■ START WORK ON YOUR FUTURE
You begin the creation of your
ideal future by making up your dream list. You write down everything that you
would want to be doing and have, exactly as if you had no limitations at all.
You make up your list as if you were absolutely guaranteed of success. Then you
can begin refining your list, step by step to develop a detailed blue- print
for your life.
Henry David Thoreau once wrote,
“Have you built your castles in the air? Good, that’s where they should be
built. Now, go to work and build foundations under them.” Once you have broken
free from your limited thinking, like a balloon casting lose its moorings and
rising high into the sky, you can begin to turn your dreams and fantasies into concrete
practical goals with specific plans of action.
Your ability to set goals and to make
plans for their accomplishment is the “master skill” of success.With this
master skill, there are no limits on what you can accomplish. Putting your
goals on paper is the next step in the process.
■ HOW TO ACHIEVE ANY GOAL
There is a seven-step method for
goal setting and achievement that you can use, over and over, in any situation,
to accomplish anything you could ever want for yourself. These seven steps constitute
a powerful, proven formula that you can use to change your life immediately.
■ STEP ONE: DECIDE EXACTLY WHAT
YOU WANT
A real goal is clear, specific,
measurable, and time bounded. A non- goal—a wish or a hope—is fuzzy and
unclear. It is a fantasy that floats in the air. People with clear, specific
goals, who know exactly what they want, are very different from people who are
going through life hoping for the best. Your ability to decide exactly what it
is you want in each area of your life is one of the most important responsibilities
of adult life.
People often approach me at my
seminars and ask what their goals should be. I reply that only they can decide.
It is amazing how many of them tell me how hard it is to set goals, and I agree
with them. It is hard, but it is also essential. With clear goals, you can do
almost anything. Without them, you can do virtually nothing.
■ USE YOUR TIME WELL
Here is a way to decide whether
something is a good use of your time. Just ask, “Does this move me toward the
achievement of one of my goals?” If the activity helps you to achieve a goal
you have set for yourself, it is a good use of time. If it doesn’t, it is a
poor use of time.
When you get into the habit of
only doing those things that move you toward your goals, your life will take off.
Your results will improve. You will soon find yourself busy every hour of every
day doing things that are helping you in some way. You will have no time left
to spend on activities that aren’t helping you to achieve one of your goals.
When you set clear goals for
yourself, and you know exactly what you want, you will become increasingly
impatient with activities that are not helping you in some way. You will watch
less television. You will listen to less radio. You will read the newspapers
quickly, if at all. You will become far more selective with your friends and
your social activities. You will spend time only with people you enjoy, people
you can learn and benefit from. But, as the old saying goes, “If you don’t know
where you’re going, any road will take you there.”
■ STEP TWO: WRITE DOWN YOUR GOALS
Write your goals down on paper.
There is something quite incredible that happens between the brain and the hand.
When you take a paper and pen and write down your goals, you activate the Laws
of Expectation, Attraction, and Correspondence simultaneously. You intensify
your belief and deepen your conviction that your goals are possible for you.
The very act of writing down your goals gives you a sense of control and
personal power. Written goals in- crease your resolve and determination to do
whatever is necessary to achieve them.
The speed at which you will begin
to achieve your goals after you have written them down is nothing short of
miraculous. The very act of writing out your goals increases the likelihood of
your achieving them by as much as 10 times—1,000 percent!
Many Thousands of my graduates
have come back to tell me about the amazing things that have happened in their
lives that Started immediately after they began putting their goals in writing.
■ STEP THREE: BE WILLING TO PAY
THE PRICE
Determine the price you are going
to have to pay to achieve your goal. Make a list of everything that you are
going to have to do if you want to make your goal a reality.
Are you going to have to start
each day’s work a little earlier, work a little harder, and stay a little later?
Write it down. Are you going to have to upgrade your knowledge and skills, and
take additional courses? Again, write it down. Are you going to have to change
jobs, change industries, or change careers in order to achieve every- thing
that is possible for you? Write it down.
The Law of Cause and Effect is
the iron law of the universe. For everything that you want, there is a price
that must be paid. This price must be paid in full and in advance. The Law of
Sowing and Reaping is not the Law of Reaping and Sowing. You have to put in
before you get out. You have to give before you receive. You have to pay the
price before you enjoy the reward.
Your willingness to do whatever
you need to do, pay whatever price is required, go whatever distance is
necessary, and make what- ever sacrifice is demanded is the measure of how
badly you really want your goal.
Many people sabotage their own
success by deciding that they want a particular goal, and although they are
willing to pay a high price for it, they are not quite willing to pay the full
price that the goal demands. This is like wanting to win in a poker game but
not being willing to match the final bet made by the other player. You end up
losing the whole hand, just as by failing to make a total commitment people end
up losing the entire goal.
■ STEP FOUR: MAKE A DETAILED PLAN
Make a plan, in writing.
