First, most people don’t realize the importance of goal setting and achieving. Let’s face it, our educational systems from kindergarten on up through college level don’t teach goal setting and achieving. If you grow up in an environment where no one sets goals or you socialize with a group where goals are neither discussed or valued you can easily reach adult hood without ever realizing that setting goals will have more of an impact on your life than any other skill. Look around you and ask yourself “How many of your family or friends have clear goals and who are committed to achieving them?”

Second, most people don’t know how to set them in the first place. Also, many people think they have goals but in reality it’s just a series of wishes and dreams like “I want to make more money”. A goal is distinctly different than a wish. Goals are clear, specifically written down and they are specific. They’re also easily described to another person. What’s also important about a goal is that you can measure it, which means you know when you have achieved it or not.

The third reason why people don’t set goals is because of the fear of failure.

Failure hurts at times and can be emotionally and financially painful.

Forth is the fear of rejection. People feel if they set a goal and not achieve it other people will criticize them or ridicule them. When you first begin to set goals this is one reason why you don’t share them with anyone. Rather, let people know by your results through your achievements and accomplishments

There was a study done at Harvard between 1979 and 1989. Graduates of the MBA program were asked “Have you set clear written goals for your future and made plans to accomplish them?” The results of that question were:

1. Only 3% had written goals and plans
2. 13% had goals but not in writing
3. 84% had no specific goals at all

10 years later Harvard interviewed the members of that class again and found:

1. The 13% who had goals but not in writing were earning on average twice as much as the 84% of those who had no goals at all

2. The 3% who had clear, written goals were earning on average 10 times as much as the other 97% of graduates all together. The only difference between the groups is the clarity of the goals they had for themselves

The importance of clarity is easily described through the following example. For example if someone told you to go to a house in some city with no street signs, no roadmap or address and only a general description of how the house looked, how long do you think it would take you to find the house? It would probably take a number of years or even decades. However this is how most people go through life without setting goals, their roadmap for a successful life.

Goals give you a sense of direction. They make you feel happier, stronger, more energized and effective. You wind up feeling more confident and competent in your abilities to achieve your goals. Every time you take an additional step towards your goals it gives you the belief that you can achieve them. Goals give you the ability to control the direction of your life and it instills meaning and purpose in everything that you do. You are the happiest when you are doing something that moves you in the direction of what you want.

What are your goals? What are you aiming at? Where do you want to end up at the end of the day, week, month and year?

The person that you’ve become today is the result of all the choices and decisions you’ve made up to this date. Every choice that you have made correctly and acted upon consistently you’ve strengthen your character. However, every time that you have made choices that was inconsistent with the person with what you knew to be right will weaken your character.

Your whole life is a test. It will determine what you are truly made of deep down in side. Character develops through the choices we make in our daily life and decide among the alternatives and other temptations.

When you develop and strengthen your character over time while exerting your willpower and self-discipline that’s consistent with the very best you can be will have a big payoff. This payoff comes when you are able to choose the right over the wrong and the more difficult over the easy. When this happens your self-esteem increases and you like and respect your self more.

You must be able to have a long-term perspective when you are developing your character. The likelihood of you doing the right thing in the short term is determined by you thinking about the long term consequences of your behaviors. Always ask this question when making a choice, “What’s important here?”

So every time you do or say something that is inconsistent with the very best values just resolve that you will do better the next time.

Your self-concept is commonly referred to as your ‘master program’ of your subconscious mind. Think of it as your ‘mental’ operating system. Throughout your life all your thoughts, feelings, decisions and experiences are permanently recorded in you subconscious mind. From this point forward, once recorded, these impressions will influence the way you think, feel and conduct yourself.

Now, you have a self-concept for every area of your life. For example you have a self-concept for your athletic ability, your financial stability, your relationships, etc. And once your self-concept is formed for that area of your life, you will always act in a manner consistent with it. In most cases we all perform below our true potential because our self-concept may be poor for that particular area.

So how does one reach their full potential in any area of their life? You must raise your self-concept for that area of your life. This can be accomplished by understanding, both emotionally and intellectually, that we become what we think about most of the time. It is up to each individual to acquire new habits of thinking about what is truly possible for them. In other words, if you want to change your results on the outside you must first change your thoughts and feelings about your potential on the inside.

Now there are 3 parts to your self-concept. The first part of your self-concept is your self-ideal. Your self-ideal can be defined as the ideal image you have of yourself. In other words, the very best person you can be. It’s a picture perfect life which is made up of your wishes, goals, dreams, fantasies along with the qualities and characteristics of the people you admire. Further more, with the Law of Attraction, you will move in the direction of becoming the person you most admire. The greater the clarity you have about your future life and the person you admire to be, the faster you will move towards becoming that person. And the great thing about this is more opportunities will appear for you to make your ideal future a reality.

