It’s that time of year again. Everyone has had their New Year’s parties, watched the ball drop (or whatever your tradition in your country or area), counted down “10, 9, 8…2, 1, Happy New Year,” kissed their significant other, and ushered in another year with as much gusto as before. It is now 2006!

It’s also time for making those things that we all make this time of year. Yes, I am talking about New Year’s Resolutions. I have made mine and it is a little different this year. I say “it” because I only made one this time. What is it? Well, I have decided…

“My 2006 New Year’s Resolution is to Fail Miserably!”

What? Did I say Fail? Why? Surely, I don’t want to fail miserably in 2006…

I know, I know; it doesn’t make any sense to decide to fail this year. And you are right; I really don’t want to or plan to fail in 2006, that’s why I made it my New Year’s resolution. Are you with me now?

You don’t need statistics or a history lesson to know that most people (and if they are really honest, all people) do not keep the greatest part of the resolutions made at the beginning of the year. Heck, some people are lucky to keep any of them. How many times have you heard, “I plan to lose weight this year,” only to find them (or you, if that was your resolution) weighing the same or more in December, than they did in January?

This is my reasoning for choosing such an odd resolution for this New Year. I have no intention of keeping it. I am never able to keep my resolutions either. As a matter of fact, my year is starting off in exactly the opposite direction of my resolution and I hope to keep that trend up throughout the year. Yes, I am already breaking my 2006 resolution, on January 2. Now that’s record time.

If you are in the process of making your resolutions for this year, I would seriously urge you to consider my thoughts for mine and build yours accordingly. This will allow you to start off on the right foot instead of having great intentions that get tripped up by great intentions…make sense? I am putting failure as my resolution and therefore only have “upward” to go from there.

Now, please don’t confuse resolutions with proper planning. My plan for the year allows no room for failure. My goals encompass success and profitability, among other things. These are things that I have control over and that I can choose to make happen. It is the resolution part that seems to be the most uncontrollable force of any New Year and it is the resolution that I have chosen to “trick” into becoming controllable for me in 2006.

Here’s to a happy and prosperous 2006 to you and yours! Happy New Year!

About The Author

Scott Raven is an Internet Marketer. He makes his home in Arkansas, with his Wife and 2 Daughters. Visit Scott’s website at http://www.TheRavenProject.com

This article may be reprinted provided No Portion is changed and all Web Links remain Active. Copyright © 2006 TheRavenProject. All Rights Reserved.

“If you keep on doing what you have always done, you will keep on getting what you have always gotten!” So if you don’t like how things are going in any area of your business, career, life, STOP!

Think about what you want, focus in on what’s important and develop strategies and simple steps you can take to do something new and achieving new results.

A lot of what we do as "normal" or "routine" is a habit, and if we don’t like where we are it’s a bad habit. We put off filing our bills, paperwork, information we want to keep because we’ll do it later. But we can’t find anything in the stacks of stuff lying around and we can’t get anything done with all that clutter because our mind is stuck.

Our normal response is to dream of the day we can be organized, cut through the clutter, and come into work or home and see a clean organized desk with everything at our finger tips. But since that day seems too far off or too time consuming to create we continue with our routine and get the same results and worse we add to the frustration, that endless dragging feeling, and the cycle of never getting ahead gets bigger.

Create a new habit and make it a good one. One that moves you into action and gives you the results you want. It will take commitment on your part and it will take doing it repeatedly over time to make it a habit, but after several weeks it will become comfortable to do it the new way and uncomfortable when you go back to the old way.

Think of all the time and most importantly, energy you put into dealing with and reacting to the consequences of your bad habits. Think of the energy drain that occurs by being dissatisfied with what is happening in your life; it’s tremendous, and if you put that same energy into creating your best life it would be truly fabulous indeed.

"If it just takes changing habits and sticking to them how come everyone doesn’t do it and have what they really want?"

Because it takes action and it’s a little scary, we know we don’t like where we are now, but we know it, it’s comfortable.

A good thing to ponder; have you had enough discomfort and pain because of your routine and the bad habits you currently practice to make it worthwhile for you to change? Have you envisioned a great enough life that it’s worth taking action, making the commitment to yourself, and putting energy into creating your best life?

