Personal goals that inspire and motivate

Are you feeling motivated to set some strong goals for this year? Write down those New Year’s resolutions and get going, right? Most people write down lofty resolutions that they think they should want and rarely stick to them, losing motivation and focus within three weeks of their "good intentions."

This is a brand new year of limitless possibilities. Do you want to:

Increase your income?

Write a book?

Attract a relationship?

Start a new business?

Become a professional speaker?

Have more personal time?

Take a really great vacation?

I’ve got a gut feeling it’s going to be a GREAT year, a BIG SUCCESS year. So, forget writing down resolutions. They don’t work. In fact, the whole idea doesn’t really inspire action. So, let’s change that.

Start thinking about 3-5 things you want, really want for yourself this year. Not what you should want, or what you think would please others. Dream a little. Think big. What are you passionate about? Entertain several ideas that make you smile, excite you, make you giggle, make you feel really good inside, no holds barred. Remove all mental barriers to holding these ideas clearly in your mind.

Now, put your attention fully on one of the things you want for yourself this year. Visualize and see yourself already there, living it! Creative visialization is a powerful tool of attraction. Our minds cannot tell the difference between something real and something intensely imagined. Hold that picture in your mind. (Do this daily!)

Does this picture excite you - make you want to have it?

How would your life change if you got (achieved) this one thing you really want?

What would you have in your life that you don’t have now?

Now, the next step is very important. You must decide to go for it. Choose to have what you really want NOW, not someday or tomorrow. NOW. Say YES to yourself instead of saying no. Making the decision fuels your intent to take action.

3 Tips to Get on Track

1. On paper, clearly describe the 3-5 things you really want. I suggest using statements beginning with the phrase " I intend to" vs. I want, I hope for, I wish to, I’d like, I desire etc. (too wishy-washy). Taking a stand with strong definitive statements reflects your commitment to succeed. (This first step is important in creating your road map to achieving your goals. If you don’t define the results you want, how do you know where you’re going?). Feel like being creative? Make a collage or dream board for a visual aid in keeping your focus.

2. Moving forward, break down your action steps into smaller steps over a shorter time period like 30 days. For example: your goal is to increase your income, your first step may be to explore options to generate more money. Another step may be to look at your skills and talents for further ideas. A third step may be choosing something you have always wanted to do, something that you love that has the potential for additional income. Maybe it’s a total change of career. The first month may be devoted to doing research and personal exploration.

3. Identify potential obstacles and struggles that could prevent you from reaching your goals. Develop strategies to keep yourself motivated and focused such as reading and listening to positive materials, surrounding yourself with encouraging, uplifting people, joining a mastermind group. HIRE A COACH! Note: let go of using the "money excuse" that you can’t afford to get what you want. Invest in your success. It costs money to make money. How much do you think NO is costing you to stay where you are?

5 Tips to Stay on Track

1. Resolve unfinished business. Either clear the past ( make apolgies, speak your mind, forgive someone or yourself) and let it go.

2. Stay strong if you’re feeling FEAR. Bring your attention back to the present. Fear creates uncertainty, worrisome and anxiety producing thoughts. ("What if" thinking, Am I going to be okay?) Fear looks at the future and worse case scenarios. Focus on past successes for confidence.

3. Eliminate negativity. Notice the chatter in your head. How do your emotions speak to you inside? What you think affects how you view a situation. Ever heard the phrase self-fulfilling prophecy? Your viewpoint affects your decisions and actions; therefore your attitude directly affects the outcome. Take a look at the people you associate with. Are they uplifting or do they bring you down? Be selective about who you’re with, being around consistently negative or fearful people is draining and disheartening.

4. Keep up your self-care. Taking good care of yourself physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually is a key factor in staying strong and focused under pressure.

5. Celebrate along the way. Taking the time to recognize measurable successes motivates continual commitment to your goals.

"The big challenge is to become all that you have the possibility of becoming. You cannot believe what it does to the human spirit to maximize your human potential and stretch yourself to the limit." Jim Rohn

Work satisfying goals

Every business talks of goals. No business can run without goals and no business can achieve anything without goals. The goals give direction to the business about where to head and what to achieve. Therefore for every business, goals are most important. Generally businesses set SMART Goals - specific, measurable, achievable, realistic and time-based. What about our personal goals in career and work? Are we to follow the goals of the organization and try to achieve them or set some more for ourselves that help us in our personal growth. What about having satisfying goals for ourselves? Let us discuss this further.

As a member of a business organization, all of us have to try and achieve the larger goals of the organization. That is true even for self run businesses. But can we reach the goals of business in a way that helps us achieve our own satisfying goals? We can. Let us see how? In the beginning, decide about what gives you satisfaction in your career. It can be - to learn something new every month, or to increase efficiency of ones work every month, or to work in a relaxed manner always, and so on. Each one of us will have his/her goal that satisfies ourself. So you will have to draw a list of goals that are desirable for your satisfaction and try to achieve them one after another.

