“Having a clear plan is as important as motivation and willpower. It also helps you see past distractions and inoculates you against negativity.”
-Brendon Burchard
Setting goals is the simplest way to realize what we truly want in life.
Setting goals is an easy-to-use tool to help set things in motion and to begin taking action.
“Making New Year’s goals is an affirmation that you are interested in fully living life in the year to come.”
-Melody Beattie
I once heard Pitbull say, “It’s not about making it. It’s about maintaining it.” I liked that. I now think that small, consistent, continuous, never-ending, easy, incremental improvements, achieved each and every day, is what it is really all about.
It isn’t about maintaining what we have, as much as it is about constant and consistent personal growth and evolution.
If we fail to plan, we plan to fail. Taking baby steps makes starting anything easier. Melody Beattie wisely teaches:
THE NEW YEAR STANDS BEFORE US, LIKE A CHAPTER IN A BOOK, WAITING TO BE WRITTEN.
WE CAN HELP WRITE THAT STORY BY SETTING GOALS.
Life isn’t always about intensity. Intensity is an incredibly helpful tool to help us get things started, but, in my opinion, it’s more about consistency.
ACTION is the key to creating a great life. Having the ability to prioritize our actions, each day, helps and empowers us to create and manifest the EXACT reality, life, and existence that WE want to live.
Rarely will great ideas and inspiration interrupt us.
We can choose our goals. In my opinion, daily goals, weekly goals, monthly goals and yearly goals all need to be contemplated, in order to LIVE LIFE ON PURPOSE.
When we are realistic, but push and challenge ourselves, we are able to do more and to enjoy more. We must remember to go easy on ourselves and stay positive. If we don’t accomplish every single goal or task we set for ourselves, every single day, we must remember that it is not the end of the world, if we are at least trying and doing our very best.
At least we are doing something, and anything is always better than nothing.
The person doing only 10 push ups a day, completing 10 pull ups in a day, or walking once around the block, is lapping the person sitting on the couch at all times watching tv. SOMETHING IS BETTER THAN NOTHING.
Before deciding on any goal, what is the purpose exact behind it? Improvement? Contribution? Wealth? Clarity must be achieved to create and manifest the exact outcomes we desire.
Daily goals are a simple checklist of things we need to accomplish for the day. It is imperative that these are simple tasks, and things we can quickly and easily accomplish every day, consistently, as part of a ritual that become habituated. We must remember to back off on the inspiration and build a foundation. We must start slowly and methodically.
We don’t walk into the gym for the first time or after years of not working out and lift heavy for an hour or two, working out every muscle in the body. It will hurt for days, while our body and mind struggle to repair themselves. We, most likely, will not want to go back. Our commitment will wane, and we may struggle with our confidence, having given up, and losing the opportunity to earn credibility with our self, by consistently doing something challenging.
It is better for our body, our mind, and our confidence level to work one body part for 20 minutes on day one, another body part for 20 minutes on day two, then yet another body part for 20 minutes on day three, and so on. So it is with our goals. It is much more effective to start with one, small, easy-to-accomplish action item. We can easily build our foundation, our confidence, our ability to execute, and our mental, emotional, physical, and spiritual strengths slowly and methodically. After starting with one small, easy-to-accomplish item on our list and after sticking to it for a month, making it a habit, we can then add another item to our list of things to do, and after another month, add yet another habit.
Why would we want to walk into our list of things to do every day like we would a gym for the first time or after years of time off and expect to consistently hit it hard, and somehow magically keep it up?!
It is up to us to set ourselves up for success from the very start.
When things are kept simple and are easy to accomplish, they are much more likely to get done.
Weekly goals consist of something we want to do just once a week. We must remember to keep it simple and just do it. Go on a hike. Eat a super healthy meal. Volunteer at a homeless shelter. It’s only once a week!
Monthly goals and yearly goals can be something rewarding, like a special dinner or an extravagant vacation. Each day, as we complete each task on our list which becomes a daily routine, we are doing and becoming exactly what we want and deserve. Why not set a reward system into play? It helps to have something to look forward to and work towards.
Through the simple process of goal setting, we purposefully assign ourselves as the DESIGNATED ARCHITECTS of our lives.
We can ask ourselves: “What can I do to be the best possibly version of myself I can possibly be, in order to empower myself and others in creating and manifesting an even more deeply fulfilling and beautiful life?” Maybe we want to read a book every month. If so, this needs to be added to our daily goals or checklist. Reading 15 minutes every night before bed is much more likely to happen than reading a book, last minute, all at once.
Creating consistency in a daily routine will be the easiest and best way to earn credibility with ourselves, and grow our confidence levels to heights we never even imagined possible.
Start with just ONE thing. Keep it simple and easy by only focusing on adding ONE thing to each months daily routine. THIS is the secret to successfully navigating a life of continual progression, growth, and evolution.
For an incredibly helpful and empowering list of possible tasks to implement into a daily routine and make them habits, in order to accomplish ANY goal more easily, google the goodinthehead habit hacking challenge.
Write down what you would like to do daily, each morning, to start your day.
