Personal Development;Life Enhancement;Achievement
Posts tagged goal setting
Goal Achievement, Compelling Futures, Juicing
Jan 26th
“You are never given a wish without also being given the power to make it true. You may have to work for it however” ~Richard Bach
Today is a further continuation of my virtual seminar that I am creating for us both. Be sure to read the last few posts as well as this one to get up to date – it will be worth your time.
“Here is our agenda for today:
1) We are going to start with an exercise called “Putting the Past Behind Us”.
2) Then, a brief and powerful Networking Training session. Unless your goals are very small, you will never accomplish them by yourself.
3) Next, we’ll continue our goal setting session by creating an inventory of your dreams.
4) Then, I’m going to ask you a stimulating and unusual series of questions designed to further define and refine your goals.
5) Next, we will do an exercise called “Creating Your Compelling Future” – making your future so bright and exciting that you can’t wait to do whatever you need to do to make it happen!
6) Then, another Networking Training session. In just a few minutes working together today, you will know more about how to network successfully than most people ever learn in an entire lifetime!
7) Finally, we will end our time together with a couple of Threshold Exercises – my gifts to you to make sure that our time together really pays off!
Ready? Ready or not…Let’s begin!”
To be continued…
Bye for now…Jack
Juice Fasting Update
This is day twenty nine of my juice fast although it is no longer a pure juice fast, at least for the next few days. I am experimenting with adding some whey protein and seeing what that does for my exercise recovery and my rate of weight loss. So far, with only one days data: I feel a bit more energetic, I do seem to be recovering a bit faster and I also seem to have stopped my weight loss – at least for this one day. It will be more telling to see my results tomorrow after a second day of working out and having some whey protein with my freshly extracted juice.
“It will not do to leave a live dragon out of your plans if you live near one.” ~J.R.R. Tolkien…The Hobbit
Annual Goal Setting and Juice Fasting
Jan 24th
“Always bear in mind that your own resolution to succeed is more important than any other.” ~Abraham Lincoln
One of my most popular seminars has always been my annual goal setting workshop. This seminar takes right at three hours and the attendees leave with great goals that are authentically theirs and workable plans to make them happen. For most of my attendees, they will have, in just three hours, more clarity about what they really want, and why, then they have ever had in their lives.
I’ve decided to do my best to recreate this process right here on my blog. This will serve me and I intend for it to serve you – my readers. For me, I have been asked many times to create a product around this seminar. For you, well, you get to attend a great workshop for free – although instead of a three hour block of time, you will have to invest a few minutes a day, for an underdetermined number of days, while I create this.
So, imagine you are in a beautiful comfortable seminar workshop. Put the location wherever you want. I’m going to imagine myself in a large conference room at a nice hotel on the Amalfi coast of Italy. (If you are going to be a bear, be a Grizzly. If you are going to dream, dream big!) You have a nice comfortable seat and a table in front of you with a large pad of paper and a nice pen. (You will be doing a lot of writing, but I promise; it will be worth it.)
The room is full, people are chatting and someone comes to the front of the room, gets everyone’s attention and reads my introduction. After my introduction I come to the front of the room, say hello, and I immediately begin:
“I am going to read you some words, some words carefully selected to put you into a great state for our time together today. All you need to do is listen to the words and let whatever happens, happen. Ready? And then I slowly and clearly read these words aloud:
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”
Then the seminar continues…
This is a process that I call priming and at another time I will talk about the why’s and how’s of this deceptively simple process.
Bye for now…Jack
Juice Fasting Update
This is the 27th day of my juice fast. I decided to add some whey protein to my diet today; my back is extremely sore from working out and I want to see if I recover more quickly with some added protein. I will let you know how this works tomorrow. Otherwise I feel good.
Many people have been asking lately just what I am drinking on this juice fast. Here you go:
I drink sixteen ounces of freshly extracted fruit juice first thing in the morning. This is generally a mixture of green apple and pear. As long as the apples and pears are crisp they juice beautifully. This is my favorite juice of the day.
My next three juices are a mixture of mostly vegetables with just a bit of fruit for sweetness. I generally, but not always, drink a mixture of:
Kale – one large bunch.
Celery – one large bunch, sometimes I need a bit more to make up the desired amount of juice.
Cucumber – generally two small or one large English cucumber.
Lemons or limes – two of them peeled and dropped in the juicer.
Ginger – a chunk approximately one inch by one inch.
Green apples – two.
That’s it. Recipe is called “Mean Green” online and it is drinkable. Is it great? Well, not to me – but it is drinkable and it works. I am generally not hungry and I am losing weight and rapidly getting rid of gout (the plague of the last 12 years of my life!).