If you haven’t then settle into your routine and accept that you are getting the best results you can based on the vision you’ve formed and the habits you have. This action alone will change your perspective and create change in your life.

If you have experienced enough discomfort and pain then make a conscious choice to take action. Think about what’s important to you, craft an extraordinary vision and create your best life. Be very clear about everything you want in your vision and find someone who can give you support, will genuinely listen to you without judgment; without creating new obstacles for you and who will support you in attracting what you really want in life.

About The Author

©BZ Riger-Hull. Author of The Soul of Success http://www.in-spiros.com For valuable free articles, mailto:A1@smartautoresponder.com Certified as a Success Coach, “Four Agreements” Facilitator, & Tele-Course leader We help you communicate powerfully, reduce stress, Strategically Attract success, & increase your financial well-being. Our coaching programs and Tele-Courses give you the Tools you need to Succeed.

bz@in-spiros.com

I love goals. I set them every year, and revisit them and set new ones throughout the year.

I also hate goals. I follow the advice of goal setting experts and set big goals, and put them in writing, and visualize them, but it seems that many of the goals never seem to hit.

This often leads to the slightly depressed feeling of realizing that I didn’t hit my goal, coupled with the acceptance that my life is not where I wanted it to be.

The real problem occurs though, in the fact that my mood, energy, and sense of self-esteem end up tied into whether I achieved those goals. You’ve probably been there: You just did a great sales presentation and you’re waiting to here back from the client. If the client comes back with a "yes," you feel happy and great. If you get a "no," you feel down and sad. Or perhaps you’re trying to lose weight, and you eat well and exercise, but when you step on the scale the number hasn’t changed - that’s a quick route to depression. Once in while the reverse happens: you eat poorly, skip a couple of workouts, but the scale still shows a drop. Here you may feel good even though you know you messed the week up.

Having goals is great, but judging our success and feelings on the achievement of those goals is a dangerous game, because we place our sense of self-esteem on external factors.

The next time you set goals (New Years or otherwise) make sure to set two types of goals: result goals and activity goals.

Result Goals - These are the things we want to get or achieve. "I want to make $100,000 this year." "I want to lose 25 pounds." "I will own a new home." And so on.

Activity Goals - These are the daily tasks we set for ourselves to achieve our result goals. "I will make 10 sales calls a day." "I will exercise 3 days a week for 45 minutes a day." "I will set aside X dollars per month to build up my down payment."

Both of these types of goals are important. But there is a critical difference. You have almost absolute control over your activity goals. Your result goals almost always rely on things outside of your control. In the sales example, you might not be able to control how many sales you close (buyers are fickle, after all), but you can control how many calls you make per day.

The key then to achieving your goals and being happier doing it is quite simple:

"You must measure your success by your Activity Goals, not by your Result Goals"

You should set result goals. They should be written, and vivid, and specific, etc. You should take time to visualize them everyday. But, when deciding whether you are a success, you should simply look at whether you hit your activity goals.

The two are related. You set your result goals first, then you determine the consistent actions you must take to achieve those goals. These consistent actions become your activity goals. When you plot out your day, or week, or month, determine what activities you will do and when you will do them. Then, at the end of the day, week, or month, let your sense of success and self-esteem be guided by one questions: "Did I do what I said I would in my activity goals?" If the answer is yes, regardless of what you achieved, then you should sleep easy. If you said no, then you need to revisit and adjust.

I can hear the dissent now, "but if I ignore my result goals, how can I be sure I get what I want?" Make no mistake; I never said to avoid result goals. If time goes by and you are not getting the result you want, than you need to adjust your activities to increase the likliehood of getting what you want. The difference is, you judge your success on what you do, not on what you get. Results are your feedback - if you get what you want, keep doing what you are doing. If not, try something different.

Measuring success based on your activities has three powerful benefits:

Internal vs. External Self-Esteem - This whole idea began when I realized how ludicrous it was for a person to let their self-esteem and mood be based on events they have no control over. Why be depressed because some client doesn’t have the budget for your service or product? Why get down because the guy or girl you were interested in didn’t call you? Why sulk just because your body didn’t drop two pounds this week? There are so many variables outside of your control taht all you can do is do your best.

