Have you found yourself setting goals every year but eventually losing interest? Did you have every intention to make a difference by accomplishing your goals but then not following through? It is easy to get frustrated when this happens. Because of your frustration, it is less likely you will set any goals the next year.

Don’t let that happen. You can make a difference in the world. Pursuing appropriate goals will help you do that. The problem may not have anything to do with setting goals. It may have everything to do with the goals you set. Ask yourself a question: Are your goals in alignment with your life purpose?

If not, it should be no surprise that you lose interest. You need to develop goals that are consistent with forwarding your purpose in life. When your goals are aligned with your passions, you are more likely to be persistent and accomplish them. Even through difficult times.

You don’t know what your life purpose is? Start today to determine what it is. My life changed drastically when I realized my purpose. I know yours will as well. Until then, your goals will never have the meaning and excitement they will hold for you when they are aligned with your purpose.

There are many great books that can provide you a step-by-step method for realizing your life purpose. The books that helped me and I strongly recommend are:

* "The Power To Be Your Best" by Todd Duncan

* "The Purpose-Driven Life" by Rick Warren

Once you know your purpose, setting goals and prioritizing how you spend your time will be easier. You will also be surprised at how much you acomplish as your efforts and passions come together.

Get started today on making sure your goals and life purpose are in alignment. Your unique experiences and skills are needed to help make the world a better place.

To learn ways to give, go to http://www.everydaygiving.com to sign up for the free Everyday Giving ezine. Roger Carr is the founder of Everyday Giving. His life purpose is to help people help others.

There have been so many times in my life where I have run into a series of obstacles that never seemed to stop. I could handle each and every one, but after a while, I would grow weary and want it all to come to an end so I could return to a reasonable life.

Over the years, I’ve learned that I can’t just hope for positive change, I have to demand it and act on it. This approach is has nothing to do with affirmations or affirm-actions. It consists of simply telling the Universe what I want and having it show me the signs that all is well.

Many people feel that they are victims of their god and the Universe; however, we are our own gods. We are our souls, our essence, and our spiritual deity. In the end, we allow ourselves to become victims of ourselves, our beliefs, and our own inability to accept responsibility for our actions.

Putting a challenge to the Universe opens the ears of the multitude of other entities that exist to begin placing situations in motion to achieve your desires, if it is for the overall good. You can fight it and continue down your path, but it will be a hard won fight.

At one time, I was at my lowest possible point in my life. At that point, I challenged the Universe for 10 positive events in my life to show me that this all wasn’t just a waste of time. In a matter of two weeks, things began to unfold in front of me. Now, I challenge the Universe often and I work with it to manifest my desires and achieve my goals.

Whatever you desire, you can manifest by issuing a challenge to the Universe, your god, or whatever deity you worship. But, in the end, you are only challenging yourself to achieve those things in your life that you desire.

About The Author

Edward B. Toupin is an author, publisher, life-strategy coach, counselor, Reiki Master, technical writer, and PhD Candidate living in Las Vegas, NV. Among other things, he authors books, articles, and screenplays on topics ranging from career success through life organization and fulfillment. Check out some of his recent print and electronic books as well as his articles covering various life-changing topics!

For more information, and to find out about his upcoming title on book publishing, e-mail Edward at etoupin@toupin.com or visit his site at http://www.toupin.com!

Copyright (c) 2004 Edward B. Toupin

etoupin@toupin.com

The end of one year and the start of another brings with it the opportunity and inspiration, for many, to consider their personal situation and plan for the year ahead. We all hope that we will end the New Year better off in our personal lives than we start it. By “better off” we may mean financially, in terms of happiness and relationships, in our careers and lifestyles; in fact, in any aspect of our lives.

If we start the year with a positive intent on improving our lives in some way, then there is a good chance we can succeed in so doing. One of the ways we can help ourselves succeed is by setting personal objectives for the year ahead. It has long been a tradition to make New Year’s resolutions, and they are an example of objective setting, usually based on a correcting a personal weakness, such as smoking or being overweight. However, New Year’s resolutions are quite often just a bit of fun, and not taken that seriously. Planning ahead for the full year based on a set of objectives can be a much more beneficial way to improve yourself over the span of a year.

