8 Steps To Achieving Any Goal… Results Not Typical

How many times have you heard this disclaimer before:  “Results not typical.” Every time you watch an ad for a weight loss commercial, or a make money from home product, you will hear this all too familiar statement.  So, what does it mean to be typical?  The dictionary defines “typical” as: “Exhibiting the qualities, traits, or characteristics that identify a kind, class, group, or category.”  So, being TYPICAL, is falling in line with what the majority does, and is not something that successful people aspire to be.  If you want to be successful, you want your results to be NOT typical.

So, how do you accomplish this?  If you want to be anything but typical, you have to learn how to set and achieve goals.  You need to make sure you pick attainable goals and you must have a game plan to achieve those goals.  98% of the “typical” world are amazing goal setters.  They sit down and write all their dreams and aspirations down and come up with wild visions of grandeur about what it will be like when they accomplish all they set out to do.  But, when it comes down to the nitty gritty of the hard work necessary to actually achieve their goals, they fall flat and end up giving up before the goal is reached.

Achieving goals takes hard work, persistence and TIME.  You must believe in your dream and believe in yourself.  Believe in your goal, no matter how many people try to tell you how crazy you are.  Now, don’t set yourself up for failure.  Make sure your goals are physically possible.  If you are a 50 year old with dreams and aspirations of becoming an Olympian, you might be setting yourself up for disappointment.  However, at 50 years old, if you have a goal of getting your body in the best shape of your life, and becoming  healthier than you’ve ever been, this is a completely attainable goal.  When your fat and out of shape, it might seem impossible, but don’t let that cloud your thinking.  It might take a year or two…or more to accomplish what you set out to do, but as long as you are making progress, you are not failing.

Here is the step-by-step process on how you can achieve any kind of goal:

Step 1: Dream Big and Visualize Your Outcome

You have to understand that what separates the successful people from the “typical” ones is not that they don’t dream.  Both populations dream.  Successful people, however, dream at a different level.  They dream big. They don’t dream based on just what they see or count.  They dream to the farthest corners of their vast imaginations.  That’s exactly what differentiated Steve Jobs from a small computer shop owner tinkering with custom computers.  He literally had a dream of changing the world, and he did it.  Dream as big as you can dream within your own realm of possibilities.

You have to understand that what separates the successful people from the “typical” ones is not that they don’t dream.  Both populations dream.  Successful people, however, dream at a different level.  They dream big. They don’t dream based on just what they see or count.  They dream to the farthest corners of their vast imaginations.  That’s exactly what differentiated Steve Jobs from a small computer shop owner tinkering with custom computers.  He literally had a dream of changing the world, and he did it.  Dream as big as you can dream within your own realm of possibilities.  You need to allow your mind to step into the future and see what it feels like, tastes like, looks like to accomplish the goal you are seeking.  Visualize yourself as though it has already happened.  Then, you will

Step 2: Break your dream into smaller, more manageable objectives.

When your dream seems so big it feels impossible, you need to break it up into smaller parts.  Don’t try to eat the whole elephant in one bite, so to speak.  This is the key secret in effective goal-setting.  The reality is that if you have big dream and you try to tackle it without chopping it down, chances are you will get intimidated. You will get scared. You will be tempted to think that fulfilling it is impossible because of its enormity. Going back to the example of weight loss.  If you  want to lose 100 pounds in a year…that may sound extremely intimidating and maybe even impossible.  But, if you break that down into smaller pieces, it becomes much easier for your brain to comprehend.  Losing 2-3 pounds a week doesn’t sound nearly as intimidating as losing 100 pounds.

The smaller the goals are, the easier it is for your subconscious self to believe in them. You need to remember that your subconscious self is always trying to fight you. You subconscious is always trying to lose. The default human psychology is to be a loser or to fail. By breaking down your goals into smaller parts, you you are letting your conscious (meaning, the conscious part of your brain) take over be in control. Everything will remain possible when the sub sections are broken down into smaller more manageable parts.

Step 5: Tie Subgoals Into To-do Lists This is where the rubber meets the road. Every employee in America has a to-do list. In many cases, these to-do lists are tackled every single day. After you have broken down your goals down into smaller subgoals, next is to create to-do lists based on those subgoals in such a way that these to-do lists can be divided into daily or weekly partitions. This brings us closer to the actual everyday practice. Be very clear as to the tasks you need to do. There should be no guess work, there has to be no ambiguity, and there should be no gray or shaded areas. The simpler your descriptions are of what you needs to be done, the better.