When you base your success on what you do, you can always feel good. Whether or not you close a sale, you can sleep well knowing you put in your 100 calls for the week. Even if the scale didn’t drop, you are happy knowing that you are doing the right thing in eating right and exercising. Don’t worry if one guy or girl doesn’t call you - be content in knowing that you are out there and doing what you need to to find the right person.

Of course, this only works if you actually do the activities you’re supposed to. If you don’t, then you might feel down - but at least you know that you deserve to feel down and you’ll know what you need to do to fix it!

Foward Moving Action - By judging yourself on your activities, you will force yourself to take action. Sometimes, when you focus just on the result, you procrastinate or feel overwhelmed. If you focus on the individual activity you committed to doing (and judge your success just on whether you do it) you will be much more likely to take that action. This will have the effect of constantly moving you towards your goals.

Ironically, the more you focus on your activity goals instead of your results goals, the more likely you will be to actually attain the result you want.

Law of Detachment - There is a principle in spirituality, improvisation, martial arts, sports, and many other areas called the Law of Detachment. It goes by different names in different arenas. It is the Law of Detachment in spirittuality. In improv it is "let go of control and go with the flow." In martial arts, it’s the "resolute acceptance of death;" in sports, it’s "playing loose."

Whatever the arena, the principle states that the more attached we are to an outcome, the more unlikely we are to actually get it. This is because the attachment creates resistance. We send out the wrong kind of energy (spirituality), resist the positive things going on around us (improv), get overwhelmed and paralyzed by fear (martial arts), and just plain tighten up (sports). By letting go of attachment to what you want, you free up resources and energy that makes it much more likely for you to get it.

Focusing on your result goals creates attachment. Focusing on your activity goals detaches you from your outcome; you go about the business of doing your activities, confidently knowing that they will result in something good. This is a terrific way to not only happily achieve your goals, but also to just reduce stress in general.

Try this method the next time you do your goal setting. Make your result goals - make them big, make them great, and write them down. Then determine the activities you consistently need to do (and are willing to do) to achieve those goals. Then, even if just for 30 days, commit to ending each day judging yourself as a success or not based simply on whether you followed through or not. Do this, and your self-esteem will soar, you will be happier, and yes, you will be on your way to achieving your goals.

Avish Parashar is the world’s funniest (and potentially only) "Improvising Motivational Keynote Speaker" To learn more about how to bring the hilariously powerful lessons of improv comedy to your organization, visit http://www.avishparashar.com.

To learn how to use Improv Comedy to be an amazingly powerful speaker, visit http://www.improvforspeakers.com.

Years back when I was formulating my plans for life, I heard the statement, "Reach for nothing and you will be certain to get it." Admittedly, my goals during my youth were rather vague and uncertain. However, several years of experimenting with different goals has helped me to refine them into something workable and realistic. Now, nothing can dissuade me in my quests, even the comments of the naysayers. Here are four tips that are helping me to reach my goals:

1. Be realistic. I have heard the statment said, "If you want to be President of the United States, just put your mind to it and you will be." Well, that sounds nice. However, it is an unrealistic goal for most people. Sure, someone will become president, but not everyone has the capacity, fortitude, desire, or willpower to see to it. Plus, presidents are elected and this particular goal depends on the will [read votes] of the people. Instead, if you want to be president, have a fall back plan that includes a lifetime of public service. Once in public service, you may end up refining those plans to something more manageable but just as an important. An example of this would be your managing a charitable organization. No, you wouldn’t be the president of the U.S., but you would still have the opportunity to impact people for the greater good. A laudable goal at that!

2. Be ready to refine. Life is not a straight line from Point A to Point B to Point C and beyond. There are so many curves, twists, turns, roadblocks, and other obstacles out there. The key is to size each change up to see how it measures against your goals. Whether you are religious or not, it could be that a "still small voice" is attempting to guide you in your pursuits. You may not need to abandon a goal, rather you may need to slow down or come to a temporary stop. Time will test the strength and reasonableness of a goal and — if it is to be — time will win out.