New Year’s resolutions, however, do give a hint at one way to go about setting personal objectives for the year: they tend to be about addressing weakness. If you have a personal weakness at the beginning of the year, and have strengthened it by the end of the year, then you will have made progress. So, when you sit down and consider what personal objectives to set yourself, focusing on your weaknesses may be a good place to start.

How To Go About Setting Your Personal Objectives

There is more than one way to set about formulating personal objectives, but I will concentrate on focusing on personal weakness. By “focusing” I do not mean just thinking about those weakness all the time in a negative, self critical way. The purpose is to improve yourself by the end of the year, so those weaknesses, or even just one weakness, need to be addressed in a positive way. Ultimately, you want the weakness you focus on to be no longer a weakness by the end of the year. Here are a few simple steps to follow:

1. Your first step is to identify an area, or areas, of your life where you want to make significant improvements. As an example, let us say you have your own business, which is quite new, and you are still finding your feet.

2. Once you have decided on what area of your life to concentrate on first, you should then think about it in a detached and realistic way, pen in hand, with a blank piece of paper in front of you. Go over in your mind your experiences since you started the business, and pinpoint what weaknesses have been exposed since you started the business. Jot them down in a relaxed way, there is no hurry. When you are confident you have highlighted the most critical weakness, and have missed none, move on to considering your list.

3. You should now go over your list of business related weaknesses, and prioritise them. If something really stands out as being critical, then that will be your starting point. At this stage, bear in mind that setting objectives is not about aiming for the impossible; that is self destructive. If you have a long list of weaknesses and it looks daunting, then the prioritisation is especially important.

For this example, let us assume that your most critical weakness in your new business is finance and accounting. For many people who start a business, that is a reality, so that is quite a realistic example. Do not expect that you will remove all weaknesses by 100% in one year; you should be realistic, and take a staged approach. Each year you will build on your strengths, and steadily eliminate your weaknesses. However, you cannot expect to do it all at once.

4. Now think more about the finance side of the business, and with a new sheet of paper write down all the things that trouble you. Is it everything about finance and accounting? That would not be unusual either. You may not even be able to tell a debit from a credit, but that is not surprising. To a normal person, double entry bookkeeping is back to front.

5. Assuming everything about finance and accounting is a mystery to you, set out a plan to remedy that situation. Any wise businessman needs to understand his business finances; he will be vulnerable if he does not. There are several ways to approach this weakness, but you will want to improve your accounting knowledge over the year. So, as an example, you could set yourself the following objectives for the year:

a. Learn some basic bookkeeping. You can achieve this through a book on accounting for small businessmen, or evening classes. If you have a local small business help bureau of any sort, they may be able to point you in the right direction; they may even have regular seminars.

b. Get to know your own accounting system, or maybe introduce a simple accounting software program that will not only help you keep accurate accounts, but teach you along the way.

c. Get to understand profit and loss accounts so that you can start to understand how and why your business is making a profit or a loss.

d. Learn to do cash flow forecasts, which will always be critical to your business.

By the end of the year, you should have a better understanding of your business finances, and when you go over the same exercise again the following year, you can plan to go up to a higher if you think it necessary, or address those weaknesses you have not yet mastered.

The finance and accounting example is just one. It could also be marketing or time management or any other aspect of the business. The important thing for you to do is to assess the most critical weaknesses and address them through your personal objectives. That process can be applied to any part of your life you choose, whether related to career, family, personal health or bad habits.

This setting personal objectives article was written by Roy Thomsitt, owner and part author of the Routes To Self Improvement website.

My goal in life is to have no goals. They get in the way of true progress.

Plenty of successful people swear by goal setting. They’re praising the wrong behavior. Brain research tells us that the goals don’t matter–it’s the intention that gets us where we want to go.

Intentions and goals are not the same. Goals tend to be arbitrary and number-oriented, such as the number of pounds lost, amount of money earned, number of hours spent in the gym, number of new clients introduced or new products developed. Intentions are big-picture statements about what fulfills you. It’s a little harder to measure an intention, but the results are more meaningful.