Step 6: Set A Master Time line And schedule At this point you will need to set a master time line for the entire project. There must be an absolute deadline for you to take note of to have everything achieved. Working from that, you have to come up with a schedule for each of the smaller parts—a schedule for the objectives, for the goals, the time line, the subgoals, as well as to come up with the delivery for the to-do lists. Everything is broken down into details and fitted in to a time line.

Step 7: Make Sure Your timeliness Is Realistic As mentioned earlier, there is no such thing as an impossible goal. Seriously, even sending a man to the moon may have seemed impossible in 1958. But they were able to do it in the late 60s. Why? Because they were able to set a big dream and that they followed a realistic time line. You must make sure that the time line you create is sensible enough wherein you can have time to experiment and consider totally different options or courses of actions, should the opposite result come out. So, time should be allocated for you to carefully weigh the alternatives or solutions. Having a solution that is too restrictive or inflexible might emotionally set you up for discouragement or burnout. So put some fudge or padding into your time line to make it more realistic.

Step 8: Act, Measure, Fine Tune This the most important step. Most people who fail try something only once. When it doesn’t turn out well, they tend to give up. What’s wrong with that picture? You have to remember that we are surrounded with failures. Most of the time when you take action, it’s not doesn’t work out immediately. It’s not just like stepping on the plate and then hitting a home run the first time you take a swing on the ball; that’s not how it works. It’s absolutely not the case. Always understand that while you’re trying to achieve your to-do lists, you will be taking actions at the same time You need to measure the success of your actions. Measure them accurately, and then fine tune. So that when you take another action, it will produce the desired result. As long as you keep acting ,measuring, fine tuning; and then repeat the cycle again, you develop momentum and develop a system that will eventually define success. Make no mistake, the big difference between people who are successful and losers is not because the latter are less intelligent or less talented; no. In most cases, success comes to those people who have a system and a method.

4 Essential Steps to Setting and Achieving Goals

We all have the same amount of time in a day, so why is it that some people are able to be so productive and successful and others are not? It’s because successful people are good at managing their time and working toward and achieving their goals. If you want to be successful in life, you cannot be aimless with your time. Setting goals for yourself will help you to make the most out of your time and to realize your dreams. Here are 4 steps to setting goals that can help to get you get started toward achieving success.

Organize Your Thoughts

Take the time to brainstorm all of your goals or ideas that you would like to achieve. You can start by thinking in terms that are very broad, then you can narrow it down later on and be more specific about what you want. In order to first get started, simply focus on getting something written down on paper that indicates or describes the achievements that you want to eventually realize. Once you see something tangible on the paper, it can help you to sift through and organize your thoughts later. Then, you can organize your thoughts in order of importance, arrange your goals in a hierarchy of which ones you would like to achieve first or perhaps in order of which ones are most important to you. This will give you some idea of what direction to go in with your time.

Schedule Your Goals

After you have brainstormed through your variety of goals that you would like to see realized in your life, think of how long you want to take to achieve each of these goals. Try to establish a realistic and concrete plan that details how long it might take you to reach these goals and when you would like them accomplished by. Doing this can help you to organize your time toward working at accomplishing them and that way you will see them realized sooner.

Start Working Toward Your Goal Today

Don’t wait until tomorrow, stop making repeated excuses that attempt to justify your procrastination in not working toward your goal or dream. Start now and don’t put off tomorrow what can be done today. Try to form the habit of being a person who gets things done and doesn’t procrastinate and this will also help you in your time management, productivity, and a variety of other areas in your life. Try to make a little progress each day toward your goal and before you know it, you will have achieved what you set out and planned to accomplish.

Keep Yourself Motivated

It is easy to get discouraged and to get side-tracked or to fall behind our goals, that is why it is important to constantly try to remind ourselves of our goals. Write down repeatedly what your goals are, remind yourself every single day about what you want to work toward. Keep the goal fresh in your mind, reinforce your attitude by reminding yourself every single day about why you are working hard; you want to achieve your dream. You can also make it a priority to stay around positive people who are going to help motivate you into maintaining the effort in working toward your goal.

