Personal Development;Life Enhancement;Achievement
Posts tagged goal achieving
New Year’s Resolutions Part Three
Jan 5th
“Every man should be born again on the first day of January. Start with a fresh page. Take up one hole more in the buckle if necessary, or let down one, according to circumstances; but on the first of January let every man gird himself once more, with his face to the front, and take no interest in the things that were and are past.” ~Henry Ward Beecher
Happy 2009! Is this going to be a wonderful year for you and yours? I hope so. I certainly intend that this be the best year that I have experienced so far. How about you? What are your intentions? What are your goals? Would you like to make this your best year ever? Would you more than like it – would you love it – do you want it so much that you can taste it? Then read on (and make a habit of reading this blog. We are going to go on some great adventures together this year!)
Last time I shared my blogging goal. I must tell you that sharing that goal made me a little uneasy. When it was a private goal, I could easily make excuses to myself. But I am tired of making excuses to myself – I want to see my dreams living and breathing right in front of me and accomplishing that will take action and lots of it! So, I made a public commitment. I can feel the power of that commitment even as I write these words.
So, here are all of my Top Five Commitments for 2009
Health: I will return to my optimal bodyweight before the end of 2009.
Family: My wife and I will take our family to New York for a great vacation to celebrate my elder daughter’s completion of her graduate program.
Business: I will blog 5 days per week – every week of 2009.
Finances: I will earn more in 2009 than I ever have before – at least 25% more.
Fun: I will run in the USA’s largest cross-country race: The Living History Farms Seven Miler.
By the way, each of these resolutions or goals is what one of my old bosses called a “bhag” Bhag: a big hairy audacious goal – a goal of tremendous importance that a first may seem daunting or impossible, but upon reflect is realized to be so desirable that you will do whatever it takes to make it happen. I just love that term.
Are these all of my goals for 2009? Not even close. But these are the drivers – these are the goals that will ensure that all of the other ones get done. Next time, I will talk about how I will use these on a daily basis to make sure that I accomplish my goals for 2009 (and have a great time along the way!).
Bye for now…Jack
“What man actually needs is not a tensionless state but rather the striving and struggling for some goal worthy of him. What he needs is not the discharge of tension at any cost, but the call of a potential meaning waiting to be fulfilled by him.” ~Victor Frankl
New Year’s Resolutions Part Two
Jan 2nd
“We will open the book. Its pages are blank. We are going to put words on them ourselves. The book is called Opportunity and its first chapter is New Year’s Day.” ~Edith Lovejoy Pierce
Greetings.
In my last entry I made a public commitment to blogging Monday thru Friday for an entire year. Why did I do this?
1) When I commit in public I am more likely to take the action. I have more motivation to fulfill my promises to others than I have to fulfill my promises to myself. (This is a very common response. At least initially, it is easier to use this than to change this.)
2) I want to get a number of books published – books that I have been working on for years. By writing every day, I intend to get these finished.
3) I want to instill the habit of writing everyday. Some days I may feel like it. Some days I may not. However I feel, however easy or hard writing may be that day, I intend to show up and do my best. This will be a great change for me.
4) I have received so many benefits from blogging already, even with my fitful writing efforts. New clients, speaking engagements, much greater credibility – all of these and more have come about because I have blogged. If I received so many rewards with a little blogging, how much more might I expect with a lot of blogging?
5) A Monday thru Friday focus on blogging will also naturally drive me to complete the other projects in my business growth plans. My own products for sale, affiliate sales, newsletter releases, website enhancement – all of these will be driven and in some ways demanded by regular blogging.
So that is the explanation of the blogging commitment. I also initially decided to set a goal, a resolution, in 5 categories of my life. Those categories are:
My Five Commitments / Categories for 2009
Health
Family
Business
Finances
Fun
I will share more about these in later entries. For now, for you, if you could focus on and create one great goal in each of those five areas for yourself, what would those goals be?
Till next time…Jack
“Many people look forward to the New Year for a new start on old habits.” ~Author Unknown
Goals Part 2
Sep 4th
“Establishing goals is all right if you don’t let them deprive you of interesting detours.” ~Doug Larson
The last entry told you that we would be doing dreaming together as part of goal setting. Tis true we will. There is great power in your dreams and I want you to have that power. It is the power to get past the things that have stopped you before. It is the power to get yourself to take the actions that you must in order to change your dreams into your reality. It is the power to put of procrastination and take action right away. Power. Power for good lives in your dreams and that is why we start goal setting with dreaming – we want, we need that energy to get past the obstacles that will absolutely come up.
For today, I just want to ask you a few questions, questions to prime you for the work we will be doing together:
1) Where are you in your life? Are you on track for where you want to be or have you gotten derailed somewhere along the line?
2) If you knew that you could not possibly fail, what would you be doing for a living?
3) When you look at your life right now – are you living your dreams?
4) When you look at your life right now – is this the life you wanted or is this the life someone else wanted for you?
5) Are there any big dreams that you have given up on? Why?
Give those some thought. Write down the answers. If most people set their goals for the year 5 minutes before New Years Eve, while drunk, and never review them again until the next New Years Eve; we are going to follow a path that ensures much better results and more fun. And you might start to get excited now – it’s okay. There is power in goal setting and once you have been thru the process once, your life is forever changed for the better.
Till next time…Jack
“We are made wise not by the recollection of our past, but by the responsibility for our future.” ~George Bernard Shaw (1856 – 1950) an Irish playwright – the only person awarded both the Nobel Prize for Literature (1925) and an Oscar (1938) – perhaps best known for his play and movie Pygmalion