“A dreamer is one who can only find his way by moonlight, and his punishment is that he sees the dawn before the rest of the world.” ~Oscar Wilde
Achieve Happily or Happily Achieve
Sep 17th
“Be happy. It’s one way of being wise.” ~Colette
When I was younger, the ink barely dry on my University diploma, I was very focused on achieving goals. Like many others, I wanted to earn a lot of money, live in a great home and drive the right car. I was sure that once I achieved these things – then I would be happy and you know what? I did achieve them, rapidly, and I was happy – at least for a little while.
This all sounds okay doesn’t it? I set goals about things that were important to me, took action, learned and adjusted, took more action and eventually I achieved these goals and felt great, a real sense of accomplishment, once they were done. So what’s the point here – what’s the issue?
The issue is that I was miserable and/or unhappy much of the time that I was working towards my goals. I wasn’t miserable or unhappy because I had to be – I often felt unpleasant emotions because those were the rules that I operated under! I used pain to drive myself to achievement – and I only allowed myself to feel great once things were done.
Achieve then be Happy or Happily Achieve?
I can clearly remember the day that I realized I had a choice about how I motivated myself and that I actually could choose different rules that enabled me to feel great (or ecstatic or blissful or endlessly curious or expecting the best or any combination of these and many other positive emotions) while I was working towards my goals. What a revelation!
I was early into my NLP training, now nearly 20 years ago as I write this, and we were looking at the structure of effective motivation strategies. I will get into topic in great detail in future entries, but for today, here is my point and my question: How do you choose to feel while you are working towards your goals? Do you make sure that you feel great along the way or are you working to get things done and then you will feel great?
Till next time faithful readers…Jack
“The foolish man seeks happiness in the distance; the wise man grows it under his feet.” ~James Openheim
A Bit About Goal Setting
Sep 1st
“If you have built castles in the air, your work need not be lost; that is where they should be. Now put the foundations under them.” ~Henry David Thoreau, Walden, 1854
As I write this, I am sitting in a coffee shop on the South side of Minneapolis, Minnesota. I have just finished walking for an hour around Lake Calhoun, one of the beautiful string of lakes and parks that help to make this city such a delight. Even though I am traveling on business here today, I made time for this walk – regular walking is a critical component to my achieving the goal that I shared last time. (The weather here is so nice today, it really was not a challenge at all to get myself out walking – today the challenge was to quit at an hour!)
I am going to be sharing just a bit more about my health goal for next year. I’m doing this for a couple of reasons. First, I want to clearly state to the world, and of course myself, exactly what I am going to do. (The how I am going to do this comes later – I certainly don’t know all of the how yet, but I have faith that I will find it.) Second, some of the ways that I have formed this goal, and am now committing to it, may be of use to some of my readers.
To recap, last time I shared that I had committed to the goal of getting myself back in shape in the coming twelve months. I made this goal public on this blog to get leverage on myself. Getting leverage on yourself can be a very good thing indeed. So can making a public commitment to getting something accomplished. I realized today that I had not been very specific in the details that I shared about that goal. Here are those missing specifics:
- By July 1st, 2011, I will weigh no more than 195 lbs (dressed in summer workout gear including shoes). This is very specific.
- My bodyfat percentage will be no more than 15% and I will have this professionally measured by a personal trainer at my health club.
- I will also be very aerobically fit. I will measure that this way: I will be jogging at least 3 times per week for at least 30 minutes each time at a pace no slower than 10 minutes per mile. Additionally, I will be bike riding at least 3 times per week for at least 1 hour each time at a pace no slower than 10 miles per hour.
Now that is a decently written goal for me and here are some of the reasons why:
- It is doable in the time frame (barely!).
- It is very measurable.
- It does take into account some larger aspects of my life. (I must be aerobically fit and has a healthy ending bodyfat percentage – it isn’t just about my ending weight.)
- Accomplishing this goal will open up lots of other aspects of my life as well.
Okay. Enough for today about my getting in great shape goal. Here is a question for you: Should you always share your goals publicly? I say no. Next time I’ll talk more about the why and why not of this.
Till next time faithful reader…Jack
“It is never too late to be who you might have been.” ~George Eliot
Planning for Success Part Four
Feb 7th
Death twitches my ear. “Live,” he says, “I am coming.” ~Virgil (Publius Vergilius Maro), Minor Poems, Copa
Greetings! How have you been since my last entry? Hopefully great! Last time we looked at my list of 20 reasons why I was going to do what it takes to get back into great shape in 2009. I also talked briefly about towards motivation and away from motivation. For many goals, for many of my clients, I will have them only look at towards (positive) motivations. I do this for good reason, negative motivators are by nature stress inducing and one thing most of my clients tend to already have enough of is stress. When you focus just on moving away from something, then you will feel stress.
