Nothing Changes Until Something Changes

I've often said I've never met a lazy person. I often meet folks who are stuck or frustrated, or who seem to go in directions that make no sense to me, but I've never met anyone who doesn't want more of some things and less of something else. As the Dalai Lama notes, we are designed to move toward happiness and away from suffering. We're built that way.

I have noticed with increasing frequency, however, that we often work really hard to accomplish very little. We are a stubborn lot! We try and try, and try again, even though our favorite strategy isn't working, and there is little evidence it will ever work. And yet, we keep on trying.

Most of the people who will read this actually live pretty comfortable lives. You have a computer. You are educated and have job skills. You may live in a wealthy country, are probably fairly healthy, and the essentials of life--food, clothing, shelter, perhaps even a savings plan--are taken care of. So, it might make sense for my readers to be quite content and to want very little.

But that is not what I hear from clients, or in my email. We are a very ambitious group! We want more money, more time, more personal fulfillment, more satisfying work, and so forth. We are restless, and I love that!

But it also raises the obvious question, Why aren't we getting the things we say we want?

We live in a golden age of opportunity and plenty. Over any 5-year period, you can have, see, do or become just about anything you desire. You can visit Antarctica. You can have dinner with the President of the United States, which I was able to do in 2007. You can get an advanced degree, become wealthy, run a marathon, start a band, or move to Alaska. There are no limits!

So, why aren't we getting the things we say we want?

My blunt answer is this: Many of us are using ineffective strategies. We have goals or desires or dreams, but we are pursuing them with strategies that have almost no chance of succeeding. We have been "trying" for years without success, and yet we keep on doing the same things in the same ways, year after year. That is really dumb!

If you are not reaching your goal, you have two basic choices: change your goal, or change your strategy. You either "get this" or you don't. What more can I say?

The reality is that you CAN be happy in this life. You can make money, if that is your goal. You can raise happy, healthy kids if that is your dream. You can build a huge company or start a charitable foundation. You can write a book or teach high school or do whatever fills your heart with joy.

But to have those things in your life, something must change. If your current strategy isn't working, tell the truth about that. If you've had a major goal for more than a year and it isn't happening, ask why not! Question your approach. Get better advice. Do something different!

And, above all, acknowledge the things that have to change in order to make room for your goal to arrive. Who will you have to become? What will you have to stop doing? Who or what will have to exit your life in order for new realities to be at home in your world?

Nothing will change until something changes. What steps or changes will move you forward this week? What must you read or learn? What must you do, or stop doing? What must you invest? Who should you call, or stop calling? If your dreams and goals are truly important to you, do one thing different this week. Take a step. Try a new way. Just do it!

To Be A Goal Setter :: Goal Setting 101

Goal Setting 101

To be a goal setter, and more importantly a goal achiever, you not only have to have a written set of goals for you life (business and/or personal), but, you also have to have a written plan of action towards their achievement.

The goal setting process really starts with a self-evaluation. Sitting down and asking questions like, “What do I really want out of life?” “What do I want to accomplish, become, have, be or do?” Open your mind and your heart. Sit down and fill out a desire journal. Fill it with all the dreams, aspirations and desires that lie in the recesses of your heart. Write about the type pf person that you want to become. Don’t hold back, write everything down! Dream like a child the evening before his/her birthday or the evening before Christmas. Dream as if anything and everything is possible. Because unless it is legal, immoral, or unethical, I would highly encourage you to believe that it is possible.

Decide what it is you want in each area of your life: Personal, Family, Professional, Financial, Physical and Mental. Don’t be vague either, if what you want is money (financial) then define how much you want and by when. Specifics are necessary for you to have a plan. Being clear in what it is you want will cause about 80% of your success. You can not plan for the goal “I want more money.” You can, however, plan for the goal “I want to earn $250,000.00 annually by the end of 2010.” The more specific your goals are the easier they are to build a plan for. If as your reading this you are thinking “I do not know what I really want.” Then set a goal to find out.

