Welcome to the Totally Positive Goal Setter

This Lens is all about the power of goal setting, positive thinking and self development.

It will be a place where you can find all sorts of info and inspiration for your life and career.

You will also find much more at my website www.money-and-mind.com

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Goal Setting - the Map to Your Future

We have all heard that goal setting is the only way to achieving the things we truly want from life, but where does the beginner start?  How do you stay motivated and focused on where you're going?

This article is a brief introduction to some very simple techniques that will get you started on the road to achieving your dreams.

Creating a map

There's an old saying that if you don't know where you're going, you're never going to get there.  Well that's just as true in life as it is in, say, driving a car.

A goal is the place we want to be; our destination and the first step to take if you want to achieve something is to write that goal down.  But in fact, what you are doing is drawing a map.

Take a piece of paper and at the top, write down your goal.  Try to word it positively and specifically and make it measurable.  For example if you want to give up smoking, don't put "To give up smoking".  That's too negative.  Try writing, "my goal is to make my lungs healthy again".  And be as specific as you can; "To make my lungs healthy enough so that I can run up five flights of stairs and recover my pulse rate to normal within three minutes".
Do you see how real and achievable that sounds?  So write that at the top of your map, furthest away from you. 

Then, at the bottom of the paper, nearest you, describe where you are now, your starting point.  What you write here needs to be just as measurable and specific, so here's what you do.

Go out and run up five flights of stairs and when you get to the top, use a stopwatch to time how long it takes before your pulse is back to normal.  When you've stopped gasping, come back to your piece of paper and next to the words "Where I am now", write" 12 minutes", or whatever your recovery time was.

OK, so your map now has a start point and an end point, but you still need to figure out how you are going to move from A to B.

Does it look like a long way?  Don't worry - let's look at a great technique for making almost any task, no matter how large become totally achievable.

Tracing a Route

This is where you take what seems like an impossible goal and break it down into little manageable bits that are nowhere near impossible.  This process is called "chunking down".

For example, you could put things like.  "To smoke 5 less cigarettes per day", followed by, "Run half a mile".  Then, "to smoke 7 less cigarettes a day", followed by, "run a mile and a half".

Then, maybe put, "go for a whole morning without a cigarette".  "Take up a hobby that takes my mind off the cravings". And so on, moving further and further up the page, till you have filled the space in between the bottom and the top, with incremental steps.

Finally you need to put today's date at the bottom and beside each of the steps in between put a new date.  So, for example if you think you can get to running a mile and a half in three weeks time, put that date down there and other dates next to all the other steps until, when you get to the top, you will set yourself a date for actually reaching your final goal.

Now you know that you don't have to worry about your great big goal which seems so far away; all you have to worry about is the little goal that is the next step on your map.  Suddenly your mind isn't so overwhelmed and you can start to think that maybe this just might be possible.

Staying focused

Now you have your map, you need to start your journey.  For some people, making any kind of change in their lives can be real tough in all sorts of ways, but one of their biggest problems is focus.

How do you stay fixated on your next step?  How do you keep going when there are so many reasons not to?  Here are the four key things you must do.

1 - Review your plan every day.  Get out your roadmap each morning, or more often if you can and look at it, read it again and again till it becomes utterly familiar to you.  Make the habit of looking at it as familiar as brushing your teeth.

2 - Each day, break the steps down into smaller, even tinier steps.  This is the same chunking technique on a micro level.  For example, when you're trying to motivate yourself to go running for half an hour, try this.  Say to yourself, "OK, I'm just going to put on my running gear; that's all; I'm not thinking beyond that".

Then when you're dressed for the road, say, "OK, now I'm in my gear, I'm just going to step outside and run for 5 minutes - just 5 minutes that's all".  So you step outside and you start to run.  At the end of the five minutes, you're five minuets from the house and you might as well keep going for another five minutes.

It sounds silly and like you're trying to fool yourself doesn't it?  Well that's precisely what you're doing even though you know what's happening and it does work.  It keeps those little voices quiet.  The ones that given half a chance would keep you lying in bed all day.

3 - Keep track.  Every time you achieve each step or part of a step, mark it down on your map.  Put a big red tick next to it, put a line through that step in big, thick pen.and be proud of yourself and savour the moment.

Next day when you look at your map again, you'll see the big red tick and it will remind you how great you are and that if you can do that step, you can do the next and the next and the next.

4 - Reward yourself.  This is important too.  After three or four steps why not give yourself a little gift?  Something you've wanted for a while but have denied yourself.  When I was giving up smoking, I'd maybe go to the movies after each week of progress, or buy myself a piece of exercise equipment, to say well done and keep going.

Deadlines

You remember that we put dates next to each of the steps on our map?  I'm often asked, "What happens if I miss some of my dates?  Should I give up?"

Absolutely not!  Just because things slipped a bit is certainly no reason to tell yourself not to keep going.  Here's the thing; when you set the date in the first place, you were guessing to a certain extent.  You didn't know for sure that it would take you that long, or less or more, you just estimated.  So what if you got it a little wrong?  The important thing is that you got to the next stage, not that you were two days late.

So never use a missed date as an excuse, or start telling yourself you're not going to make it.  Remember though, that if it's taking you a year to achieve what you should have done in a week, then you need to look at your focus again.

And also remember that if a date moves back, you have the choice to either go a little faster to get yourself back on schedule, or you have the right to adjust the map so that all the future dates get extended by the same amount.  It's not a crime; it's just like hitting traffic on your journey.  You can either speed up a lot and risk losing your licence, or you can take it slower and still get there, relaxed and in one piece.

Getting there

Now the big day has arrived.  You've taken all the steps, you've focused, you've tracked your progress, you've given yourself a few little rewards and you've made it.  You can run up five flights of stairs and recover in three minutes.  What now?

Firstly, give yourself a big pat on the back, secondly give yourself a good reward - and I don't mean one last cigarette.  I mean, how about buying yourself a present with some of that money you're not spending on tobacco and finally set yourself a new goal.

Now you can run up five flights of stairs, why not run a marathon; why not take a look at your diet - could you be eating less and more healthy?  What other changes do you want to make in your life? Now you know how to do it you can set a goal to achieve anything at all.

Good luck - you are a star!!

If you'd like to know more about goal setting, life changing and new ways to gain financial independence, take a look at :

http://www.money-and-mind.com.