Let’s say you want to lose 20 pounds. How will you feel when you do that? What will your life be like if you are 20 pounds lighter? Establishing an intention requires recognizing what will satisfy you.

You want to lose weight so that you will feel healthy, strong, fit, confident, attractive, and sexy. The number on the scale isn’t what matters most–it’s how you feel each day.

Here’s a weight loss goal: I will lose 20 pounds in five months.

Here’s an intention: I feel strong, healthy, fit, confident, attractive and sexy.

The problem with typical goals is that we tend to get bogged down by our "even though" statements. We tell ourselves that we are going to lose 20 pounds EVEN THOUGH we failed last time, EVEN THOUGH we question our ability to do so, EVEN THOUGH we don’t think we’ll be able to maintain it. Our minds go directly to the negative images and we sabotage our efforts before we even begin!

Here’s a thought: Why not create an intention that will get your brain to work for you instead of against you?

Intentions allow us to picture ourselves–and how we’ll feel–when we are successful. There’s no room for failure in the picture. We focus on the positive and powerful feelings we’ll have.

Intentions are always stated in present tense, as though you are already where you want to be. Instead of saying, "I will be strong, fit, healthy, etc.", you say, "I feel strong, fit, healthy, etc." What seems like a small semantic difference is a huge shift in our brains.

The latest brain studies suggest that the most effective way to change our beliefs is to create a mental story of success. We need to picture ourselves as we want to be, and we need to talk about it. Here’s the basic formula: See it, say it, hear it.

Our unconscious brain sees everything in pictures. It does not filter images based on what our conscious mind considers true, likely or possible. It literally does not distinguish between reality and fantasy. Think of the nonsensical dreams you’ve had!

Language is most fully processed in the brain when there is a visualized image to go along with it. These images and words become linked to create our "truth"– at least, according to our brains. And that’s where it matters most.

Say it out loud, and you’re engaging your aural learning skills as well.

By intentionally creating new images through visualization, we literally create our own version of reality, and as you’ve probably learned by now, we tend to live in whatever reality we construct. Our potential is limited only by the mental images we choose to develop and store. It’s that simple–and that profound.

Stop setting goals, and start creating intentions. The secret is to include ALL of these steps:

What’s your intention? Focus on feelings, not numbers. Picture it, and write it down. Repeat it to yourself until it becomes familiar and beloved–complete with favorite parts, great pictures, and a happy ending.

Stop pushing toward goals and start being pulled by your intentions. Let your brain go to work for you.

See it, say it, hear it. You’ll never need another goal!

About The Author

Maya Talisman Frost is a mind masseuse. Her work has inspired thinkers in over 80 countries. She serves up a satisfying blend of clarity, comfort and comic relief in her free weekly ezine, the Friday Mind Massage. To subscribe, visit http://www.massageyourmind.com.

maya@massageyourmind.com

I am going to write to you about a time-tested great way to start your New Year. You guessed it – making your list of monthly and yearly goals.

The business philosopher Jim Rohn said that, “The major reason for setting a goal is for what it makes of you to accomplish it. What it makes of you will always be the far greater value than what you get.”

The process of reaching your goal changes you forever. It brings you the confidence and motivation to pursue further, loftier aspirations.

Writing down your goals is imperative. You will activate and create new cells in your brain by writing your goals on paper. These cells would otherwise remain dormant if you just type them on your computer or think about them.

After Andrew Carnegie passed away, they found a sheet of paper in his home. Carnegie had handwritten one of the major goals of his life - to spend the first half of his life accumulating money and to spend the last half of his life giving it all away. Guess what. He did!

Go write down your goals now. Challenge yourself to new heights while not making your goals unreachable. In the same way, if you set your goals too low, you won’t make much of yourself.

Look at your list often, every day. You can never tell what you can do when you get inspired by reading your goals. And, most importantly, you can never tell what will happen when you put them into action.

Inspiration leads to activation and equals triumphant success.

Yes, everybody has short-term obstacles to overcome. And, that is the very reason why we need a lot of powerful long-range goals. They keep us focused, on track. They provide us with a powerful target. They remind us about the life we want to live.

