Dertemine Your True Goals

“Realize what you really want. It stops you from chasing butterflies and puts you to work digging gold.” (William Moulton Marsden)

My favorite word in goal setting, and in success in general, is the word “Clarity.” There is a direct relationship between the level of clarity you have about who you are and what you want, and virtually everything you accomplish in life.

Superior men and women invest the time necessary to develop absolute clarity about themselves and what they really want, like designing a detailed blueprint for a building, before they begin construction. Average people just throw themselves at life, like a dog chasing a passing car, and wonder why they never seem to catch anything, or keep anything worthwhile.

Henry David Thoreau once wrote, “Have you built your castles in the air? Good. That is where they should be built. Now, go to work and build foundations under them.”

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In this chapter, you begin to crystallize your visions and values into concrete goals and objectives that you can work on, every single day .

Make Your Goals Personal

Earlier I mentioned that intense, burning desire is absolutely essential to the overcoming of obstacles and the achieving of great goals. For your desire to be intense enough, your goals must be purely personal. They must be goals that you choose for yourself, rather than goals that someone else wants for you, or that you want to achieve to please someone in your life. In goal setting, for the process to be effective, you must be perfectly selfish about what is that you really, really want for yourself.

This doesn’t mean that you cannot do things for other people, either at home or at work. This simply means that, in setting goals for your life, you start with yourself, and work forward.

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The Great Question

One of the most important questions in goal setting is this: “What do I really want to do with my life?” If you could do or be or have anything at all in life, what would it be? Remember, you can’t hit a target you can’t see. You should return to this question, over and over again, in the months and years ahead. “What do I really want to do with my life?”

In determining your true goals, you start with your vision, your values and your ideals. When you begin, these will often feel a bit like fantasies, detached from reality. However, now your job is to make them concrete, like designing a dream house on paper.

Decide What You Really Want

You start with your general goals and then move to more to more specific goals:

What are your three most important goals in your business and career, right now?

What are your three most important financial goals right now?

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What are your three most important family or relationship goals, right now?

What are your three most important health and fitness goals, right now?

Identify Your Major Worries

The flipside of the above questions is for you to ask, “What are my three biggest worries or concerns in life, right now?” What bothers you, worries you, concerns you, and preoccupies you, in your day-to- day life? What aggravates or irritates you? What is robbing you of happiness, more than anything else? As a friend of mine often asks, “Where does it hurt?”

Once you have identified your biggest problems, worries or concerns, ask yourself:

1. What are the ideal solutions to each of these problems? 2. How could I eliminate these problems or worries

immediately?
3. What is the fastest and most direct way to solve this

problem?”
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A Great Thinking Tool

In 1142, William of Ockham, a British philosopher, proposed a method of problem solving that has come to be referred to as “Ockham’s Razor.” This way of thinking has become famous and popular throughout the ages. What Ockham said was that, “The simplest and most direct solution, requiring the fewest number of steps, is usually the correct solution to any problem.”

Many people make the mistake of over-complicating goals and problems. But the more complicated the solution, the less likely it is ever to be implemented, and the longer the time it will take to get any results. Your aim should be to simplify the solution and go directly to the goal, as quickly as possible.

Double Your Income

For example, many people tell me that they would like to double their incomes. If they are in sales, I ask them, “What is the fastest and most direct way to double your income?” After they have come up with a series of suggestions, I give them what I consider to

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be the best answer. “Double the amount of time that you spend face to face with qualified prospects.”

The most direct way to increase your sales has always been the same. “Spend more time with better prospects.” If you don’t upgrade your skills or change anything else about what you are doing, but you double the number of minutes that you spend face to face with prospects each day, you will probably double your sales income.

According to studies that go back as far as 1928, the average salesperson today spends 90 minutes each day face to face with prospects. The highest paid salespeople spend two or three times that amount. They organize their days efficiently to assure that they spend more minutes in the presence of people who can and will buy their products or services. And the more time they spend with prospects and customers, the more skilled they become at selling. The better they get, the more they sell and the more they earn, and in less time.

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Double Your Productivity

If you examined your work, you would find that 20% of what you do accounts for 80% of the value of all the things you do. In my Advanced Coaching Programs, we teach our clients to identify those 20% of activities that contribute the very most value and then do twice as many of them.

Instead of using their intelligence to juggle their time and accomplish a greater number of tasks, we teach them to do fewer tasks, but tasks of higher value. Some of our clients double their productivity, and subsequently, their income in as little as 30 days with this approach, even if they have been working for many years in the same position.

Always look for the simplest and most direct way to get from where you are to where you want to go. Look for the solution that has the fewest number of steps. And most of all, take action! Get going. Get busy. Develop a “sense of urgency.” The best ideas in the world are of no value until they are implemented. As the poet said, “The saddest words of mice and men are these: it might have been.”

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Wave A Magic Wand

In determining your true goals, use the “Magic Wand” technique. Imagine that you have a magic wand that you can wave over a particular area of your life. When you wave this magic wand, your wishes come true!

Wave a magic wand over your business and career. If you could have any three wishes in your work, what would they be? Wave a magic wand over your financial life. If you could have any three wishes in your financial life, what would they be?

Wave a magic wand over your family life and your relationships. If you could have any three wishes in this area, what would they be? If your family life were ideal in every respect, what would it look like?

Wave a magic wand over your health and fitness. If you could have any three wishes with regard to your body and your physical well-being, what would they be? If your health were perfect, how would it be different from today?

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Wave a magic wand over your skills and abilities. If you could have any three skills or abilities, developed to a high level, what would they be? In what areas would you like to excel?