The most important part of creating your self-ideal is you must take the time to think through and develop with absolute clarity about the key values and qualities that you admire the most to incorporate into yourself. When this is complete, you then begin to shape and direct your whole personality.

The second part of your self-concept is referred to as your self-image. Your self-image is defined as how you see yourself on the inside. And the way you see yourself on the inside has a great impact on how you will perform on the outside. For example, if you’re ready to give a presentation and if you see yourself as confident and successful, then this is how you will perform in the actual situation. However, if you have a poor self-image of yourself, this will cause you to feel unattractive, not confident in future situations.

An important habit when developing your self-image is to feed your mind with positive pictures and images of yourself performing at your very best. Hold these pictures and images in your mind for as long as you can. And when you come across a situation where you need to perform, your subconscious mind will remember these images and will direct you with the words, actions and gestures that correspond to the images that you’ve created for yourself.

The third part of your self-concept is your self-esteem. This is how you feel about yourself. Your level of self-esteem impacts the vitality and energy of your personality and ultimately controls your performance. Whatever happens to you will have an effect on your self-esteem. It either increases or decreases it. The key to high performance, happiness and success is determined through the preservation and development of your self-esteem. When ever you feel that your current performance is inline with the best person you can be your self-esteem will go up. You’ll have more energy with increase enthusiasm. However, whenever your current performance seems to be inconsistent with the person you would most like to be your self-esteem will go down.

Remember your mind is like a garden. If you don’t take care of it, weeds will grow automatically, with no encouragement or support. In other words, your mind will fill up with your fears, worries and concerns if you do not deliberately fill your mind with positive words and images. Furthermore, develop the habit of talking to yourself positively most of the time.

There was a study conducted by Dr. Edward Banfield in 1970 and his goal was to find out why some people become financially secure during their lifetime. He discovered that the major reason for success was their particular attitude of mind or as he put it, a “long time perspective.” He discovered that people who were the most successful in their life and the most likely to achieve financial security were those who took their future into perspective with every decision they made today. And it was this attitude of mind that made them more likely to achieve a high level of success in their career and business.

For example, let’s take a look at a doctor’s career. A doctor must invest many years in terms of hard work and study before they are given the right to practice medicine. They have to graduate from college and then earn the right for an internship, residency and then practical training. This could take up to 12 years before they start earning a decent living and become respected in their particular field of medicine. This is what it means to have a long term perspective.

Whenever you set priorities you must consider the potential long term impact on your life.  For example, let’s consider the Law of Sacrifice. This law states you must give something up of a lower value to gain something of a higher value. If you come home from a days work and choose to upgrade your skills to advance your career instead of watching the TV, then you are considering the long term impact on your future, which will greatly benefit you. Every sacrifice that is made today will be rewarded with compound interest to expand your future.

Take Time to Think and Plan
One characteristic that automatically goes along with “action oriented” people is their ability to take the necessary time to think, plan and set priorities. Their approach towards their goals and objectives is quick and strong. The massive amounts of work they go through takes about the same time an average person will take who spends time socializing, wasting time and working on low priority tasks. This allows them to work steadily, smoothly and continuously.

Getting into “Flow”
There is a mental state called “flow”. This is where highly successful people work on high value tasks at a continuous level of activity. To continue to be successful they must get themselves into this state far more often then the average person. This mental state we call “flow” is considered to be the top human state of performance and productivity. Once you are in this state you feel elated, clear, happy and energetic. And everything you do will seem effortless to you.

How You Can Trigger The “Flow” State
You can trigger this “Flow” state by developing a “sense of urgency.” This “sense of urgency” comes from an inner drive and desire to get on with the desired task quickly so you can achieve it faster. This inner drive is caused by an impatience that motivates you to get going and to keep going.

Create a “Preconceived Notion for Action”
Now once you develop this deep-rooted sense of urgency, you actually develop a “preconceived notion for action.” Instead of talking continually about what you are going to do, you actually take consistent action. You begin to focus on specific steps you can take immediately and by employing this technique you concentrate on the things you can do immediately to achieve the goals you desire.

Exercises to Develop this “Sense of Urgency”
Below are a couple of things you can implement immediately to put these ideas into action:

- Select a major task facing you and begin immediately to start tackling it. Do not hesitate. Just move fast.
- Begin immediately by doing this every morning, first thing, until it becomes a habit.

The answer can be found in the following quote by Nelson Boswell:

“The difference between greatness and mediocrity is often how an individual views a mistake.”