It’s important to have direction for your life and your time in general. We all get the same 24 hours in a day and it is up to us how we decide to spend our time. If you want more out of your life and want to start accomplishing some dreams or goals for your life, then start by forming the habit of goal-setting. Use these 4 steps to setting goals to help you get organized and started toward achieving what it is you imagine for your life.

The one thing you need to do TODAY to live a better life.

Have you ever felt overwhelmed with life? Inadequate? Like a failure?  It’s hard not to feel that way especially when your life may not be taking you in the direction you had hoped. We all have an idea of a fantasy and fairy tale life. Very quickly we learn that this is not the case. But, no matter what our circumstances, we can choose to “react” or “respond” to them.

We need to learn to respond, rather than react. Think about it, when your doctor prescribes you a medication, you want your body to “respond” to the medication.  If it “reacts” to it, then you have a problem. When faced with a trial or difficult situation, we must always be IN CONTROL of how we handle it, rather than letting circumstances or other people control us.

This may seem like a difficult…or seemingly impossible task depending on what trial we are faced with.  If you don’t like where you are, then something needs to change.   Change is a necessary challenge of life.  It affects our environments almost every day.  Weather, jobs, relationships and trials (including some health problems) are some of the things that change in our lives that we may not have any control over.  How we respond to these changes in our environments is what defines us.  This is the ONE thing you need to do TODAY…right now to live a better life.  CHANGE your attitude.

We all know this is not always an easy task.  But, even more difficult is trying to change someone else.  No matter how much you may want to change another person, you can’t.  If someone does not have the desire to change himself, no amount of influence or coercion from you will ever change them.  Change is something that cannot be forced upon someone.  It happens within.

So, whatever you do, put your FOCUS on yourself, and not on anyone else.  You CAN start to change YOU today .  Change yourself to become a person that others are inspired by.  Change yourself to motivate and encourage others to be better and to become their best.  Let go of negativity and envelop positivity.  Define these things about yourself, and rather than saying you WANT these things, start to tell yourself you ARE these things.

Maybe you have done things in your life that you are not proud of.  But, the beauty of change is that you don’t have to let your past dictate who you are today…or tomorrow.  So, even if yesterday, you were a negative person who was controlled by distractions, by other people, or by negativity and weakness…that was yesterday.  It’s in the past.  Today is a new day with absolutely no mistakes in it!  Decide today, that negativity is not going to be you.  Weakness is not going to define you anymore.

This will not be easy.  When you aim to change yourself, you will face extreme adversity.  You will have people telling you that you can’t, that you are crazy, that you will never change. The most difficult thing to do, is to not let those words stain your mind so that you begin to believe them.  Don’t let those words of negativity seep into your soul, because they become toxic and can begin to poison not only you…but those around you.

You have a choice today of what you are going to be, do and have, by what goes into your mind.  You have a journey ahead of you.  You may not know for sure what will happen TO you, but you can most certainly define what happens WITHIN you.  Make yourself a written statement that affirms WHO you are like this:

Do whatever necessary to get rid of that negativity.  Listen to positive motivational speakers or read personal development books.  Keep repeating  positive words and encouraging thoughts and don’t get down on yourself.  Celebrate whatever you DO get done each day and close the door on what you don’t. You won’t be perfect in one day.  But, you can keep working at it every day.

It’s time to stop focusing on your faults and start focusing on your dreams.  It’s time to stop regretting your past and start planning your future.  Though you can’t change your past or my circumstances, you can CHANGE your behavior, you can CHANGE your attitude, you can CHANGE YOU.

Part 4- Mirror what you admire

Part 4 in this series is the culmination of everything we’ve talked about for the last few days.  We have learned to Attract…Reflect…Become, and now, we must “Mirror what you admire.”

In the last post, we talked about respect.  Oftentimes, respect and admiration are used synonymously.  But, they are not exactly the same.  Just because you respect someone does not mean you want to aspire become like that person.  Most people have respect for others simply because must of us are civil human beings.  Admiration is not as easy to come by as respect.  Typically when you admire someone, you see attributes in that person that you would personally like to develop.  In some cases, you want to become like that person you admire.