The critical reason for goal-setting is to lure and persuade you to become the person that it takes to reach them. By activating the process that leads to the accomplishment of your goals, you change your outlook, your brain cells, your thought process in such a way, that you feel like a different person. A much evolved person.

You can liken this activation process to that of a snake shedding its old skin. Or, a salamander. Did you know that one of the great symbols of the ancient schools of wisdom is a salamander. You can cut off its tail, and the salamander can grow a new one. A carnivorous animal can bite the salamander in half, separating its stomach from its intestines and its lower colon cutting off its stem cells, cutting off its spinal column, and guess what. The salamander crawls away on its arms. It knows how to change itself to look like sand and rocks – like a chameleon. While its lying there, it exudes no fragrance. It grows back from its spinal column a new intestine, a new spinal column, new legs and a new tail. Then it emerges again.

The next attack on a salamander may bite off its body right under its neck – only a head and one arm is left. It can lay in a catatonic state as it grows back a new body. But if its head is bitten off, the salamander is history.

The reason I am telling you this is to show you how incredibly powerful your mind is. It is the crowning glory of who you are and who you can become. Its creative power is simply limitless.

And setting goals is an incredible way to use your beautiful mind.

“We all have two choices: We can make a living or we can design a life.” –Jim Rohn

So design your new life. Allow every moment to renew your life anyway you want. Make this year one the one you want to remember forever.

Copyright 2006 Tania French

Tania Gabrielle French is a composer who has enjoyed performances and radio broadcasts of her music worldwide. Her new CD “Renewal” (released January, 2006) will feature a rejuvenating fusion of new age, classical, and world songs. Subscribe to her popular newsletter at http://www.prosperousartist.com

© 2005 Tania French. All Rights Reserved.

Own goals are actions, things we do, that stop us from reaching where we want to go or what we want to obtain. When we are out of focus, when we are out of tune with what’s going on, when we do something which takes us in the opposite direction of where we were going or should be going, we have scored an own goal. Sometimes they happen accidentally, sometimes on purpose and sometimes simply because we try too hard.

First Own Goal

To stop scoring the first own goal, answer the following questions:

What is my focus?

What do I want out of life?

When you have a clear focus then you become more aware of your capabilities and what you need to add to be successful. However, we usually do it the other way around. We work out what our capabilities are and then decide what we should focus on. We live our lives like a flea in a flea circus.

How do you train fleas? It’s easy; first you collect them and put them in a match box. Then you close the box. They keep jumping, hitting all sides of the box, until they get a headache, and all of a sudden, the noise stops. You then open the box and the fleas will only jump to the height of the original match box.

How many of us are like this?

We have learned to jump only to the height of the box we have been kept in and sometimes at the direction of the trainer. The result is, even when you take us out of our boxes, we don’t jump to our true potential.

To have a chance of reaching your true potential your focus must come from your feelings.

What would you really like to achieve in your life?

What is that hidden dream?

What is that thought that you are frightened to acknowledge?

IF YOU HAVE THE FOCUS THEN YOU WILL PICK UP THE CAPABILITIES ON THE WAY.

First identify your Focus

Our guess is that this is the way you have run the most successful parts of your life to date. You already have the experience.

If you know where you are going, then start looking at where the own goals are occurring. Are you scoring own goals because the enthusiasm is gone? If you have the right focus your enthusiasm is naturally high. Therefore if you don’t have the enthusiasm for your focus you don’t have the correct focus. Once you have identified it, it is important to keep your aim and objective in front of you. Let it drive all your thoughts and behaviours otherwise you will get lost on the way.

REMEMBER:

Your capabilities and skills will develop as you pursue the focus.

Your enthusiasm is affected by your focus.

Second Own Goal

Another common way we stop ourselves from achieving is; we work out of the ‘want box’ rather than the ‘need box’. It is important to differentiate WHAT YOU NEED FROM WHAT YOU WANT. If you pursue your needs rather than your wants then you have more chance of living a happier life and reaching your focus.

If you live in the want box (e.g. if only I had this, I would be happy) then you start putting conditions to your focus- the most common own goal we score.