To often people look at individual situations and then label them as failures. When something happens in your life and you feel as a failure, remember to keep an eye on the bigger picture. In other words, focus in on your ultimate goal. When we do this, it will lead to perseverance, and perseverance will lead to longevity. Longevity is the key that creates opportunities for success.

So our question is how should we look at failure? Well we can look at failure by looking at what failure is not.

Failure is not avoidable. We’re human, so we will make mistakes. Below is a list I came across called Rules for Being Human:

1. You will learn lessons.
2. There are no mistakes, only lessons
3. A lesson is repeated until it is learned.
4. If you don’t learn the easy lessons, they get harder
5. You’ll know you’ve learned a lesson when your actions change.

Failure is not objective. When a mistake is made, you are the only person who can really label what you do as a failure. How you perceive and respond to mistakes actually determines whether your actions are failures. One interesting statistic is that entrepreneurs almost never get their first business off the ground. In fact, it takes about 3 failures before they finally make it in business. Entrepreneurs perceive mistakes as temporary setbacks. Once you realize that, you will overcome the average and become a world class achiever.

Failure is not your enemy. As a kid, it did everything I could to avoid making a fool of myself. I was so afraid of sticking my neck out because I was so focused on ‘what if I failed or made a mistake’. These types of reasoning stopped me from experiencing events that I could have learned from and grow. I never understood that it takes adversity to succeed at anything in life. Herbert V. Brocknow said “The fellow who never makes a mistake takes his orders from one who does.” If you look at any high achiever, you will learn that they don’t view mistakes as the enemy. Rather they view failure as opportunities to excel.

So, the next time you hear of the word mistake or failure learn to perceive it differently that will cause you to persevere. Remember that mistakes only become failures when you continually respond to them incorrectly. You must realize that failure is the price you must pay to achieve any level of success. It’s a choice we all must make to move forward.

Through sheer force of habit and, of course, instinct, the ring of caterpillars circled the flowerpot for seven days and seven nights, until they died from exhaustion and starvation. An ample supply of food was close at hand and plainly visible, but it was outside the range of the circle, so the caterpillars continued along the beaten path.

People often behave in a similar way. Habit patterns and ways of thinking become deeply established, and it seems easier and more comforting to follow them than to cope with change, even when that change may represent freedom, achievement, and success.

If someone shouts, “Fire!” it is automatic to blindly follow the crowd, and many thousands have needlessly died because of it. How many stop to ask themselves: Is this really the best way out of here?

So many people “miss the boat” because it’s easier and more comforting to follow – to follow without questioning the qualifications of the people just ahead – than to do some independent thinking and checking.

A hard thing for most people to fully understand is that people in such numbers can be so wrong, like the caterpillars going around and around the edge of the flowerpot, with life and food just a short distance away. If most people are living that way, it must be right, they think. But a little checking will reveal that throughout all recorded history the majority of mankind has an unbroken record of being wrong about most things, especially important things. For a time we thought the earth was flat and later we thought the sun, stars, and planets traveled around the Earth. Both ideas are now considered ridiculous, but at the time they were believed and defended by the vast majority of followers. In the hindsight of history we must have looked like those caterpillars blindly following the follower out of habit rather than stepping out of line to look for the truth.

It’s difficult for people to come to the understanding that only a small minority of people ever really get the word about life, about living abundantly and successfully. Success in the important departments of life seldom comes naturally, no more naturally than success at anything – a musical instrument, sports, fly-fishing, tennis, golf, business, marriage, parenthood.

But for some reason most people wait passively for success to come to them – like the caterpillars going around in circles, waiting for sustenance, following nose to tail – living as other people are living in the unspoken, tacit assumption that other people know how to live successfully.

It’s a good idea to step out of the line every once in a while and look around to see if the line is going where we want it to go. If it is not, it might be time for a new leader and a new direction.

For those who have tried repeatedly to break a habit of some kind, only to repeatedly fail, Mary Pickford said, “Falling is not failing, unless you fail to get up.” Most people who finally win the battle over a habit they have wanted to change have done so only after repeated failures. And it’s the same with most things.

The breaking of a long-time habit does seem like the end of the road at the time – the complete cessation of enjoyment. Suddenly dropping the habit so fills our minds with the desire for the old habitual way that, for a while, it seems there will no longer be any peace, any sort of enjoyment. But that’s not true. New habits form in a surprisingly short time, and a whole new world opens up to us.

So, if you’ve been trying to start in a new direction, you might do well to remember the advice of Mary Pickford: breaking an old habit isn’t the end of the road; it’s just a bend in the road. And falling isn’t failing, unless you don’t get up.

Earl Nightingale