Having a goal enables you to focus your energies on devising ways to achieve it. When someone makes a decision and begins focusing on achieving a specific goal (and even better in a specific period of time), the powerful subconscious mind goes to work and begins playing with ideas and developing strategies of various ways to bring about the successful completion of the goal.
When you set yourself a goal both your conscious and subconscious start working on it and begin to develop an action plan. You will find you begin asking yourself questions about what needs to be done to enable you to reach your goal. You may find yourselves coming up with amazing ideas and solutions to problems or obstacles that have been in the way of achieving your goal. Solutions and ideas that you are surprised you ever thought of may start popping into your mind.
Our subconscious is an extremely powerful tool. The more often you remind yourself of your goal, the more your mind will work on ways for you to achieve it. Some people find answers come to them when they are asleep and dreaming.
Have you ever noticed that there is no correlation between being wealthy and having a high IQ or a university degree? If there were, every doctor and university graduate would be wealthy, and as statistics show, most of them end up in the same situation as 95% of the population.
The main thing that the majority of independently wealthy people have in common is that they have set goals for themselves and achieved them. They invest time in reading and learning about wealth creation and are happy to learn from other people's mistakes and experiences, as well as their own. They set goals, and realise that they will be far better able to achieve them if they familiarise themselves with the ways in which other people acted and the things that others have done to succeed. Wealthy people create wealth by carefully utilising the income that they have available to them to their best advantage. They know that working harder and longer hours is not the way to achieve financial freedom, instead they have to utilise what they have, and make it grow.
Setting Goals.
When you begin to work out your goals you need to make them as specific as possible. A vague idea or generalization like ?I want to buy investment properties and become wealthy? is not enough. You need to be much more detailed. ?I want to own my first investment property within six months. I will save for the legal and bank fees, and borrow 100% of the value of the property. I will find an extremely well priced, three bedroom brick veneer house that is close to schools and shopping centres. It will be either brand new or less than ten years old. It will be structurally sound, and require a minimal amount of maintenance. I will find a good agent to manage it, who has a lot of experience and will find me a good tenant.?
This is a specific goal, and you could add a lot more to it. Because your goal is specific your mind immediately begins to ask questions such as ?How much money will I need for the fees and charges? How much does that relate to if I break it down on a weekly basis? Will I have to look at my current expenses to see where I need to cut back so as to make up the difference for the amount I need to save?? Specific goals help you to create specific, realistic action plans and as the old saying goes, ?If you fail to plan, you plan to fail?.
You will find that if you write down your goals on a piece of paper, and put it in a prominent position, so that you will read it often, your subconscious as well as your conscious mind will start asking questions and coming up with answers, and you will find that you have already begun to take the necessary steps to achieving your goal.
It is helpful to have a series of goals, ranging from daily, weekly, monthly, yearly, ten yearly and thirty to forty yearly. You can always refine and change your goals as time goes on and situations change.
You may find that it is easier to start at the 40-year mark, and then work backwards. Try to work out what steps would be needed to achieve your 40-year goal, and spread them out over the different time spans, to what you would need to achieve to end up with the final result.
Try to make your goals realistic and achievable. Do not set a goal that is too hard. Set lots of small, easily achievable goals and work step by step to achieve your road to success. Stay positive. Believe in yourself and your abilities to succeed, even if other people patronise you or try to put you off, or tell you there is no point.
Setting and achieving goals help you to create a stronger character. It is always helpful to remember that our brain cannot entertain both positive and negative thoughts at the same time. If you stay positive you will dispel negative thought patterns. Even if you come across little obstacles that get in the way of your goals, don't give up. Focus on finding a solution, rather than focussing on the problem ? utilise a positive response. Focussing on finding solutions enables you to put your brain to work, to find ways around things. If you just see an obstacle as a problem and just accept that life has dealt you a blow, and let it stop you in your tracks, then you will never learn and grow. Remember that children learn to walk by falling over. Focus on the long-term achievements that you want to fulfil, and it will be easier to overcome your problems.
Important To Set Goals
Keep in mind that each one of these tools can be, and in fact is the subject of books, tape sets and seminars. I encourage you to go into each one more deeply. My purpose here is to outline the tools that I have found most useful in my own life. Some you've heard of already and you may benefit from a new perspective. Others will be new and you may want to add them to your existing tool belt.
Goal Setting
The fact is that most people spend more time planning their wedding and vacations then they do their life. As a result most weddings and vacations are well orchestrated, fun and joyful events and most people's lives are in varying stages of disaster. With a road map, you can find your way anywhere. Without one, you'll be lost before you know it. A well thought out properly organized set of goals is your road map.