3. Be prepared for opposition. Great people of the ages have pressed on with their goals by having a relentless, unending desire to see the goal reached. Abe Lincoln became president after losing several political battles earlier in his life. Martin Luther King, Jr. spearheaded the civil rights movement which overturned a culture of separation of the races. Sally Ride broke through barriers by becoming the first American woman in space. Each person had something in common: they persevered, often over the strong objections of naysayers. While naysayers can seem to be your enemy, look at them as your friend: use their objections as a catalyst to press forward.

4. Be ready to claim victory. Yes, at some point you will have met your goals. Once achieved, acknowledge the long, difficult road you took, take a look back, and be prepared to start on your next goal!

Matt Keegan is a web designer and marketer who is in the process of working toward several goals including managing a successful business. Matt manages a popular business niche community for flight attendants at http://www.corporateflyer.net.

Know why you didn’t obtain the achievements you wanted last year? Your compass was set in the wrong direction. Your plan lacked relevant tactical strategy. Your feather-weight gear wasn’t equipped for the rugged land-mine-filled trek. You over-promised, under-planned, greatly compromised. Want to make sure you don’t repeat the same mistakes? This time don’t delegate your parachute-packing.

Start taking ownership and personal responsibility for any career derailments. Yeah, you. No one else but you should pack your parachute. Leave your success in the hands of your employer, co-workers or family, and you needlessly remove your ability to control the outcome. That dumb move will turn your career / business expedition into a frighteningly out-of-control free fall that can only end in disaster.

Overcome headwinds that’ll be there to counter your momentum by preemptively sighting the deterrents. Do this on paper, not in your head. Keyboard or use paper and pen to perform the following mind-mapping, “terrain-analysis” exercise. Make the time now to do this task, don’t procrastinate, and watch how much fast you’ll regain control of the steering mechanism that pilots your career and business direction:

• Develop a comprehensive list of 10 professionally-related things you wanted to accomplish this past year, but for whatever reason, didn’t achieve. Include revenue targets, job functionalities, key responsibilities and tasks or projects you wanted to complete, skills you aimed to learn, and / or people you desired to know. Be specific.

• Next to these 10, write down a one-sentence reason why the tasks or initiatives did not get completed. Keep it brief and succinct. Preferably use a different-colored font or ink so that there’s delineation. Also include who or what you want to blame that prevented the achievement. Yeah, go ahead and blame someone else, blame a situation, blame yourself. At this pre-filter point, it doesn’t matter because stream-of-consciousness raw thought is what you’re after, not a nun-like remorse of shirking responsibility. You’ll have plenty of opportunity to repent later.

• Observe and note next to the 10 things you wanted to achieve, any commonalities or patterns that impeded your success. Preferably use yet another colored font or ink. Group these together on your list. Don’t forget to include obstacles such as budgetary, politically-motivated, or your lack of niche-skill. Grouping helps in pattern-identification.

• Now rank your entire 10-item list using the numbers 1-10. Order these by the greatest importance to you with number one being the lowest, and number 10, the highest.

Drive your success by what drives you. Complete this exercise and you will identify the top five things that matter most to you; the initiatives that stir your passion and fuel your energy to succeed. You’ll need that vigor to push you past the obstacles.

How do you decide which career or business initiatives to tackle next? Your top five “what matters most” that you just created is the required foundation to build an insurgency against all excuses you’ve previously used to dodge success.

The more you take ownership for your career / business detours and derailments now, the less you’ll find in resistance to achievement, later. Mind-mapping on paper, what went right and wrong this past year, professionally, is huge in mental housecleaning. When you face your regrets, pinpoint the causes, and take responsibility for the missteps; you free yourself from the weight of guilt and blame and are then prepped for a fresh start in a new direction.

Part Two of this series will retrofit you with a new compass, bullet-proof gear, and a tactical blueprint that’ll shorten the lead time to purposeful accomplishment and revolutionize how you get things done.

About the Author: Marta Driesslein, CECC is a management consultant for R.L. Stevens & Associates, Inc.