When creating a daily routine or ritual, start with just ONE thing. Keep it simple and easy by only focusing on adding only ONE thing to each months daily routine. THIS is the secret to successfully navigating a life of continual progression, growth, and evolution.
It is super useful to review all goals for just one minute every morning as part of a daily routine, and review these goals just one minute every night before laying down to sleep. I had to set alarms on my phone to do these things for a month straight before it became a habit.
Most people start the new year making goals and wanting to change and improve, then overwhelm themselves. Start small. Keep it simple. Keep it easy, then add more as you are able. Just do it. Be a Nike kind of person. Your future self will thank you for it. Your future partner will thank you for it. People will be proud of you for it, and most importantly, you will be proud of yourself.
Consistency creates more confidence, more capability, and more momentum, to navigate through ANY difficulty, challenge, or struggle that the universe may throw at us.
CONSISTENCY CREATES A CONVERSION, AND A CONVERGENCE OF CIRCUMSTANCES, WHICH MANIFEST THEMSELVES AS SYNCHRONICITY. THIS “SYNCHRONICITY” IS SIMPLY THE UNIVERSE CONSPIRING ON OUR BEHALF.
IT IS THROUGH CONSISTENCY THAT WE BECOME INCREMENTALLY MORE PREDICTABLE AND DEPENDABLE. THAT IS WHEN THE UNIVERSE CAN MORE EASILY CONSPIRE ON OUR BEHALF. IN THIS WAY, WE ARE CO-CREATORS WITH THE UNIVERSE.
During your day, make it a habit to ask yourself, “Is what I am doing right now going to help me accomplish my goals?” Set an alarm, as a reminder, if needed.
Consistently refocusing on what WE decide is important, will manifest more of those important things in our lives.
Stuck? Don’t know where to start? A fun place to start is by answering a few questions: (These questions are from Melody Beattie’s book, THE LANGUAGE OF LETTING GO, which I have been reading daily since 2014 as part of my own, personal, morning routine.)
- What would I like to have happen in my life this year?
- What would I like to do, to accomplish?
- What good do I want to attract into my life this year?
- What particular areas of growth would I like to have happen to me?
- What blocks, character defects, or weaknesses, would I like to have removed from my life this next year?
- What do I want to attain this next year? (List both little things and big things.)
- Where do I want to go this next year?
- What do I want to have happen in friendship and in love over the next year?
- What would I like to have happen in my family life?
- What problems do I want to see solved?
- What decisions do I want to make?
- What do I want to have happen in my career over the next year?
- What would I like to see happen inside and around me?
Take a piece of paper, a few hours of your time, and write it all down. You are worth it! Once we are clear on what it is we WANT, we can then work on breaking it all down into a few daily tasks, and make ALL of it our reality.
IF YOU ARE WORRIED ABOUT THE PRICE OF GETTING STARTED, YOU SHOULD SEE THE COST OF STAYING EXACTLY WHERE YOU ARE AT.
By visualizing your goal as already completed, you flip your mind onto the frequency that contains the way that it will be attracted to you.
-Bob Proctor
“REMEMBER YOUR FUTURE.” -Jason Archer
Yes, the LAW OF ATTRACTION is a real thing, but it will NEVER be activated until we do the work required of us to set this law in action.
Today’s challenge for myself: Today I will strive to be the best version of myself I can possibly be. I will take the time for myself to write down my wishes, wants, and desires, and come up with a personal, individualized, and unique, daily, weekly, and monthly plan and list of tasks, to habituate everything necessary in my life in order to manifest this beautiful, purpose-filled reality, that I want and deserve. I will be RELENTLESS in the pursuit of my goals.
As a personal challenge to you, I would like to invite you to make the commitment to read one of these books, each month, for the next year. We are the culmination of the content we allow to remain focused upon in our minds. These books have DECADES of experience, wisdom, and suggestions, to create a more beautiful life than you can now imagine. We are capable of compressing DECADES into HOURS, simply through reading or listening to a book! Investing in yourself and in your future can really be as simple and inexpensive as the price of a book each month. If you have already read any of these books, remember that REPETITION BEGETS MASTERY.
THE ONCE-A-MONTH BOOK CHALLENGE:
- 7 STRATEGIES FOR WEALTH AND HAPPINESS by Jim Rohn
- THE COMPOUND EFFECT by Darren Harday
- THE POWER OF HABIT by Charles Duhigg
- HIGH PERFORMANCE HABITS by Brendon Burchard
- ATOMIC HABITS by James Clear
- MINDSET by Carol Dweck
- THINK AND GROW RICH by Napoleon Hill
- HOW TO WIN FRIENDS AND INFLUENCE PEOPLE by Dale Carnegie
- STRESS LESS, ACCOMPLISH MORE by Emily Fletcher
- MANS SEARCH FOR MEANING by Viktor E. Frankl
- THE ALCHEMIST by Paolo Coelho
- THE 7 SPIRITUAL LAWS OF SUCCESS by Deepak Chopra
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Remember: Mindset matters. Character counts. That which we choose to consistently focus on is what EXPANDS in our lives. WE CREATE our realities.