Third Own Goal

What type of relationship do you have with:

How you treat yourself?

How do you treat other people?

The best relationship can have is a Win/ Win, a relationship where I win and you do too. We both feel we have achieved what was possible. The result is acceptable to both sides. Neither person feels hurt, used or abused by the encounter. In a Win /Win relationship, I feel good about myself and I feel good about my focus; what I’m trying to achieve. When I do make mistakes I don’t immediately become abusive to myself , I just stop to think and examine what’s happened

Or, perhaps your style is a Win/Lose style, where you win and the other person loses. A style typically used by aggressive sales persons and business people. They have little or no interest in the other person provided they buy the product or do as they are told. Another way of playing a Win/Lose game is by committing what is now called a ‘professional foul’. If you can’t win you do something to stop the other person winning.

Ask yourself: How many ‘professional fouls’ have I committed this month? It can be something as easy as pouting or sulking.

When you go into a relationship, do you go into it to Win/ Win or Win /Lose?

If your self esteem is low you may find that your encounters and relationships are built on a Lose/Win scenario. In these relationships one person gives in all the time to enable the other person to Win. It may be masked in the phrase, ‘I don’t want to cause any trouble’ or ‘I don’t mind what happens, you make the decision’. How many times do you make people feel sorry for you? Classic I Lose you Win behaviour. You give away all your power all the time and I wonder why you don’t achieve anything and feel unhappy all the time.

In our experience the most destructive relationship is one based on Lose/Lose. On these occasions a person enters the relationship or conversation with the mindset that if I can’t win no one is going to. This behaviour is very destructive.

When playing football or any other team sport do you see yourself as participating in a competition of winning and losing? Or do you see it as I am a player in a team with a role to play and my job is to achieve my personal best in this situation? After a major race or game the question a professional sportspersons asks themselves or their coach is, ‘Did I perform to or beat my personal best this time’?

The most important question to ask is:

Did I perform my personal best on this occasion?

Winning is not the issue. What matters is did I perform or exceed my personal best?

The Own Goal is scored when we don’t know what our personal best is. We have no measure on our performance and so we tend to take decisions in life that take us away from Win/Win relationships.

Win/ Win for us is living in my personal best, the result is I play better, the team plays better and the best team on the day wins.

Forth Own Goal

"If you understood the power of your thoughts you would be frightened to think" a wisdom keeper once told me.

In other words your power is in your thoughts. Your thoughts drive your actions. So, get your thoughts right and correct actions must follow. In the context of this article, the correct thoughts are about you. How do you see yourself? How do you see others?

One way of changing the way you think is to treat your brain and thinking process in the same way gardeners treat their gardens, In other words do some ‘Gardening of the Brain"

If you are a gardener the first thing you do is take stock of the garden. Identify the flowers, cultivated shrubs etc and the weeds. If you are new to gardening the first job is to identify which are the flowers and which are the weeds.

Now do the same with your thoughts:

Which of your thoughts would you classify as Weeds?

What behaviours would you classify as the weeds in your life?

If you are a Gardener you would now dig out and remove the weeds and replace them with your favourite flowers.

Which of your thoughts are your favourite flowers?

Which behaviours would you transplant as your favourite flowers?

The system to stop scoring the own goal is to Recognise, Remove and Replace all negative and unhelpful thoughts.

Recognise, Remove and Replace all thoughts that stop you achieving your focus.

Conclusion

Most of the things we do are HABITS.

I have a focus which is built on capabilities rather than capabilities are found to help me achieve my focus.

I run my life on what I think I want rather that what I need.

I build relationships on competing with others or giving in to others rather than trying to beat my personal best.

I spend time admiring and developing weeds in my garden rather than replacing them with flowers.

All you have to do is change them. In this article we have suggested that you will have a more productive and happier life if you change to your natural way. In other words instead of learning a new technique, just unlearn your present thought patterns and behaviour by doing what comes naturally. Focus on achieving your potential. Focus on what you really need in life. Focus on achieving your personal best at all times. Focus on being a flower rather than a weed.

Each time you catch yourself not thinking in this way, you will have scored another own goal.