About the Company: For over 25 years, R.L. Stevens & Associates (http://interviewing.com/) has been the Nation’s most successful privately-held firm specializing in executive career searches generating quality interviews through both advertised and unadvertised channels.

It is very easy and a lot of fun to talk about dreams and goals and a great future. Achieving these dreams is not so easy as all wise people know. We need to build our dreams on the solid ground of action rather than the shifting sands of talk. The Red Indians of America know how to summarize great truths in a few choice words.

In the perceptive western, "Broken Arrow", Cochise, the wise Apache chief, scolds the wise American scout, acted by James Stewart:

"To talk of peace is easy; to live it is not easy. Are you a child that you thought peace would come easy?"

The Italians also have a way with words. Garibaldi, the great Italian soldier and patriot said much the same thing:

"Give me the ready hand rather than the ready tongue."

Talk is easy. Planning is easy. Making promises is easy.

Doing what we say is the difficult part. Carrying out our plans is not easy. Keeping our promises is the hard part.

Recently, a top instructor in my martial art, Choikwangdo, which is based in Atlanta Georgia, spoke about how some UK instructors go to Atlanta and are so inspired that they are totally gung-ho and ready to take on the world. By the time they get back to the UK and it is pouring with rain some of the inspiration has departed!

This happens at most seminars where a great dream is promoted. Every one leaves charged up and ready to achieve their dream but unless they take action immediately and regularly the dream will soon die. Talk is cheap!

I am old enough to remember the Charles Atlas’ promise. Buy his course and the next time the bully kicks sand in your face you will be ready! Many bought his course but how many practiced what he taught? The bully was still kicking sand in many faces!

We can excuse children for giving up when they discover that something is not easy and might even involve some hard and boring work.

An adult should know better and should think carefully before making any promises that involve hard graft.

On the other hand, promises can be useful as motivation to get on with doing what we promise. It is also fun to do things which we have not promised to do.

Businessmen and women who give their customers more than they have promised usually retain those customers for life. Many internet gurus sell their products together with a huge pile of bonuses.

Then they deliver more. Even after you have bought their product and downloaded the bonuses, they will send an email with more bonuses just to thank you for buying their product. These gurus know how to create lifetime good will.

"For each day of peace we will pile one stone upon another," said Cochise.

The great chief knew the value of living day by day and the value keeping score and the value of celebrating each daily victory.

Proponents of the power of affirmation and visualisation suggest celebrating in advance of the victory.

This could encourage the universe to create events which are in tune with the celebration and create a confidence in ourselves that will allow us to make full use of all our powers to help us achieve our goals.

In the end Cochise achieved peace. He knew what it would take.

It was Geronimo who continued the war.

About the author

John Watson is an award winning teacher and martial arts instructor. He has recently written two books about achieving your goals and dreams.

They can both be found on his website http://www.motivationtoday.com along with a daily motivational message.

The title of the first book is "36 Laws To Ignite Your Inner Power And Realize Your Dreams Now! - Acronyms, Stories, And Pictures…Easy To Remember And Use Everyday To Grab Your Life And Soar With The Eagles"

The book can be found at this URL

http://www.motivationtoday.com/36_laws.php

The book uses acronyms, stories and pictures to help readers remember 36 laws that can gradually transform your life if you apply them.

Ezine editors / Site owners.

Feel free to reprint this article in its entirety in your ezine or on your site as long as you leave all links in place, do not modify the content and include my resource box as listed above.

Have you forgotten what it is you want to become and have? Probably you have made a few attempts, found that your strategies didn’t work and lost yourself along the way.

It all starts with the goal.

Define and describe it. Write down when you want to achieve it. Write down the reasons why you want it. Write down how it would feel like when you have achieved it.

Plan it.

Planning counts. Plans, strategies and actions steps show you the way. Plan what you want to do and how you want to do it. Break down the tasks. A good map makes navigation easier.

Work hard at it.

Work harder than you ever did. If you don’t get the result, try something else. If that something else does not work too, modify and try doing it differently. You may have to spend many hours, days and nights but as long as you persist, you will get it right.

Visualize it.