Is negative motivation always bad then? No. Negative motivation is often, even commonly, more powerful than positive motivation. Given that, when you really need to get something done, and especially if you have tried to make a change in the past and it did not happen, then it becomes a good idea to use negative and positive motivation.
For me, I have been trying to get back into shape since I became a non-smoker. I have gotten most of the way there and gotten out of shape again. I have lost weight again and again only to gain it back. I have lost, conservatively, 500 pounds in the past 12 years and yet here I am, still virtually the same weight. I could be depressed about this; I could even give up, but I am not going to. This time things will be very different and you will see why as this series of articles progresses and the year goes on!
My Vision for Optimal Health
(Here is the first draft of my personal vision that I will use to help me get back in shape. It is a work in progress, I will update it whenever I find a way to make it feel even better, work even better, motivate me even more fully.)
I wake up in the morning feeling great – feeling completely rested and energized. More >
Planning for Success Part Two
Feb 4th
“To the person who does not know where he wants to go there is no favorable wind.” ~Seneca
Vision. This entry will talk about the process of creating a vision; creating a vision as part of the process of making a plan to achieve a specific goal. I know that I just finished an entire nine part series about creating a vision and I shared that information on this blog. Still, this will come after “vision” from a slightly different angle and it is information well worth having.
Before we talk about vision again, I’m going to share a bit of backstory. Some of you know that I am a certified NLP Practitioner. Some of you even know what that means – at least in the field of self-improvement and self-development. For all of you though, and for me, I am going to start sharing some of my NLP history and experiences in this blog. NLP (Neuro-Linguistic Programming) is such a powerful set of skills and learnings and it is a key set of techniques that I continually call upon to help my clients and myself. How did I get involved in NLP and what does that have to do with “vision?’ Still more backstory is needed for that.
Backstory
So now, I am stepping into the “Wayback Machine.” (Quick, anyone remember where that phrase comes from?) In 1984, I was hired by a small start-up in Southern California, my first job after college. I was hired as an accountant and what a wild and great experience I had there. The two founders of this company, George Handgis and Bob McNulty, had a vision of creating the largest Home Improvement Centers chain in the USA. Armed with drive, seemingly unshakeable self-confidence, and not much money, they very nearly made it. More >
Planning for Success Part One
Feb 3rd
“Come to the edge, He said.
They said: We are afraid.
Come to the edge, He said.
They came. He pushed them,
And they flew . . .”
~Guillaume Apollinaire – French poet
This is going to be a multi-post series of articles about planning. I am going to show the exact techniques that I teach to my clients and I am going to illustrate these techniques by creating my own plan for getting back in shape.
In the last entry I shared and clarified the goal: “I will return to my optimal bodyweight before the end of 2009.” became “I will return to 195 pounds of bodyweight by the morning of December 31st, 2009.”
So the first step was to clarify the goal – to make sure that it was easy to understand and told my brain exactly what I wanted to achieve by what date. (By the way, if there is some big goal that you really want to accomplish, you might consider taking it through this process with me. I know that you will find it useful.) So, now I have my goal and my deadline. The next question that I am going to ask is: Is it possible to achieve this, is it reasonable to achieve this, in the time that I have allowed? I believe yes, just!
Let me explain. I have 11 months to achieve this weight loss and I currently weigh around 330 pounds. I intend to return to my ideal weight of 195 pounds which means that I must lose 135 pounds in 11 months. Simple math tells me that equals 12.28 pounds per month or approximately 3.07 pounds per week. Is this possible? Yes it is. From my past efforts at losing weight and my research, this is indeed possible. Is it reasonable – probably not completely. It is however exciting, and I will take the excitement over a more reasonable goal.
How about you? Does your goal excite you? Is it possible? If it seems impossible to you, then move out the date or reduce the goal until you get a signal from your brain that you believe it can be done. It is okay to be afraid, we will talk about what that means in this series, but you must at least believe that the goal is possible in the time that you have allowed. If not, make a change in the quantity of the goal and the time allotted until you believe that it can be done. It is okay if it is a stretch. It is okay if it feels a little scary to write it down. It is okay if you don’t know how you will achieve it yet. It is okay if you have failed to achieve this same goal in the past. We will deal with each of these things.
How about excitement? Is this an exciting goal? Make sure that it is very exciting to you and that it is your goal – not a goal that someone else has given you. If you have been given a goal by someone else, then rewrite the goal until it deals with rewards directly related to you and it excites you!