Remember, the ability to develop written goals and create plans for their
achievement is the master skill of success. A plan begins with your making a
list of all the things that you can think of that you are going to have to do
to achieve your goal. Once you have made your list, you can add new items as
they occur to you.
You then organize your list in
terms of priority and sequence. What are the most important things on the list
that you will have to do to achieve your goal? What are the things that you
will have to do before you do something else? Which items on your list are
dependent on your completing other items first?
A plan of action gives you a
track to run on. It increases your level of belief and intensifies your desire
for the goal. You gradually become convinced that your goal is actually
possible and achievable for you. You begin to see possibilities that you may
not even have been aware of in the absence of a written plan.
■ STEP FIVE: TAKE ACTION ON YOUR
PLAN
Take action of some kind in the
direction of your goal. Once you have set a goal, written it down, determined
the price that you are going to have to pay, and made a plan, you must take
some action immediately. Even if you only make one phone call or collect one
piece of information, be sure to do something. In the Bible it says, “Faith
without deeds is dead.”
There is something powerful in
your willingness to take a specific action, in faith, in the direction of your
goal, with no guarantee of success. Your action itself seems to trigger all
kinds of other powers and forces in the universe. You activate the Law of
Attraction to help you. When you take action, you demonstrate to yourself, and
to others for that matter, that you are really serious about your goal.
Until you have taken a specific,
irrevocable action of some kind, you have merely engaged in an enjoyable
exercise, like daydreaming. You have put your key into the ignition but you
haven’t turned it on.
■ STEP SIX: DO SOMETHING EVERY
DAY
Do something every day that moves
you toward your most important goal. This is a vital success principle that
generates energy and enthusiasm. For you to maintain your courage, confidence,
and self- motivation, you must be doing something every single day that gives
you a feeling of forward motion and progress. Your job is to build yourself up
to the point where you genuinely feel unstoppable, and the only way that you
can do this is by refusing to stop, by doing something daily.
■ STEP SEVEN: NEVER GIVE UP
Resolve in advance that you will
never quit once you have started toward your goal. No matter how many setbacks
or obstacles you experience, make the decision that you will keep on picking
yourself up and persisting until you eventually succeed.
By deciding in advance that you
will persist, no matter what the difficulty, you give yourself a psychological edge.
When the difficulties do arise, you will be mentally prepared to plow through
them rather than quitting. Your willingness and ability to persist are what
will eventually guarantee your success.
■
SECRETS OF SELF-MADE MILLIONAIRES
If money is your goal, remember
that most of the people who are wealthy today started out with no money at all,
or even deeply in debt. Almost everyone who is on the top today was once at the
bottom. Almost everyone who is at the front of the line of life was once at the
back of the line. Almost everyone who is wealthy today was once poor.
Most of the five million
millionaires in the United States are self-made. That is, they started out with
nothing and worked their way up. Our world today has more than 300 self-made
billionaires and multimillionaires as well. Many of these are people who
started with little or nothing, and by changing their thinking, they unleashed their own inner potentials to achieve extraordinary financial results.
And almost anything that anyone else has done, within rea- son, you can do as well.
What are your goals?
■ THE POWER OF COMMITMENT
One of my favourite quotations is
from the mountain climber Charles Murray.
Until one is committed, there is hesitancy, the chance to
draw back, always ineffectiveness. Concerning all acts of initiative and
creation, there is an elementary truth, the ignorance of which kills countless
ideas and splendid plans; that the moment that one definitely commits oneself,
then providence moves too.
All sorts of things occur to help one that would never
other- wise have occurred. A whole stream of events issues from the decision,
raising in one’s favor all manner of unforeseen incidences and meetings and
material assistance that no man could have dreamed would have come his way.
He finishes off his statement
with these words from Goethe:
Are you in earnest? Seek this very minute, whatever you can
do, or dream you can, begin it. Boldness has genius, power, and magic in it.
Only engage and the mind grows heated. Begin and then the task will be
completed.
ACTION EXERCISES
1. What one great goal would you
set for yourself if you were absolutely guaranteed success? 2. Make out a
“dream list”; write down everything you would like to have in your life
someday, exactly as if you had no limitations. 3. Imagine your perfect
lifestyle; if you were financially independent and you could live any way and
anywhere you wanted, what would you change? 4. Make a list of 10 goals you
would like to accomplish in the next year. From that list, select the one goal
that would have the greatest positive impact on your life if you could achieve
it right now. 5. Write your most important goal on a separate piece of paper.
Make it measurable and set a
deadline for its accomplishment. 6. Make a written plan to achieve this one goal.
Write out a list of everything you can think of that you will have to do to
accomplish it. 7. Take action on your plan immediately. Once you have started,
discipline yourself to do something every day that moves you to- ward that
goal. Never miss a day until you have achieved.
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