In order to BECOME what you admire, you must first follow in the footsteps of that person and “mirror” what they do.  Think of someone you admire.  What is it about them that you admire?  What have they done to get where they are today?  You need to know the process in order to reap the benefits of the outcome.  Here are a few things you can do to  to become someone so admirable, that other people will want to mirror you.

–Wake up early.  You have heard the quote, “Early to bed and early to rise, makes a man healthy and wealthy and wise.”  There is more truth to that than you may realize.  According to Vanderkam, a poll conducted of successful executives revealed that over 90% of them wake up before 6:00 AM.  The CEO of PepsiCo, Indra Nooyi, said she wakes at 4 AM and arrives at her office no later than 7.  Likewise, Bob Iger, CEO of Disney Corporation is up by 4:30 AM.  Arising in the early morning hours gives you quiet time to prepare for the day ahead and to get a few things done before the craziness of your daily responsibilities begin.

–Exercise.  Successful people know that in order for their minds to be sharp and alert, they must take care of their bodies.  Many successful people put exercise as first thing on their list so that it doesn’t get neglected as other responsibilities or conflicts arise.  If you exercise first thing in the morning, you will be refreshed and invigorated for your day, and you won’t have to worry about being too tired later on, when you have been working all day long.  Do it first thing, and make it a habit.  You will be amazed how just this one thing will improve your life.

–Surround yourself with successful people.  It is so important to find ways to interact with successful people.  You need to do whatever you can to put yourself in places that successful people congregate.  Find a success seminar, read motivational books or listen to audios.  You must be able to immerse yourself in the same environment of successful people in order to grasp a hold of the mindset necessary to achieve your dreams and goals.

You may have heard of the old fable of the eagle who fell from its nest and was adopted by a chicken farmer.  Surrounded by chickens, the eagle believed he too was a chicken.  He did not know the amazing potential he had within himself to soar to great heights.  He saw some eagles flying overhead and was intrigued by their majesty, but that potential was unseen because he was surrounded by chickens, and thus believed he was only capable of living the life of a chicken.

Likewise, if we spend our time around people who are negative, or scarcity-minded, we will begin to adopt the same mindset of failure.  Don’t do this to yourself.  The more you are around successful, wealthy people, the more you will begin to emulate what they do.  Successful people have perfected the abundant mentality, and they often desire to show others how they have achieved their success.

–Adopt an abundant mentality. Zig Ziglar says, “You can have everything in life you want if you just help enough other people get what they want.”  You must adopt this mentality in order to have any success in your life.  Be willing to share the knowledge you learn with others so that you can help them be successful too.  The “pay it forward” approach always has a positive outcome.  As you are free with your knowledge and service, people will begin to look to you as a mentor and will want to look deeper at whatever it is you have to offer.

As you are able to grasp the importance of these concepts, you will find it easier and easier to “Attract what you expect, Reflect what you desire, Become what you respect and Mirror what you admire.”

Part 1- Attract what you expect

Part 2- Reflect what you desire

Part 3- Become what you respect

Secret Reflection Coaching Sessions

Part 3- Become what you respect

In part 1, we discussed “Attract what you expect.”  Part 2 covered “Reflect what you desire.”  The next point would like to address from this valuable quote is “Become what you respect.”

Respect is something that we should all expect, not only from others, but especially from ourselves. It is a powerful and meaningful word, and one that should not be overlooked. There are many reasons you may respect someone. Perhaps you respect a neighbor because they are always looking out for others. Or you respect a co-worker or company leader for their hard work ethic, or for their accomplishments. Maybe you respect a religious leader, or an athlete. There are many people in different walks of life that we may respect.

But, no matter how many outside people you might have respect for, the most important person that you should respect…is YOURSELF.

There is a great difference between having respect for someone else, and having respect for yourself. You can respect someone else, even though you do not agree with them, or hold their same beliefs. For example, a vegetarian or vegan may hold the belief that eating meat or animal products is wrong, whereas a meat eater obviously does not. Even though their values are completely different, they can each respect the other person’s way of thinking, and not criticize or devalue what the other person believes is right.

The same goes for religious beliefs, sexual orientation, or any other moral or spiritual issue that may have differences of opinion. Just because other people do not hold the same belief system as you does not mean that you need to disrespect what they hold to be true. You values can differ, and yet you can still have respect for one another.