For example, your boss might tell you: “You need to open 50 new accounts this year and they need to each buy an average of $4,000 dollars.” This is actually a more clear goal than most bosses will actually give. Still, it has nothing directly related to you in this goal. There may be an implicit “or else”. This might be: or else we will demote you. It might be: or else we will fire you. There will certainly be some negative consequences associated with a goal that you are given – an “or else”. Rarely, there will be some positive consequences discussed. For example: Do this and we will promote you or do this and we will give you a $10,000 bonus. This may or may not be enough to excite you.
For me, I am not directly excited by money. I am much more excited by thinking about the freedom and the experiences that the money will buy. I don’t know what motives you most – what turns you on – but you do! So rewrite any goal that you have, self created or given to you by another, until in positive terms, it talks about benefits that excite you.
What about my goal? Does “I will return to 195 pounds of bodyweight by the morning of December 31st, 2009.” excite me? Yes it does. Does it clearly state why I am excited about this? No. It doesn’t. Next time, I will show you how to create a vision to go along with the goal that will do this very thing.
To recap:
- Write down your goal
- Make sure your goal has a clear and easy to measure “What by When”
- Check for reasonableness or possibility – can this be done?
- If it can’t or feels impossible, the rewrite the goal, changing the amount or the time frame until you can believe it.
- Check for excitement. Make sure that you are excited about this goal.
- If this a goal that was given to you by another – check for all of these same things.
Till next time… Jack
“Courage is being scared to death—but saddling up anyway.” ~John Wayne
Your Vision of the Future Part Seven
Jan 28th
“Vision is the art of seeing the invisible.” ~Jonathan Swift
I thought I would share my personal vision today for the next twelve months. Seeing my example, built from my top five goals might be useful.
Here again are my top five goals for the next twelve months:
- 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.
Here is the vision that I built from those goals:
It is the morning of December 31st and I have had a marvelous year. I feel More >
Your Vision of the Future Part Six
Jan 27th
vision: noun – the ability to see or a vivid mental image produced by the imagination or great perception of future developments
So, how did it go creating your vision of the future based on your top five goals for the next twelve months? Do you get excited when you read your vision? Does it feel great when you imagine yourself in the vision – in the time when these five goals are now your reality? If it doesn’t then go rewrite your vision until you absolutely love how it sounds and feels and you can’t wait to make it happen.
Now, here is your first assignment with your vision – tape record it on to a small portable recorder. If you don’t have a small digital recorder, then go get one. They are a marvelous tool for personal development. Once you have your vision tape recorded then I want you to start to listen to it at least twice per day. Listen to it first thing in the morning. Listen to it just before you go to bed a night. Each time that you listen to your vision, make it even more real for yourself – really be there. You will almost certainly find that you can enhance your vision quite a bit a first; you will be able to add details that make it even more compelling. This is a very good thing. A compelling vision makes it easy to take the necessary action to make that vision become real.
In the next entry, I will talk a bit about using your newly created vision to stay motivated and on track for achieving your goals. Later in this series I will talk about creating visions with business partners and also problems that I commonly see with visions. I also want to give you a sample of my vision – my vision for the next twelve months and my vision for the next ten years.
Till next time…Jack
“I’m not afraid of storms, for I’m learning how to sail my ship.” ~Louisa May Alcott
Your Vision of the Future Part Four
Jan 22nd
“Life is what we make it, always has been, always will be.” ~Grandma Moses
Did you balance out your goals so that you have a nice mix of short, medium and long-term things written down? Great! Now here is your next task: I want you to go thru all of your goals for the next twelve months and choose five of them to focus on. Choose the five most exciting and compelling and empowering goals. Many of my seminar attendees have a problem making this decision at first. “But I want all of my goals!” – I hear this all of the time. And I understand! I want you to have all of your goals, but you cannot focus on all of them at one time and be successful. It just doesn’t work.
What you can do is choose the five goals, spread across the categories of your life, that by accomplishing in the next year, you will almost as a side effect accomplish your other goals. I call these goals the drivers. As an example, here is a recap 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.
Are these all of my goals for 2009? Not even close! But by focusing on these, by putting my concentration here, I can virtually guarantee that I will succeed in manifesting these goals and along the way, most if not all of my other goals for 2009 will also happen.
So, go ahead, choose your “Top Five” for 2009. Make sure that they are not all in one category and make sure that they are exciting. If they aren’t exciting, then rewrite them until they are. Next time we will take these goals and put them into a workable vision – something that you can use and enjoy and benefit from every day.
Till next time…Jack
“My life has a superb cast but I can’t figure out the plot.” ~Ashleigh Brilliant