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Vision, Goals and Plans

How did your week go?  Did you come any closer to achieving your goals or was it another week of the way it always is?  Do you feel as if you are forever stuck in a rut?  You do have the power within you to have everything you desire in life.  There are clues all around you that can lead you to success.  And, one of the best ways for getting yourself out of a rut is by recognizing that there are three primary reasons for delayed success. 

While it may seem overly simplistic, the first reason is that your goals are in your head and not written down on paper with a deadline.  This is the single most important factor in not achieving your goals.  A study was done which tracked Harvard graduates for 10 years.  At the end of the 10 years, it was found that approximately 10% (some folklore says 4%) had written down their goals at graduation.  That group had surpassed its goals dramatically.  The other 90%, with the same talent and education, had not achieved its goals.  So the single most important thing you need to do is specifically write down your goals and your timeline for achieving them. 

The second thing that interrupts our success is the number of projects we have going on at the same time.  Our energy is often so scattered that we barely have time to think or be still, and we lack serious focus for achieving what we want most out of life. 

The third factor is that our internal fear of success is constantly sabotaging us.  It paralyzes us and keeps us from being in action about the things we want most in our lives.  And so, what I’d ask you to do is take a hard look at whether you have a pattern of perfection.  Do you keep working at something until it is just right?  There are three P’s that go together:  Perfection, procrastination, and then panic.  Does this sound familiar?  This pattern creates a constant downward spiral so it is important to take a look at how perfection is playing in your life. 

Now, with an understanding of these three basic reasons for delayed success, there are some specific proactive measures you can take to jumpstart achieving your goals. 

The first exercise is to brutally look at your physical surroundings, and take an inventory.  Describe your home, your office, your garage, your desk, your car, your closets, your cabinets, and all those drawers.  I realize that this might sound ridiculous and seem to have nothing to do with your goals and dreams, but there are important clues here.  Your current lifestyle reflects your internal state of being and self-love:  “As within, so without.”  Now, one caveat is that this exercise is by nature very individualized.  Your house might be neat and clean, and yet you would say, “Well, that’s not me.”  Obviously everything is straight.  But are you relaxed at home or are you rigid in your need to maintain the outside environment?  Are the public spaces of your life acceptable and the private places cluttered?  Are you bringing your past into your present life?  Do you have clues of past failures, past relationships that didn’t work? Those are all keys to understanding how we trap ourselves in the past and don’t move on.  Do you have collections of magazines hidden away for some day?  Does your desk cry out for organization?  If you honestly can take a look at your physical surroundings, you will find the clues to what is holding you back. 

The second assignment is to write yourself a letter about your dreams.  What have you done in the past?  What worked, what didn’t?  And what do you want to do in the future?  The reason I ask you to do this is so that you can determine your current language.  Many of us think we are positively pursuing our goals but we use words like “hope,” “maybe,” “probably,” and don’t realize that it is our hesitation and inability to know and believe in our dreams that keeps us from actually realizing our goals.  Therefore, be vigilant in your language.  Do you want more money, more love, more joy?  If you say, “I want,” want is what you will create.  Shift your language to the present.  I have an abundance of love.  I have an abundance of wealth.  We have an abundance of world leaders ready to combat global warming.  The universe stands ready to give you more of what you already have. 

Finally, I’d like to leave you with this little bit of history:  someone once asked Thomas Edison what it felt like to fail 10,000 times before he invented the incandescent light bulb.  His reply was, “I never failed.  I had 10,000 iterations of the final success.”  Keep dreaming, and stay in action.