Use your imagination to create it first inside even before you can have it on the outside. Picture having your ambition realized in your mind. Put in the sounds and the feelings. Rerun it over and over again.

Listen to your internal dialogue.

What you are saying inside affects you physically, emotionally and mentally. Is your defense system inside trying to make you stick to your old limiting beliefs and perceptions? Take over and challenge your inner critics.

Focus your attention.

Don’t get swayed easily with the noise and happenings going on outside. Put your attention on what you are trying to achieve. Remember the goal and you will have control over the discomforts and difficulties.

Seek help.

Find the information, skills and knowledge that you need from other people, books, and audio or video programs. Speed up your learning process by emulating what other successful people have done. You save time and get results faster.

Fatimah Musa provides information, tips and quotes to help people become aware that any future success starts with their personal growth. You can visit Fatimah at http://www.about-personal-growth.com or read more articles at http://www.about-personal-growth.com/personal-growth-articles.html

Hocus, Pocus, it’s all about focus. That’s the real magic of goals!

‘Once set, the final thing to do is to make our goals visible. Put our written down goals where we will see them everyday. Look at them often and surely success will follow, as day follows night.’

The above success principle has been praised by just about all those who have applied it. Those who do not apply it usually get left in the dust, goal-less. There are some who are able to bypass this principle and still enjoy great succcess, but they are few and far in between.

In my experience with goal setting, past and present, I find that in addition to writing them out, pictures of my goals and associated items, help me to visualize actually having them, just as if they are in a layaway catalogue, all I have to do is pay the price to pick them up. This allows me to think that it is just a matter of time until they arrive! This really helps to allay any negative vibes that may crop up during the adventure.

At the time, I was rarely successful at staying consistent and focusing steady on anything important. I mostly just played at life. I knew all the rules of success but was haphazard at applying them, no consistency. This does plague me from time to time.

That is until I got serious . . . 1987. That year I quit smoking, quit drinking, and quit being lazy! I dropped 60 lbs. in 3 months, and worked up to running 5 miles a day. I experienced the power of Focus! I wrote an article about how I made that happen. I called it, Set Your Mind To Win and you can read it at: http://www.realgoalgetter.com/articles/smith/set-your-mind.html . In it I explained some of what I did to achieve those goals. This article actually follows up on that one, with a little more detail, and in a different way.

That next year, 1988, I made a decision to take my wife to Hawaii. I remember it was a vacation trip though that I really wanted for my wife and I. It was her dream trip to Hawaii, she had never been there. So we planned two weeks in October that year. It all seems so long ago, actually it was. At the time of this writing it is 2004.

Back then, I didn’t have any of the the resources that I needed to take this trip, and I didn’t know how I was going to do it. I was flat broke. But I did know that I wanted it for my wife and I. This was a tremendous amount of cash for me to come up with in so short a time. For me this was nigh impossible! There were no past references in me to even think this was possible. I didn’t even have a savings account at the time.

Being in Sales and Supervision at the time, one of the procedures to make it easy for people to buy was to break down the necessary actions, payments etc. to the ridiculously simple, so they would believe it was not only possible but absolutely doable! I brainstormed all the things we wanted to have and do on our trip, all that it would cost, and totalled it up. I would need at least $8,000.00 in order to make it happen. I needed to break this down into timelines.

I pushed the negative self talk aside every time it came up. (And it came up often, believe me) I came up with ideas I needed to act on and I started to break them down into 5 smaller actions, and then into 5 smaller actions until I came up with a ridulously simple thing, that I could believe I could do and that I could do right there and then, and just waded into them one at a time.

I booked the trip in May, without having all my ducks in a row, heh, heh. I booked the time off at work and having told all my colleagues what I had planned, I couldn’t back out. Talk about a public commitment, and a commitment to my wife is not easily broken, so I pulled out all the stops to make this trip happen. I tightened my belt on a lot of things that I didn’t need and also worked my tail off to earn extra income so I could save some for the trip. I lived and breathed that trip every day.

I surrounded myself in my car, house, and office, with post cards, pictures, magazine articles, travel books, videos, sun tan lotion, even a fake grass skirt that I picked up in a yard sale and hung around my bathroom mirror.

