Let me show you something amazing...
I require that my clients have a clear outcome in mind, a goal if you will, for every session. It keeps us from wasting time with uncertainty because if the client knows what they want, they’ll also know when they get it, and it makes my job so much easier–and sometimes keeps it from being impossible. This is a key topic to any kind of success, so let me go into some depth here
There are 3 parts that I’ll be discussing. The first is making sure the goal has an outcome that you can measure that has a definite point of completion and a clear direction. Secondly, you have to break the big goals down into smaller ones. Finally, you have to know how to look for problems when you get stuck.
The first thing that you have to keep in mind when setting a goal or deciding on something to work on is that the outcome has to be measurable. You have to have solid proof that it worked. Perhaps this sounds silly or obvious, but you have to know when you’ve reached the goal and how to do this isn’t obvious to many people. They seem to think that they’ll just do whatever it is that they need to do and the results will happen and that’s all they need to care about. You need to have a clear outcome so that you can be completely satisfied that you’ve reached that goal and be ready to move on to the next one.
There are a few guidelines to use when deciding what a good goal will be. First of all, your goal can’t be a feeling or a state of being. “Being happy” is not a good goal. For one, it’s too vague. Second of all, people naturally move through states throughout time. Nobody is constantly in one state of being all the time–except for dead people. You can get to a point where you’re happy, but as soon as something happens and your perfectly natural reaction moves you into a state of unhappiness, it’s too easy to decide you were never really happy in the first place.
On the other hand, if your goal is to land a job that pays $60,000 a year, get a new car or get into an intimate relationship with someone of the opposite sex, there’s no way you can deny that you got there when you get it. You can also set goals for something that can be vague, such as learning a skill, by setting checkpoints that let you know how well you’ve progressed. You might break it down into different sub skills that you can check off when you feel comfortable with each one so that when they’re all checked off, you can say that you’ve learned the skill. Again, the more tangible you can make it, the better.
It’s also important that your goal be phrased in a positive sense, not a negative one. What this means is that you should define what you want to get to instead of what you want to get away from. “I want to not fail” isn’t useful, but “I want to get an A” or “I want a promotion” or “I want to learn how to juggle” are all very useful. One thing to note about negatively-phrased goals are that they are so vague that although people assume that the result will be the opposite of the thing they want to get away from, “not X” really means “anything but X” which encompasses too many possibilities so the result is confusion and a lack of movement.
Think about that the next time you say to yourself “I’ve got to get out and do something” or “I’ve got to get out of this job”. You’re not going to go anywhere because you haven’t picked a direction to go in.
The second stipulation for a good goal is that it has to have an endpoint somehow. Again, being happy as a permanent state of being is impossible, but you can work toward the things that may bring you happiness such as balancing your schedule to spend more time with your family or doing something you’ve always wanted to do.
A good example would be running a marathon as a goal. You need to specify how much of the marathon you want to run to be satisfied. Some people only want to run half of it. Some want to finish the whole thing. Some want to run more than they did the last time. Some want to run for a certain duration or finish under a certain time. Regardless, there’s a set point to reach or exceed that lets these people know they’ve reached their goal so that they know when to feel satisfied with what they’ve done.
The bottom line is simple: you have to know that you’ve succeeded. Success is entirely a mental phenomenon. We feel successful when we’ve attained a goal and that satisfaction allows us to stop and move on to the next thing. With that in mind, recognize that being able to feel successful is an integral part of the process of setting and meeting goals. If you make it more difficult to feel that, you’ve upset the whole process and you’ll just get stuck with a sense of aimlessness. So keep things clear.
A very important way to do this is to break the goal down into steps or sub goals. Make it simple. Sometimes the best way to do this is to really break the process of whatever you’re doing down into a series of steps. If you want to get more dates with the opposite sex, the first step may be to start approaching them and starting up conversations more to get comfortable with it. Then you can move on to keeping the conversations going and then asking for phone numbers to get dates out of it later as the next steps. This actually fixes the problem that most people have when they set a big goal: they take in the goal as one big chunk, so it seems overwhelming and impossible. In fact, having smaller sub goals allows you to continue to feel successful throughout the process of achieving a goal, which actually keeps you motivated!
Now, goal setting is a very important step when I work with someone with 3D Mind(tm). Having an outcome that is measurable allows both myself and the person I work with to be sure that we’ve either been successful or that there’s more to work on. The other thing, though, is that it allows you to isolate where problems and sticking points occur. In the example of talking to the opposite sex, getting hung up at any one point in the process will keep you from getting to that end point. Having a problem with approaching them, or talking with them, or asking for their phone number can seem to cause the overall problem of not being able to get dates. The reality is that the problem happens at one or more of those points, but if you’re not breaking it down to find where the real problem is and at which point, you’ll never actually find the solution and continue to remain stuck.
Since the work I do is aimed at unsticking people, this is essential as well. I want to focus in exactly where the problem happens. The next question then is what exactly is getting in the way. Now, most people will blame their circumstances or their other people for the stuck point. The problem with this is that these things are generally out of our control. Instead, the thing to look for is what you do that leads to the problem and set everything else aside. Because you can only change you, that’s where your focus should be. If you really want to find the problem, examine what it is that you do, believe about yourself (remember, the focus is only on you), or feel that gets you stuck. That’s where I have people focus when I work with them because that’s what works.
From here, of course, I break out 3D Mind(tm) and remove the limitation for them. If you’re working on a goal by yourself, this is where you need to have some sort of tool to do that. This last step is the one that levels the playing field. Some people just seem to be able to accomplish things easily and the first two steps are all they need. The rest of us struggle sometimes, but if you can clear out the limiting beliefs, then you can shoot right ahead to achieve whatever you want.
Let’s recap.
First of all, make sure your goal has a measurable outcome with a definite end point and a clear direction. How will you know for sure you’ve reached the outcome you want?
Second, break it all down step by step into little, easy to digest chunks to keep from being overwhelmed and to keep you motivated as you complete each step.
Third, take a look at each step and find the points where your own actions, beliefs, or feelings cause stuck points or get in the way of accomplishing that step and clear those limitations out.
If you follow this process (and especially if you have access to 3D Mind(tm)) you’ll find that not only will setting goals be much easier, but also quicker and more efficient. This really is the surest way of making sure you get to the outcome you want in the fastest amount of time.
Make sense?