Respecting yourself does not work the same way. In order to respect yourself, your beliefs and your behaviors MUST be congruent. They CANNOT contradict themselves in any way. Your conscience will not allow you to respect yourself if you behave in a way that contradicts your truth. If you sincerely believe something in your heart to be true, you cannot act in a way that contradicts your beliefs without losing respect for yourself.

In order to “become what you respect,” you must define what is true and important to you, and then you must act in a way that coincides with that truth.  You must live in a way that you can accept yourself and know that your actions and behavior is synonymous with your genuine principles. As you act in accordance with whatever deep beliefs that you hold, you will continually gain and grow a deeper respect for yourself.

Here are 4 things you can do right now to help you become your biggest fan. 😉

1. Tell yourself every day that you are a person that is worth love and respect.
Now, don’t laugh at the thought of talking to yourself. Maybe your idea of self-talk is that of “Daily Affirmations with Stuart Smalley” from Saturday Night Live. Stuart would look in the mirror at himself and say, “I’m good enough, I’m smart enough…and doggonit people LIKE ME!”

Yes…SNL made it look ridiculous and kind of stupid to do such a thing. But, don’t let that stop you. Positive self-talk is one of the most important things you can do to truly reach your highest potential.  Do not fall into the trap of criticizing yourself. Saying things like, “I’m so stupid,” “I hate myself,” “No one loves me,” or “What was I thinking?” can only hinder your progression, not to mention annoy the heck out of everyone around you. You wouldn’t like someone else saying those things to you, so have some respect and DON’T DO IT TO YOURSELF.  You must be your biggest cheerleader and when the negative thoughts about yourself start to creep in, replace them with positive ones.  If you need help, listen to a motivational audio, read a personal development book, or do something uplifting to get your mind where it needs to be.

2. Never let others opinions about you affect you in a negative way.

You have got to seek your innermost approval from yourself. You must love yourself DESPITE what people think about you. You cannot let your self-esteem hang on whether or not other people show approval for you. There are going to be people who like you and there will be people who may not like you. You might get praises from some and criticisms from others. Take in the positive things people say and appreciate it, but don’t depend on it. Your mom won’t always be there to tell you how awesome you are. Likewise, don’t give haters any attention. Realize they don’t respect themselves and most likely other people don’t respect them either. You should feel sorry for them, not for you. Sometimes, we may receive some constructive criticism from a spouse, loved one, or friend. When this happens, take a loving approach and try to see their point of view. Maybe there is something you need to work on, but whatever they say doesn’t need to make you feel bad. You can try to work on improving yourself and move forward.

3. Take care of yourself.

In order to respect yourself you need to pay attention to your physical appearance. Brush and floss your teeth every day. Make time to exercise and get your body in shape. Dress for success by putting on some nice clothes and having your hair neat. Ladies put on a little makeup and get yourself looking and feeling good. You will be amazed at how much more respect you will have for yourself by just dressing up a bit.

4. Educate yourself. You need to immerse yourself daily in positive things that will begin to empower you.  For 30 days, read or listen to at least 30 minutes of something that will motivate and inspire you.  You will feel a change begin to take place and it will have an incredible positive impact on your life.  Your self-respect will grow each day that you do this.

Part 1 – Attract what you expect

Part 2- Reflect what you desire

Part 4- Mirror what you admire

Part 2- Reflect what you desire

All success begins with the seed of desire. You must have a burning desire to achieve your goals, or you will never have the conviction necessary to accomplish your desired outcome. Desire must be great enough that it becomes the driving force that causes you to do whatever necessary to make your dream a reality.

A young entrepreneur named David was attending an event for a network marketing company that he had recently become a part of. He deeply admired the leaders in the company and wanted to rise to the level of success that they had accomplished. He saw one of these esteemed leaders standing by the hotel fountain and he walked over to talk to him. David proceeded to tell the man how much he wanted achieve the success that the top earners had obtained in the company. The man asked him how bad he wanted it and David replied that he wanted it more than anything.

Squinting back at David as though in slight disbelief, the man asked, “Are you sure about that?” David assured the man of his burning desire to make his dream come true. The man grabbed David from behind and shoved his head under the water in the nearby fountain. He held him under for long enough that David was obviously struggling for air, then pulled him back up. He said, as soon as you want it as bad as you just wanted to breathe, then…and ONLY then, will you succeed.

