Posts tagged des moines iowa small business coaching
Your Vision of the Future Part Two
Jan 15th
“Life is a ticket to the greatest show on earth.” ~Martin H. Fischer
Hey. Did you answer the question from the last entry? Let me repeat it: What would you attempt to do if you knew you could not fail? What would you attempt to become or achieve or do, if you knew that it was impossible to fail? How did you do with that question? For me, I can still remember the first time that I heard this question, more than 20 years ago now, and how frightened I was by it. Yes, frightened.
It was frightening to me to put down on paper what I really wanted – the secret dreams of my heart, without knowing how I would accomplish them. Somehow it was safer if I kept these dreams locked up in my mind without even a piece of paper to incriminate me. Funny reaction I know, but some of you might also be finding some resistance to this question. The question does not ask you to formulate a plan, or be logical, or be reasonable – all of those things come later. What it does is presuppose that you will find a way and that the best way to proceed is to come from a place of certainty: I don’t know how I am going to get there, but I know that I will.
So, what was your answer? Write it down and let’s move on to the next question. Actually, before that, let’s do the “priming” that I had mentioned in the last entry. I have written about this before and any of you that have attended one of my live seminars have experienced priming first hand. As a recap, priming is a very powerful technique designed to help you to enter optimal, peak states. I’m not going to go over how it works today. Just follow these instructions – read these words:
Destiny Destined for Greatness Explorer Achievement Powerful Self Confident Successful Unstoppable Grateful Deeply Fulfilled Excited Adventure Satisfaction Playful Delight Ready to learn Fun Ready for new experiences Dreams Heart’s Desire Marvelous Gifts What Matters Most to Me What I truly want My Dreams My Passions My Loves
Great. Now let’s move on to question two. Question 2) Let’s create an inventory of your dreams. I want you to pretend that it is Christmas Eve and you have been very good indeed – Santa is going to bring you whatever you wish. This should be a comprehensive list that looks from today all the way forward to 20 or more years from now. I don’t want you to worry at all about how you will accomplish any of these goals. I don’t want you to put any limits on these goals. I just want you to dream, across all categories of your life, and write these things down.
I’ll give you some categories to help your creativity. Try to end up with at least a dozen notes in each of the following categories of goals. Spend anywhere from a minimum of 5 minutes to whatever amount of time feels right to you.
Goal Setting Categories:
- Your Physical Body Goals
- Personal Development Goals
- Family Goals
- Relationship Goals
- Business Goals
- Spiritual Goals
- Financial Goals
- Fun / Delight Goals
- Possessions
- Emotional Goals
Have fun! It is impossible to do this wrong and we will debrief the results next time.
Jack
“Life loves to be taken by the lapel and told: “I am with you kid. Let’s go.”" ~Maya Angelou
Your Vision of the Future Part One
Jan 14th
Dream no small dreams for they have no power to move the hearts of men. ~Goethe
What a great quote! “Dream no small dreams… How about you? Do you have a clear, compelling vision of your future? A vision so exciting that it powers you through the needed work; a vision so powerful that you will pay the price, in self discipline and action to make it happen? If you are like most of my clients, you have a vision of what life will be like once you win the lottery or what life will be like in some distant future time when you somehow end up with all of your dreams having come true. What very few of my clients have initially, I would say less than 5% of them when we start working together, is a compelling vision of what it will be like just 12 months later – if they achieve their five most important goals.
This is unfortunate. This 12 month vision is critical; without it most people never take the yearly actions that will ultimately make their long-term visions real. So how do you start to create a vision for your future – for the next 12 months? You dream. You dream long-term and short-term. You dream without limits. You dare to put down on paper your most treasured desires – without worrying about how you will achieve them (at least at first).
I was trying to decide how best to give you this material and I will proceed this way: I am going to give you one question or series of questions dealing with the same topic, each entry. You can proceed at your own pace and over the course of a few days, you will have a more powerful plan to create the future of your dreams than 95% of the people out there and you will have the powerful vision that you need to make it happen.
For today, I will just ask you this question to get you going: What would you attempt to do if you knew you could not fail? What would you attempt to become or achieve or do, if you knew that it was impossible to fail? This isn’t my original question – it comes from one of my early mentors: Tony Robbins.
We are also going to do just a bit of priming in the next entry. Priming is a very powerful technique to put yourself in optimal, peak states. You don’t want to miss that either. For now, just answer the question: If you couldn’t fail, what would you do?
Till next time…Jack
“Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn’t do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.” ~Mark Twain
My Favorite Season
Oct 27th
“Delicious autumn! My very soul is wedded to it, and if I were a bird I would fly about the earth seeking the successive autumns.” ~George Eliot
I love Fall! (Some people call this season Autumn. I did an entire speech once analyzing the difference between “Fall” and “Autumn” people. I’ll leave that discussion, fascinating as it is, for another time.) Let me say it again – Fall is my my favorite season!
I love the colors, the scents, the cooler but not yet cold weather and I love the “no insects” – the cold has killed them till next spring and I am quite okay with that. What is Fall like in your part of the world? Here in the Midwest of the United States it is quite pretty. I grew up in Tennessee and the Autumn season there was incredible. Really, every place that I have lived has had great color and weather in the fall except for Southern California. In LA, Fall is hot, usually smoking from fires in the forests and the trees just look tired, not pretty. Oh well, LA is great for lots of things. It just isn’t great for Fall.
Enjoy the pictures. Till next time…Jack
“October’s poplars are flaming torches lighting the way to winter.” ~Nova Bair