Write down your goals. Don’t type them (not at first anyway) sit down and print them out, clearly, specifically and in measurable terms. This moves them from a desire, wish or intangible dream to an item on paper. Something you can see, touch, and relate to.

Okay now you know what you want – next you will need to identify what skills and knowledge you will require in order to accomplish your goal. Ask yourself what knowledge you need to gain in order to speed-up the successful accomplishment of you goal. Ask yourself what skill or skills you need to make the greatest positive impact on getting to your goal. There is always at least one skill or key piece of knowledge that is holding you back – otherwise you would already have accomplished the goal. Identify what it is and go out there and get it! If you are not able to figure it out for yourself then ask your spouse, your friends, your boss, a mentor, or any other person that you believe would know.

There are some things that you can do alone, however to achieve significant goals in your life you will need help. List all the people, groups and organizations that you will need to interact with to reach your goal. Think through some win-win negotiations. Remember the more you give the more you get. As Zig Ziglar reminds us “You can have everything you want if you just help enough others get what they want.” As well as those that can help you, I would also suggest listing out those that could hinder your progress as well. Forewarned is forearmed.

What about obstacles? We have all encountered them, and we will continue to encounter them during our attempt to reach any goal of worth. If there were no obstacles along the way everyone would have already accomplished all of their goals – you included. You will need to list all the obstacles, barriers and impediments to your goal. Why are you not at your goal already? Write down each and every answer to that question. This will allow you to find the bottleneck to your success. Once you are aware of what is holding you back, apply all your resources (which you listed out already) towards the removing or overcoming of this blockage. More often than not, the removal of a single primary blockage will uproot and resolve many other smaller barriers to your goal. This can help you make quantum leaps towards reaching that goal.

Now that you have this valuable collection of information you need to map out a plan to utilize it and accomplish your goal. Successful business men and women do not set out on a course of action without a plan, you wouldn’t go on vacation without some planning and most do not even get married with out hours and hours (one hundred or more at times) of planning. These days far too many spend one hundred hours, or more, planning the wedding. Yet, they spend no time at all planning their marriage or their life. You can change that in your life. Lay out the key points you have put together thus far and develop a plan of attack.

This plan can start with the steps to gain the knowledge and skills you need to gain. Steps to get you in contact with the people and organizations you need to help you along your road to success. Lay out all the steps you know you need to take to reach your goal. Organize then by priority, and then sequence them. As you go through this process you will be motivated to take actions against the first step on your plan. Completing the first step will further motivate you to take action on the next step and so on.

Now that you have a plan you need to set a deadline. A goal is a dream with an achieve-by date. Setting a deadline develops and intensifies your desire to attain your goals. Don’t scare yourself with large goals or underestimate how long it will take to accomplish them. Instead break down large goals into small milestones with deadlines. If you have a goal that you would like to accomplish within a year, break it down to monthly, weekly and daily activities, which you need to accomplish in order to achieve the goal. If you do the daily activity you will automatically reach the yearly goal. These milestones will act like a forcing system for you unconscious mind. They will motivate and drive you towards your goal. Having deadlines for your goals will keep them on your mind. Making you more conscious to the situations and people in your life that can aid you on your road to success. Set your deadlines as realistically as possible. Do not over or under estimate them and be honest with yourself. You could always reset deadlines. The key point I want to drive home here is that you MUST have a deadline to shoot for.

You have the plan – now what? As I mentioned early in this article most people agree on the positive impacts that goal setting have. Most of them have even gone so far as listing out their major goals. However, that is where most people stop. Here is where you are going to act differently and succeed in your goal achievement. The key word here is ACT. Take action on your plan! Do not procrastinate! The clock is ticking and your deadline is inching closer with each passing second. Do something each and everyday towards the accomplishment of your goals. Work with all your gusto on the first step of your plan until it is either completed or until you can make no further progress on it. Then move to the next step, coming back to those incomplete previous steps as soon as you can move them forward to their completion. Keep moving, keep working and keep taking your action steps every day, do not stop. Anyone that has ever had to push a car will tell you the hardest part is getting it moving. Once you’re moving it will still take effort, but it takes far less effort than if you stop pushing and have to start moving all over again. Taking consistent daily action will not only move you quickly towards your goal but it will reinforce in your subconscious mind that you can and will attain your goal. These daily actions will result in a positive attitude change, and you will need that to succeed.

