "I will be more disciplined in my work assignments." To the subconscious, the word more may be anywhere from .0000001 percent to 100 percent more. So be specific.

Celebrate each of your accomplishments, even if not 100 percent of what you planned. In the book, The One-Minute Manager, the authors counsel that if you're off course, don’t jump ship, just do a course correction. Use any slip-ups as opportunities to learn.

* Make your goals be measurable. If you can't gauge how well you're doing, how will you know that you’re actually successful? Ensure that you pick a target date. So that you can pace yourself and recognize your achievements at specific points along the way, break your overall goal down into bite-sized modules, chunking-down by subject, time, place, or resource.

* Once you’ve established your mini-goals, create action plans for as many as you want. This is so important, as without an action plan, all you have is a wish-list.

* Announce or share your goal with people who will be supportive. This emotional investment puts your reputation on the line.

* Finally, think about: In Your Face. Write out your goals, cut out magazine pictures, or draw them yourself. Paste and post the images all over your world, including your bathroom mirror. Keep it in your face and at top-of-mind.

Most people don't set long-term goals, let alone write them down. Some fear failure and criticism if they are less than 100 percent successful. Others don't know how to set goals. The vast majority do not appreciate the value of setting goals. The benefits of written goals are simple. They provide direction, momentum, and motivation.
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Brian Walsh PhD, bestselling author of Unleashing Your Brilliance, is an international speaker based on Canada’s west coast. He is a Certified Hypnotherapist, an EFT Practitioner, an Acupuncture Detoxification Specialist, a Certified Print Coach, and a Master Practitioner of Neurolinguistic Programming. He completed a 30-year career with a major company by heading up its China operation in Beijing. He has also lived in Canada's Arctic, where he served as a Justice of the Peace. He holds a commerce degree and a Ph.D. in Clinical Hypnotherapy. His web site is www.UnleashingBrilliance.com.

How To Create A Vision Board And Attract Your Goals By Cornelis Boertjens

A very powerful way to use visualization is by creating a so called “Vision Board”, also known as a “Dream Board”. It is one of the most powerful ways to put the law of Attraction to work for you.

A Vision Board is a collage of pictures of the goals and dreams you want to attract in your life. Important is to really use the exact image of what you want to attract, as whatever you show on your Vision Board will become part of your reality!

So if you want a specific kind of car, make sure it is exactly the type, model and color you desire.

A very basic and fun way of creating a Vision Board is by taking a big piece of carton, scissors, glue and tons of magazines.

Go through the magazines and search for images of your dreams, or search for the right images on the internet. Cut out the images and glue them on your cardboard.

For more power, add affirmations such as “I love driving my new Porsche” or “I spend lots of quality time with my family”. This reinforces what you desire.

Hang your cardboard on a spot where you will see it on a very regular basis, such as at your desk or in the kitchen. Look at it daily, and really feel as if you have already achieved the things on your Vision Board. Look at your Board as often as possible with focused intent.

You will be surprised to see the things on your Vision Board show up in your life –sooner or later- providing you keep putting your intention on them and stay positive.

By looking at your Vision Board on a consistent (daily) basis, you will manifest the life you truly desire and deserve!
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Cornelis Boertjens - CEO OrangePeel Vision Boards. PO Box 39542 Howick - Auckland 2145 - New Zealand
T: + 64 9 828 0555 or M: +64 21 364 622
Visit OrangePeel Vision Boards.

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How to Keep Yourself "On Track" By Susan Harrington

Do you set goals, decide to achieve something, make plans and start out great but over time find yourself discouraged because somewhere along the way you got “off track” and didn’t end up where you were aiming for? Or you give up because you found you just weren’t staying with it?

We all struggle with this. Really, we do – everyone. We start diets, we start exercising, we start to hunt for that job we really want, we start working on bringing more balance into our lives, we start on the path to finding what we might do that has more meaning to us, but somewhere along the way we get off course and lose momentum. Before too long, we find ourselves back where we started from, except now we feel discouraged with ourselves for letting our focus slip.

There seems to be something innately human about this pattern. Those people who ultimately achieve success at something are not necessarily the brightest or even the best at their selected pursuit. Quite often they are the ones that kept getting themselves back “on track”, the ones that didn’t give up even when they lost momentum.

It’s easy for us to berate ourselves for losing focus in our pursuits, perhaps even easier to give up the pursuit altogether than to rally ourselves back into action. Some of us use these small missteps to illustrate how and why we “can’t” succeed. We measure our self and success by our perceived failures in our struggle with this difficulty. We let it become an element describing our character.

One of the very cool things about life is that as long as our minds are healthy and willing to learn, we are able to learn. Learn new ways of being, new skills, and knowledge. We can learn to overcome our struggle with staying “on track.” We can embrace the changes required of us to learn to find our way back to our path and continue on the journey towards our goal even when we have wandered away in distraction. This is what matters. What we are able to learn, how much we are able to grow. How we are able to get back onto the path.

Stop focusing on how many times you’ve fallen “off track”, off your diet, off your exercise plan, off the direction to finding a better job. Instead learn from these experiences and place your focus on getting back “on track”. Don’t judge yourself for the slip, correct it, learn from it and realize that what really counts is that you come back to the path. You may slip again, but as long as you come back to the path, you are likely to reach your destination – as long as you continue to redirect yourself and keep going.

Here are some tips:

1. Take it one day at a time. Or maybe one step at a time. Just focus on what you need to do in each moment to keep yourself moving toward your goal.

2. Break it into smaller pieces. It's easy to get overwhelmed with a task, a project, a goal that seems so huge that it's too much to manage or imagine accomplishing. Break it into smaller tasks and plan out or decide what you will do each day, or week.

3. Keep your desired outcome in mind. Visualize it. Imagine your goal accomplished. See yourself having completed it. Place visual reminders of what it will look like around you - photos, notes, quotes. Make it your intention.

4. Manage your inner critic. You know who I'm talking about. That voice that says "I can't" or "I'll never get it done" or any number of other negative thoughts that pop up to sabotage your progress. We ALL have this voice. Learn some techniques to silence it and keep you moving in a positive direction.

Whatever path, task, goal or project you feel you’ve gotten off-track from, forget about your digression and pick yourself back up. You CAN do it. Start this day anew. However many attempts it takes, in the end it will feel great to accomplish the result.

(c) Susan Harrington All rights reserved.
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Susan Harrington is a Career and Life Coach who works with clients throughout the world. She helps forward thinkers make successful careers. You may want to download her free Special Report, "5 Steps to Finding Meaningful Work" at her website SusanHarrington.com Contact her at (503) 372-5097 or email susan@susanharrington.com.

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