About The Author

Graham and Julie live in the Canary Islands where they pursue their love for writing, photography and spirituality. See their work at www.desktop-meditation.com

graham@desktop-meditation.com

If you do not know where you want to go and what you want to do - you will never get there. In the book of Proverbs, it talks about the wisdom of the ant. The ant knows where there is for it. There for the ant is storing up food against the time when food would be scarce.

To get where you want to go or to do what you wish to do, you have to first know what there is for you. You have to be able to see it in your mind and have the passion to get there.

Next you have to set some reasonable goals to get - there. Then you have to travel the path you have set to get you want to go. You have to faithfully follow through, on that path, step by step. Many people think they know what there looks like to them, but - for many reasons - will not move a muscle to get - anywhere at all.

Many of the reasons for staying put and not doing what is necessary, is because:

1.) Many people do not know how to set goals.

2.) Many feel that trying to meet a goal is too difficult and they don’t even try.

3.) Some people do make goals. However their goals are often unrealistic. And when they fail to meet a couple of these unrealistic goals, they become discouraged. Often they cease trying altogether. The passion to get there dies as a result.

Are any of these true for you. Has your passion to get there faded?

God has plans for each of us to proper and use the gifts he has given us. We have to make the choice to set the type of goals that will cause us to personally and spiritually grow. The choice to develop as a person and apply our unique gifts towards that development is our choice.

However, to grow and develop, you must have a plan. You need to determine the direction of "there" for yourself and then set the realistic goals you need to get - there.

WANT TO USE THIS ARTICLE IN YOUR NEWSLETTER, E-ZINE OR WEB SITE? You can, as long as you include the resource box below:

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Coach Stan Lewis is a Christian Life & Leadership coach. He is happily married to the ultimate lady and love of his life - Barb. He has two children. He is a former Naval Officer & has developed and trained leaders for 18 yrs. He has worked in the Royal Ranger ministry for 20 yrs. He has a passion for training, ministering to, and developing leaders.

If you liked this article, you should really check out his new "Thinking Style" assessment by Clicking Here or his other FREEBIES at http://www.realleadership4coachinglife.com Questions about this article or you need assistance, please call me at 214-629-7217.

How important do you believe it is to think about and visualize your future life?

How important would it be to you if your cab driver wandered all over town, never getting anywhere but using up all your money and time?

If you have no intention, or goal, one thing is absolutely sure. You will never get there.

Sure you will get somewhere, but where? In our busy lives it can be so difficult to find the time to do this planning. We spend so much time planning our vacation, but so little time planning our lives! Can you set aside some time to make this happen?

As you go through this process, try to see your self in five, ten and even twenty years. Twenty years sure seems lie a long time.

Look back twenty years. How long was it? Yes, me too.

I have not planned very well for the future. I am changing that now. Part of the reason is our children. Part of the reason is I see our parents in their 70s and 80s living on their social security. I do not want to be waiting every month for my check to come in the mail.

It is not only the financial side. In fact that is not the most important part. I have dreams, really big dreams, and I need help reaching them. That help comes when you have a clear destination. The more clear you are, the more help you will receive.

How much help are you going to get? How clear on you where you are going?

Your online friend and Coach,

Miami
Helping others find their path - and stay on it. http://www.creativemasterminds.com

Quotation of the Week

The major reason for setting a goal is for what it makes of you to accomplish it. What it makes of you will always be the far greater value than what you get. -Jim Rohn

About The Author

Miami Phillips is an ANSIR Certified Personal Coach and the founder of Creative MasterMinds who believes personal growth is an essential ingredient to being happy and contributing to this world. While his main focus is affordable personal and business coaching, he also offers motivational teleclasses, ebooks, reading recommendations and much more. To find out more visit his site at http://www.creativemasterminds.com or send him an email at coach@creativemasterminds.com

The standard refrain so many of us hum once the New Year has passed is our inability to follow through on those ‘resolutions’ – gifts to one’s self - meant to change our lives with an assortment of personal desires: getting out of business, going into business, weight loss, smoking abstinence, more found time, a profitable year, and saved funds are some popular ones.