Two additional things you can do you that will steel your resolve to accomplish your goals are to visualize your goal and resolve to never give up. Visualize your goal continually or as often as possible during every waking moment. I recommend making a dream board. Cut out pictures of your goals and glue them to poster board. That way you look at them everyday and it reinforces your subconscious mind. Your subconscious mind does not differentiate between your visualization and reality. So visualize your goal as already attained. View it in you mind’s eye with every detail possible. Feel the pride, joy and fulfillment that will come with reaching a significant goal. Visualization will also make you aware of those situations and resources in your life that you will need to reach your goal.

Finally resolve to never give up in your quest to reach your goal. Attack it with a dogged determination. Let the words of the Capcom commander in Apollo 13 ring in your ears; “Failure is not an option!” When you encounter barriers and obstacles do not ask yourself what will happen if or when I fail. Instead think positive, and then develop an action plan. Ask yourself “How can I get over, around or though this barrier and reach my goal!” Remember that the only difference between the person who accomplishes their goals and the person who doesn’t is that the individual, who does, simply did what the person who doesn’t would not do!

Everyone has dreams, I have them you, have them even a child them. But without action these dreams never become reality. The difference between dreams and the goals of the top achievers is focus. Peak achievers go through processes similar to the one I have laid out here to focus their actions on what they want to be, have or do, when they want it, and how they are going to get it. They design their goals with a mission and this mission is success, and it is so detailed that when they decide to reach the goal, it is almost like it as already happened, just through their commitment. Follow this process and you too can rise to the levels of those you have watched in awe.

This of course is a brief overview. If you are a novice the best way is to have someone mentor you and coach you toward achieving your goal. I am willing to coach you if you are willing to follow a simple system that has helped thousands of people achieve what they really want out of life. If you want what we have, and would like more additional information, contact us and a team member will get back with you right away.

Dustin Mitchell

Mediocre Minds

"Great spirits have always encountered violent opposition from mediocre minds" - Albert Einstein.

As I was thinking about what to share this week I glanced at one of the two pictures of Einstein that hang on my office wall.
As I began to think about this incredible truth that I have read so many times, I once again realized how important it is to fully understand.

Most of us surround ourselves with individuals who support us in staying the way we are. The unfortunate truth is that when you decide to become a great spirit -- to pursue a great adventure -- many of the people around you will not support you.
Often with good intention they will tell you familiar things like "be realistic," "slow down,” “take your time," "be careful," or "don't do anything rash."

I have found that, When you pursue greatness, you represent the courage that others don't have. (That sentence is important -- please read it again until you FULLY understand it.)

Consequently, when you succeed, they can no longer tell themselves and others their own "good stories" about why they don't succeed. You break through their excuses for staying in an unfulfilled or dissatisfied life. For this reason, it is absolutely imperative that you surround yourself with great spirits! Like-minded individuals who have the same vision and are going the same places you are going. People who believe in you, support you, sometimes even push you.

One of the greatest decisions I’ve made was that "I would no longer spend quantity time with people that I did not want to become." This is one of the most difficult decisions I have ever made -- and also one of the most powerful.

I looked at the crowd I was spending time with and they were great people; and yet, they were not going in the same direction as me. They did not have the same goals for their life. The same passion.

I realized that they were holding me back.

I still love them, care for them, communicate with them, but no longer spend a major portion of my time with them.
Who do you have in your life that may be holding you back? Who can you begin to spend more quality and quantity time with that is going in the same direction as you? Who do you know that is passionate? Who do you know that is committed to greatness?

It has been said that 5 years from today you will be the same person as today...with 2 exceptions:

1. The books you read, tapes you listen to, seminars you attend.
2. The people that you spend the majority of your time with.

This is no dress rehearsal -- this is your life -- the real deal! Remember that. And as you do, be outstanding -- live with passion -- and make your life magnificent!

Dustin Mitchell