The magic wand technique is fun on the one hand, but quite revealing on the other. Whenever you imagine that you have a magic wand, your true goals in that area emerge. You can also use this exercise for other people who are not sure about what they want or where they are going. It is amazing what comes out when you ask this question.

Six Months To Live

Here is another goal setting question that reflects your true values. Imagine that you went to a doctor for a full medical check-up. Your doctor calls you back a few days later and says, “I have good news for you and I have bad news for you. The good news is that, for the next six months, you are going to live the healthiest and most energetic life you could possibly imagine. The bad news is that, at the end of 180 days, because of an incurable illness, you will drop stone dead.”

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If you learned today that you only had six months left to live, how would you spend your last six months on earth? Who would you spend the time with? Where would you go? What would you strive to complete? What would you do more of, or less of?

When you ask yourself this question, what comes to the top of your mind will be a reflection of your true values. Your answer would almost always include the most important people in your life. Very few people in this situation would say, “Well, I’d like to get back to the office and return a few phone calls.”

Make Up Your Dream List

In setting your true goals as an extension of imagining that you have no limitations, make up a “Dream List.” A dream list is a list of everything you would like to be, have or do in your life, sometime in the future, if you had no limitations at all.

Mark Victor Hansen, co-author of Chicken Soup For the Soul, recommends that you sit down with a pad of paper and make a list of at least 100 goals that you want to accomplish in your lifetime. Then imagine that you have all the time, all the money, all the friends, all

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the abilities and all the resources necessary to achieve these goals. Let yourself dream and fantasize. Just write down everything that you would like to have as if you had no limitations at all.

The amazing discovery you will make is that, within 30 days after writing out this list of 100 “Dreams,” remarkable things will begin to happen in your life, and your goals will start to be achieved, at a rate that you cannot even imagine today. This seems to happen to virtually once they have written down at least 100 goals. You should give it a try. You could be amazed at the results.

The Instant Millionaire

Here is another goal setting question; “If you won a million dollars tomorrow, cash, tax free, how would you change your life?” What would you do differently? What would you get into or out of? What would you do more of or less of? What would be the first thing you would do if you learned today that you had just received one million dollars cash?

This is a way of asking the question, “How would you change your life if you were completely free to choose? The primary reason

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that we stay in situations that are not the best for us is because we fear change. But when you imagine that you have all the money that you will ever need, to do or be whatever you want, your true goals often emerge.

For example, if you were currently in the wrong job for you, the idea of winning a large amount of money would cause you to think about quitting that job immediately. If you were in the right job for you however, winning a lot of money would not affect your career choice at all. So ask yourself, “What would I do if I won a million dollars cash, tax free, tomorrow?”

No Fear Of Failure

Here is another question to help you clarify your true goals:

What have you always wanted to do but been afraid to attempt?

When you look around your world, and you look at other people who are doing things that you admire, what have you always wanted to do as well, but you have been afraid of taking the chance?

Have you wanted to start your own business? Have you wanted to run for public office? Have you wanted to embark on a

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new career? What have you always wanted to do but been afraid to attempt?

Do What You Love To Do

In setting goals for your life, short and long-term, you should continually ask yourself, “What do I most enjoy doing, in each area of my life?” For instance, if you could do just one thing all day long in your work, what would it be? If you could do any job or full time activity all the time, without pay, what would it be? What sort of work or activity gives you the greatest joy and satisfaction?

The psychologist Abraham Maslow identified what he called “peak experiences,” those moments or times when the individual feels the happiest, most elated and exhilarated. One of your aims in life is to enjoy as many peak experiences as possible. You achieve this by thinking back and identifying those moments of peak experience in your past, and by then by imagining how you could repeat them in your present and future. What have been your happiest moments in life up to now? How could you have more of those moments in the future? What do you really love to do?

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Make A Difference

You should have goals for social and community involvement and contribution as well. Think about what kind a difference you would like to make in your world. What organizations, causes, needs or social problems would you like to work on or in? What changes would you like to see? Who is there who is less fortunate than you that you would like to help?

If you were independently wealthy, what causes would you support? Most of all, what could you do today to begin making a difference in your world? Don’t wait until some future date when everything will be ideal. Instead, start today in some way.

Set Clear Financial Goals

One of the most important areas of goal setting is your financial life. If you could earn and accumulate all the money you need, you could probably achieve most of your non-financial goals faster and easier than you can today.

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If your life were ideal, how much money would you like to earn each month, each year? How much would you like to save and invest each month and year? How much would you like to be worth sometime in the future? What sort of estate would you like to accumulate by the time you retire, and when would you like that to be? Most people are hopelessly confused about their financial goals, but when you become absolutely clear about them for yourself, your ability to achieve them increases dramatically.

Clarity Makes Your Dreams Become Your Realities

When you are absolutely clear about what you want, you can then think about your goals, most of the time. And the more you think about them, the faster they will materialize in your life.

This process of asking yourself questions about your goals in each part of your life begins to clarify your thinking and make you a more focused and definite person. As Zig Ziglar says, “You move from being a wandering generality to becoming a meaningful specific.”

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Most of all, you reach the point where you can determine your major definite purpose in life. This is the springboard for great achievement and extraordinary accomplishment.

Your major definite purpose will be the topic of the next chapter, and how to achieve it will be the subject of the chapters to come.

Determine Your True Goals

Write down your three most important goals in life right now.

What are your three most pressing problems or worries right now?

If you won a million dollars cash, tax free, tomorrow, what changes in your life would you make immediately?

What do you really love to do? What gives you the greatest feelings of value, importance and satisfaction?

If you could wave a magic wand over your life and have anything you wanted, what would you wish for?

What would you do, how would you spend your time, if you only had six months left to live?

What would you really want to do with your life, especially if you had no limitations?