This experience had such an impact on David that it completely changed his life. Once he had the concept of true desire, he realized that he must be willing to do whatever necessary to accomplish his dreams and goals. In turn, he not only became a top producer in that company and several others afterwards, but he now runs his own multi-million dollar company and is ranked in the top 20 highest paid entrepreneurs in the MLM/direct sales industry.

It started with desire.

That desire worked within him to become an all-encompassing force that drove him to create a reflection of his innermost desire. This had an effect on his expectation as well. He expected a successful outcome, and others were attracted to his confidence, as he was “reflecting” or showing his desire to others.

You must continually strive to stimulate, cultivate and increase a winning desire. Successful people know that the victors are those that embrace an intense burning desire until it becomes a deliberate course of action, and finally a habit. That extreme desire begins to emanate within your soul until everything you do becomes a reflection of that success.

Part 1- Attract what you expect

Part 3- Become what you respect

Part 4- Mirror what you admire

Part 1- Attract what you expect

The above quote has some deep meanings that we will be addressing over the next few days. Today’s post will focus on the first point, “Attract what you expect.”

Many years ago, a successful man was visiting a friend who worked at the county jail. As the two were visiting, the jail keeper commented how lucky his friend was to have become so prosperous. The well-dressed man responded that he never expected anything less. When he was young, his father had always told him that he was going to be successful. It was expected of him and he was grateful to have not disappointed his father. An inmate overheard the conversation and said that really, he didn’t disappoint his father either. He was told time and time again by his father that someday, he’d be in jail. And he was exactly where he was expected to be. What created the difference in the outcome of these two men in the story?

EXPECTATION.

These two men were given expectations by their fathers…and both of them lived up to them. Luckily the successful man was given a positive role model and he was able to embrace his father’s positive expectations to find success. But, where does that leave theman who was given nothing but negativity? Is he now destined for a life of failure because of the negative environment that was forced upon him? The answer depends on him. If he believes that there is no other life for him, then his expectation remains the same, and he will continue to attract the same negativity he has experienced his entire life. He must learn that in order to attract a different outcome, he must EXPECT what he most desires.

 According to the dictionary, to EXPECT something is:

–To believe with confidence, or think it likely, that an event will happen in the future.
–To wait for or look forward to, something that is believed to be going to happen or arrive.
–To demand or anticipate receiving something because of a perceived right to it or because it is due or appropriate.

To put it in perspective, let’s examine something that all of mankind can equally expect every day of our lives. When you wake up in the morning, is there ever a question in your mind whether or not the sun is going to come up that day? Of course not. This doesn’t mean every day is going to be a sunny day, but you KNOW without ANY hesitation that every day, the sun will rise to a brand new day.

What if you had that much confidence about the direction of your life? Imagine waking up every morning with the assurance, conviction and EXPECTATION that you will be where you want to be…that you wouldn’t even dream of questioning any different outcome than a successful one. As you are able to find that confidence within yourself to expect greatness, then others will begin to expect the same of you and they will in turn be attracted to your character. This is the law of attraction. It is the first step toward your journey to success.

Once you have an attractive character, then you are naturally able to REFLECT to others the person that you desire to be and you are that much closer to BECOMING someone not only you can respect, but others can too.  The easiest way to accomplish this is to find a mentor you admire who has already achieved the successes you seek, and copy what they have done. Success leaves clues, and if you have the right mentor, you will be shown the methods and tools they used to achieve their dreams and goals.

Stay tuned for Part 2 in this series: “Reflect what you desire.”

What kind of Elemental Spirit are You?

[playbuzz-game game="http://www.playbuzz.com/shawnp10/which-elemental-spirit-are-you"]

Abundance in your life

There’s so much more abundance you can receive if you prepare yourself for it. Part of this is mindset and part of it is taking action in your life on the important matters.

Sometimes this might mean correcting actions you’ve taken in the past and working to repair those things. In all of this, you will feel more open to receiving the greater good that is available to you.

The truth is there is abundance and plenty for everyone, including you – not just financially, but in every way. Yet so many people live in lack and despair because they don’t realize they can receive what they need and desire in their lives.

Check Out Theabundanceproject.com for more information on abundance.