For example, my first satisfying goal can be that I learn something new every month this year. I may be handling any work, but I want to learn something new about that work every month. That will make me feel personally satisfied. How do I do that? I can work on my given job, try and achieve my business goals and learn something new along with that. This new learning can also help me achieve business goals in time. Now if my organization makes and sells detergents, I will not only achieve the goals on quantity of sales but also about how as a sales person I learn one more sales method every month (This provided I am working as a sales person).

Setting my own satisfying goals and achieving them will not only make me happy and more confident but also make me move along faster in my career. Many of us are centered only on organization goals. Once we add our own satisfying goals to them we will be moving much faster in all the directions. Trying to achieve personal goals can also help remove lot of frustration and if a management can discuss satisfying goals for every employee and guide him/her about achieving them, the organization will have more of satisfied employees. The only care to be taken is that satisfying goals should help achieve business goals and not distract from them. So start defining your satisfying goals from today.

Setting goals with basic values

Setting goals is a skill that everyone who wishes to be successful should learn and master. However many people often set the wrong types of goals, and as a result either do not achieve what they really want to do in life, or give up on their goals because they do not become motivated by them.

It is therefore absolutely essential that the goals you set for yourself are aligned with your basic values.

What Are Your Basic Values

Your basic values are the things that you believe in, you are passionate about and what you regard as important. They are who you are and what you stand for. For example, if honesty and fairness is something you value as a person, your goals and future actions should be aligned with these values. Such as making money, in a way that is fair and honest, without cheating or harming people.

Taking the time to think about your basic values is an extremely important thing to do, as if you set goals that are not aligned with what you believe in, or stand for, will in a lack of motivation and a feeling that you are not doing the right thing.

So if you strongly value honesty and fairness in life, but then try to make money using dishonest means you are likely to feel bad about doing so, and consequently will lack the motivation to successfully go after and achieve your goals. If you do not enjoy what you are doing, then it is highly unlikely you will become successful at it and this is why it is so important to choose the goals that are right for you.

Another important consideration to make when setting goals is whether or not they challenge you. If the goals you are setting do not “stretch you” and pull you outside your comfort zone, then you are unlikely to feel motivated and driven to achieve them. However goals should not be too challenging, or unrealistic, as otherwise they will seem impossible to accomplish and you will most likely give up on them.

This does not mean to say that you should not think big. What may seem possible for one person, may seem completely impossible to another. So the goals you set should be based on what you realistically believe you can achieve.

This last point raises another important issue, as often people set goals which are influenced by what other people think. For example, many people believe flying was an impossible task, and something which could never be done.

However the Wright brothers, did not believe flying was impossible and as a result went onto create the world’s first flying airplane. If the Wright brothers had allowed other peoples limiting beliefs to influence the goals they set for themselves, who knows, maybe we would not have airplanes today.

So when setting yourself goals make sure they are the things that you really want to do in life, and are aligned with what you believe in and believe you can achieve. If you can do this you will set goals that are right for you, and vastly increase the chances you will accomplish them.

How to set goals the easy way

Setting goals is extremely easy, although it can take some time to decide exactly what goals you should set for yourself. An easy way to begin is to first create a list of everything you would like to do in life.

It doesn’t matter what you write, and the more things you can think of the better. When writing the list, try not to think of whether something will be possible or impossible to do, but instead write as though you were writing a wish list where you could have anything you wanted.

By doing this you take one step closer to achieving your goals, as often many of our goals are simply left in the mind and forgotten about because we believe that we are incapable of achieving them. However you would be surprised at how many things you thought were impossible, were actually possible if you just took the time, and made the effort to go after them.

Once you have created your wish list you should now choose 5 goals that you want to start working on immediately. These goals can be anything you like, although to give your life balance it is a good idea to choose 1 goal for each area of your life. For example, a goal for financial, romantic, personal, spiritual and health are good areas to begin with. Although do what you feel is best, so if you want 3 financial goals and 2 health goals that would be ok. However avoid concentrating your goals on one single area, as this will unbalance your life.

Whilst it may be tempting to choose more than 5 goals, 5 is a good number to begin with as it allows you to focus your mind on a few specific goals, and devote more of your energy to accomplishing them. If you choose too many goals to begin with, you may feel overwhelmed and give up before you even begin.

Once you get the hang of goal setting, you can then begin to add more goals later. In fact it’s a good idea to have as many goals as you can, but only when you feel comfortable with the process of setting goals.

With the 5 goals that you have chosen, your next step is to write them in a goal format. This simply involves writing your goals in the present, positive tense. For example, I have or I am.

This is extremely important as it tells the mind this is what you should have, rather than what you want or will have. So writing I Will or I have should be avoided.

Now that you have your goals written in goal format look at them daily, and rewrite your goals in the morning and night to burn them into your mind. The more you focus on your goals, the stronger the desire will be to accomplish them.

If you need more detail on goal setting please visit my website for more tips on how to set goals, and how to choose the goals that are right for you.