The cornerstone of effective time management is to understand clearly what you want to accomplish. Otherwise you can be very efficient with your time, but you won't be very effective. In other words if you are completing unimportant tasks twice as fast as before, you are being more efficient, but you are not heading in the right direction. And going faster and faster in the wrong direction won't get you to where you ultimately want to be ? right?
Decades ago, a remarkable study was done involving one hundred Harvard graduates. Twenty five years after each one graduated, they interviewed each of the students in order to determine how much they had accomplished. Each had similar backgrounds and resources and had received a similar level of education. The conclusion: the three people with written goals had accomplished more than the other 97 combined.
That is the power of having well thought out, written goals.
Learn to Visualize
The starting point for effective goal setting is to spend some quiet time alone and in a comfortable setting. Sometimes I'll use my office, close the door and shut off my phone while other times, I'll go to the beach or to a park. It is essential that you have at least 30 ? 60 minutes of uninterrupted time, preferably more.
When I lived in New York, I'd often go to my cabin on 40 acres of secluded land and sit overlooking the pond. Occasionally I'd get a visit from a humming bird or a family of deer. Their input was always appreciated.
Bring a pad and pen (or laptop computer) and get alone in a relaxing setting. Let your mind wander. Play comforting music or light a candle if that helps you. Just let the events of your day go and settle into a relaxed state.
Here's how you can organize it. Take one page for each of the major areas of your life including your business, relationships, spiritual life, health and fitness, education, fun and adventure, workshops and seminars, community service. Make that area the heading of the page. Then insert sub-headings on the page for 10 years, 5 years, 1 year, and each quarter. Leave sufficient space between each section.
Begin asking yourself questions like: Where do I want to be in ten years? Where will I live? What will my house look like (a center hall colonial, Tudor or contemporary beachfront house)? Who am I with? Am I married (with kids'if so, how many)?
Maybe you want to travel, or perhaps you like to stay home and throw parties.
What kind of car are you driving ? a sports car or an SUV? Is it air conditioned or do you have the convertible down? Do you prefer a stick shift or an automatic transmission?
How much money are you making? One million? Ten Million? $200 thousand? What's your net worth? How many employees do you have and what does your office look like?
Go through every major area of your life asking similar questions about your business, relationships, spiritual life, health and fitness, education, fun and adventure, workshops and seminars and community service.
Spend five to ten minutes on each of these areas and write down what comes to you. It's not important if it seems unlikely or impractical. The key at this stage is to just write it down.
For those items that are more complicated or multi-step, you may want to list individual action steps that you'll need to take. For example, if your goal is to sail the Caribbean in a 30 foot sloop within 12 months, you'll need to get a passport, locate the right travel company, set aside sufficient funds, ask some friends to join you (or not), etc. You can list each of the action steps in order of importance in the space provided.
Invariably, somewhere during this process Mr. or Mrs. Doubtfire will appear and beginning telling you why your dreams are unachievable, even ridiculous. I suggest that you smile at him/her, thank them for sharing their thoughts and go right back to what you were doing. Don't get into a wrestling match with your internal naysayer. Don't evaluate or analyze. Just keep on dreaming and writing. There will be plenty of time for practicality later on.
Continue with this process for each area of your life for each of the time frames listed.
You'll probably want to switch over to a word processor for the next step if you haven't already. Take each of the goals that you've listed and rearrange them in order of priority. Which is the most important goal in each category, the second most important goal in each category, the third, etc? Can you see that your life is starting to come together in a new and more powerful way?
Both Debra Lohrere & Drew Miles are contributors for EditorialToday. The above articles have been edited for relevancy and timeliness. All write-ups, reviews, tips and guides published by EditorialToday.com and its partners or affiliates are for informational purposes only. They should not be used for any legal or any other type of advice. We do not endorse any author, contributor, writer or article posted by our team.
Debra Lohrere has sinced written about articles on various topics from Religion, SEO Search Engine Optimization and Ford. Debra Lohrere is the author of several books on property investment, creating financial security, goal setting and the power of compounding. Please visit her homepage http://www.debra.lohrere.com/home.shtml or storefront at http://www.lulu.com/DebraLohre. Debra Lohrere's top article generates over 60500 views. to your Favourites.
Drew Miles has sinced written about articles on various topics from Free Credit Report Score, Personal Finance and Free Credit Report Score. During my years of law school, I completed an internship with a New York Supreme Court Justice and second legal internship with a law firm and also began investing in real estate. Immediately upon graduating law school and passing the bar exam, I opened m. Drew Miles's top article generates over 49500 views. to your Favourites.
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