Why is it so hard to make them happen? Do we make these yearly promises with the underlying belief that ‘a promise made to me is less important than a promise made to another’? Is it easier to believe our own excuse for not starting and not following through than if we heard it from some one else who let us down following through on their promises?

Here’s an idea to make it a little easier on yourself: When you make this year’s resolution, make it a SMART one – one that is Small/Specific, Measurable, Actionable, Results oriented and Time dependent. Set your goal so that it’s easily accomplished (small and specific – so that would be ‘leave the office 15 minutes earlier by next Tuesday’ instead of ‘take off a week sometime this year’), you know how effective it is (measurable – you can see the clock on your way out the door), you know what to do to accomplish it (actionable – you know what you’ve got to do to get those 15 minutes, don’t you?), you know exactly the benefit it will provide (results oriented – 15 precious minutes!) and you know when it will be reached (time dependent – that’s next Tuesday, not some vague day in the future).

Write down these 5 points and fill in the blanks simultaneous with making the ‘resolution’ and you will have created an actual plan to follow through and make it real. And if you really want to gift yourself, you’ll tell at least 5 people about this plan who’ll look forward to hearing about the success you enjoyed when it’s accomplished. This is what we coaches call ‘accountability’.

The gift of personal accomplishment is empowering and stimulating, and, its biggest benefit to you is the desire it will create to have another win (your next gift) immediately after the first: this week - 15 minutes; next month - 1/2 hour! So give yourself a real gift – the opportunity and ability to make personal promises your personal reality. I’ve given you the tools – execution is up to you. If you find this works, I’d love to hear from you and offer you the official “Atta girl/boy” congratulations!

Andrea Feinberg, M.B.A., G.C.U., is president of Coaching Insight. She uses professional coaching techniques to help small businesses maximize the under used assets they possess. The result is marketing success, visionary leadership, effective goal setting, productive time management, enhanced employee performance and occasionally, time off. She can be reached at 631.642.7434 or andrea@coachinginsight.com

I recently had the pleasure of motorcycle riding instruction from a friend, Tony, a professional racer. He was an outstanding instructor and provided some great experience-based insight into the more intricate details of motorcycle riding. But, the one thing that stuck in my mind was his comment of "always look where you’re going." I had always assumed that this is what I did, but I found out that there is a big difference between "watching" and "looking" where you’re going.

If you’re watching where you’re going, then you’re not actually picking a path, but are instead passively allowing the bike to go wherever it wants to go. However, if you look where you’re going along your desired path, then the bike magically follows right where your eyes aim. It you look at a path along the road, you will travel that path. If you look at a tree, then you will hit the tree. Although it seems like common sense, it was actually quite amazing when it was practiced.

It’s kind of funny how this simple instruction on the fundamentals of motorcycle riding actually propagated into life’s little travels as well. You will always go where you look! If you look ahead at a negative outcome then, indeed, you will encounter a negative outcome. However, if you look ahead at the ultimate Vision you desire, then, certainly, you will arrive safely.

Of course, you must always monitor "the other guy" while riding your motorcycle down the road. Indeed, someone won’t see you or, in many cases, won’t care, and simply dart out of nowhere and run you down. As in life, always be on the lookout for the odd little obstacles that appear as they will either stop you cold, or cause you to react and learn from the encounter. Always take each and every encounter, on your bike, and in life, as a lesson in becoming a better rider.

In all cases, it is better to actively look than to simply watch. Never take your eyes off the road, be alert at all times, ensure that your vehicle is in good shape, and take a break when you get tired. By looking, acting, and reacting appropriately, you can ensure your safe travels and a successful arrival at your destination.

About The Author

Edward B. Toupin is an author, publisher, life-strategy coach, counselor, Reiki Master, technical writer, and PhD Candidate living in Las Vegas, NV. Among other things, he authors books, articles, and screenplays on topics ranging from career success through life organization and fulfillment. Check out some of his recent print and electronic books as well as his articles covering various life-changing topics! For more information, and to find out about his upcoming title on book publishing, e-mail Edward at etoupin@toupin.com or visit his site at http://www.toupin.com!

Copyright (c) 2004 Edward B. Toupin