Goals are different than dreams

Goals are different than dreams. Dreams are a vision for what you want in your life. Do you have a vision for each area of your life?

Download this master dream list for your life here:

Making a goal is very important in trying to create what you want in your life. Just thinking about the goal or the outcome is not enough. Many experts such as Tony Robbins, Terry Cole-Whittaker, Deepak Chopra, and many others have written about the power of writing down our goals. All of these great authors have taken the same universal principles and laws and put it into a format that has worked for them. I have summarized their teachings and what has been helpful for me in achieving my goals and dreams.

First, visualize that on one end of the spectrum you have a goal, and on the other you have reality or where you sit currently. For example, if you have a goal to be a size 4, and currently you are a size 8, that is your spectrum. This is an example and a goal I had in my life. Where I have this example, replace your own goals and dreams to understand the process of achieving goals and manifesting your dreams. We all have the power to create our own lives and our own dreams. No two lives are the same, neither are the goals.

GOAL Size 4 Financially free

CURRENT REALITY Size 8 $20,000 in debt.

There are steps that need to be taken to achieve your desired goal. Visualization is a very powerful technique that helps manifest dreams into reality, but visualization alone will not make your body transform. Tony Robbins gives the example that if you want to be successful, and just “bliss out”, that is just sit in meditation and visualize, and do not take action, someone is going to come and take your couch. Visualization and meditation are important steps in manifesting, because it gets you in touch with that creative being that is in each of us. This is the law of pure potentiality. It allows us to become aware of the unlimited potential that we have, and what we are capable of creating.

When you visualize something you want in your life as if you already have it, your subconscious cannot tell the difference between something you imagine and something you actually experience. That is why it is important to only focus on positive experiences in life. This is why a repeated thought pattern of fear can manifest in your experience.

Back to our spectrum example, you desire to be a size 4 or be financially free, but where you stand today is a size 8 or $20,000 in debt. You have to do the following steps.

First, get in alignment with your inner being. Your inner being will know the actions steps to take towards your goal.

Second, after you are in alignment, write out 6 things that you will do the following day to move towards your goal. Charles Schwab did this exercise to build his multi million-dollar business. Every night before he would go to bed, he would write out the 6 most important things to do to move towards his goal. He would do those 6 things first. If he did not complete all 6, he would then take the remaining actions and put them to the next day. So if one day he only accomplished 4, he would then take the remaining 2 and make that a priority for the next day.

Next, ask

yourself these four important questions:

What are the steps that I need to take to achieve my goal?
Why do I want to achieve this goal?
What needs to be released?
What do I need to let go of that is no longer working for me?

GOAL Size 4

CURRENT REALITY Size 8

STEPS:

Sign up for a gym Work out 5-6 days per week Get a personal trainer to learn weight routine Eat 6 small meals per day Drink 10, 8oz glasses of water per day

Taking the action is the most important part of the goal. You need to move toward the goal and get started. The steps are what it will take to succeed. Without the steps you have a goal that most likely will not be achieved. What will motivate you to take the steps? Your “Why”

The second question, “Why do I want to achieve this goal?” This “Why” will fuel your determination. If you get a big enough “Why” you will be driven to succeed. You need to have a “Why”. Another way of thinking of your “Why” is, what feelings will achieving these goals give you? The feeling or the Why needs to be your focus. That is what will propel you in taking the steps to achieving your goals. Discipline sounds good, but it is not a driving force to move a person to action. Also, your Why will get you into the feeling place and that is when the Law of Attraction goes into action and sends you what you are vibrating.

For example:

Why:	I want to feel sexy. I want to fit into my size 2 clothes. I want to feel energetic and healthy. I want to be proud of how I look. I want to release my obsession compulsions about how I look.

Once you become really clear about what is going to keep you determined, and why you are motivated to move towards the goal, you need to ask the third question. “What do I need to release?” Think of the spectrum of where the goal is and where you are currently, as a road. Put in even more simple terms, point A to point B. What is in the road that will disguise itself as roadblocks?

This could be other people, it could be your own limiting thoughts, it could be fears, or it could be your own beliefs. Maybe you have a belief that you couldn’t possibly ever be a size 4, or maybe you feel you don’t deserve to be. It is time to get really clear about what has stopped you in the past, and what has potential from stopping you now. If you become conscious of the roadblocks, and have clarity that they are there, you can release or avoid them.

Example:

Roadblocks:

Eating junk food. Eating too big of portions. Eating too many bars. Skipping workouts to sleep in. Feeling not enough

I have provided an activity sheet for you to write out your goals and all the steps to achieve them. I guarantee that if you follow this formula you will achieve your goals.

What are the steps again?

What are the steps again?

1. Write out your goal (I will give you guidance as to how to write out the goals)
2. Get in alignment
3. Determine what are the 6 steps you will take today to move towards that goal. It could be making a phone call, emailing someone, or creating something.
4. Take those steps first thing as a priority each day. Do those before you do anything else.
5. Ask yourself the four important questions outlined above and on this activity sheet.

Goal Setting Tips
The following broad guidelines will help you to set effective goals:

State each goal as a positive statement: Express your goals positively – ‘Execute this technique well’ is a much better goal than ‘Don’t make this stupid mistake’ Be precise: Set a precise goal, putting in dates, times and amounts so that you can measure achievement. If you do this, you will know exactly when you have achieved the goal, and can take complete satisfaction from having achieved it. Set priorities: When you have several goals, give each a priority. This helps you to avoid feeling overwhelmed by too many goals, and helps to direct your attention to the most important ones. # Write goals down: This makes them real and gives them more force. Keep operational goals small: Keep the low-level goals you are working towards small and achievable. If a goal is too large, then it can seem that you are not making progress towards it. Keeping goals small and incremental gives more opportunities for reward. Derive today’s goals from larger ones. Set performance goals, not outcome goals: You should take care to set goals over which you have as much control as possible. There is nothing more dispiriting than failing to achieve a personal goal for reasons beyond your control. These could be bad business environments, poor judging, bad weather, injury, or just plain bad luck. If you base your goals on personal performance, then you can keep control over the achievement of your goals and draw satisfaction from them. Set realistic goals: It is important to set goals that you can achieve. All sorts of people (employers, parents, media, society) can set unrealistic goals for you. They will often do this in ignorance of your own desires and ambitions. Alternatively you may set goals that are too high, because you may not appreciate either the obstacles in the way, or understand quite how much skill you need to develop to achieve a particular level of performance.

SMART Goals:
A useful way of making goals more powerful is to use the SMART mnemonic. While there are plenty of variants, SMART usually stands for:

For example, instead of having “to lose 20 pounds” as a goal, it is more powerful to say “To have achieved my ideal weight of 115 pounds by December 31, 2010.” Obviously, this will only be attainable if you have taken the necessary steps in achieving this goal.

Achieving Goals
When you have achieved a goal, take the time to enjoy the satisfaction of having done so. Absorb the implications of the goal achievement, and observe the progress you have made towards other goals. If the goal was a significant one, reward yourself appropriately.

All of this helps you build the self-confidence you deserve.

With the experience of having achieved this goal, review the rest of your goal plans:

If you achieved the goal too easily, make your next goals even bigger. If the goal took a disappointing length of time to achieve, make the next goals a little easier and smaller. If you learned something that would lead you to change other goals, do so. If you noticed a deficit in your skills despite achieving the goal, decide whether to set goals to fix this. Failure to meet goals does not matter much, as long as you learn from it.