I made an audio recording and listened to my own voice on tape of how I was making things happen, and I visualized (imagined) how successful I was at taking each of the actions necessary. I set out my intention. (Positive Self Talk in my car) This was weird stuff, believe me I felt weird at the beginning.

I talked about it all the time. It served it’s purpose though and kept my focus strong, and concentrated my power! I never let myself forget for a moment that I wanted this Hawaii trip badly, and that I was on the hook for this. I kept reminding myself in every way possible that this trip was important, I mean, almost life or death important.

Well, I made that trip happen just the way I wanted it, and my wife was ecstatic. One week on Oahu, and one week on Maui. We took 33 rolls of film in two weeks, a visual reminder of the fun and good times we had. My wife had her dream trip, and I had a real life reference that would change how I went after my goals forever.

Making this trip happen really made it clear to me that goal setting really works big time, as long as you keep your eye on the ball. Since then, I work on my goals regularly, always keeping them in mind. I have a dream collage of pictures framed on my wall, and I have a long list of ‘wishes’ that I have yet to take action on. I just have to pump up the volume from time to time.

I am not perfect by any stretch but I keep at it. After I met this challenge, I sure haven’t got any excuse for not having or doing something.The best reward I got from that experience was the feeling that I could achieve basically anything providing I stoked my desire high enough, and managed my thoughts and focus.

When you have one gargantuan goal, that by going after it, you automatically achieve all of your others, this helps to keep your focus concentrated, and your energy does not get dissipated by going in a lot of different directions. Just like Napoleon Hill writes about how powerful a ‘Magnificent Obsession’ can be.

Please do not take this as ‘bragging’ as my intention is only to demonstrate that anyone can do, have, or be whatever they want as long as you pay the price asked. Who in their right mind would brag about a small amount like $8,000.00 anyway in this day and age?

Let’s see some of the focus activities I used in doing this:

1. Write down my goal and review it frequently. Immerse myself in it.

2. Surround myself with associate items, pictures, smells, feels, and/or tastes.

3. Think as if it’s on layaway, it’s in the bank, and confidently pay the price.

4. Create future references by visualizing you have received them already.

5. Talk about them all the time, and record my own enthusiastic voice to listen to.

6. Control my focus by crowding out the negative, overwhelming it with positive.

7. Break down my actions to the ridiculously simple, be specific.

8. Commited to myself, my wife, and everyone I cared about. (built up importance)

9. Set my mind to ‘win’, there is no other option to consider.

10. Have faith that this will happen, use the peak to peek principle.

One focus to success. Build momentum in all things instead of distraction. It is all about focus. You can make this work for you too. The real question to ask yourself is this:

How can I take these 10 ‘focus’ strategies, use them as a ckecklist of sorts, apply them to my most important goal, make them work for me, and enjoy the process?

Well, how can you? And will you? You Can Do It!

Go for it!

Copyright 2004 Al Smith, All Rights Reserved

Al Smith writes for and publishes The Realgoalgetter Ezine. His articles deal mostly with goal setting, self improvement, motivation, and overall health and fitness. Stop by The Realgoalgetter Website and subscribe to The Realgoalgetter Ezine at http://www.realgoalgetter.com/ezines/index.html .

——————————-

This article is available for reprint in your publication free as long as it is kept intact and the resource box is included with the live links back to our web site.

The New Year always brims with resolutions and goals. Here are nine of my best tips, because eight is not enough, to help you avoid being in the 70% who give up on their resolutions by about the end of January!

1. Write out your important goals – and resolutions!
Take about 15 or so minutes to write out, one goal at a time, clearly, with written reasons of why you want to have, to do or to be this, identify resources you need and action steps you know to take.

2. Give it a due date.
A due date gives you focus, fuels your motivation, and commits you to your action plan.

3. Declare it!
Many people find affirmations helpful to say aloud; stating how they know they want to feel with achieving a goal. “I love how I feel when I –“ then, state your specific goal.

4. Measure it.
If you identify every action you take toward your goal, you’ll know how to adjust. You’ll have milestones to let you know what’s working, what isn’t, and what you want to do differently.

5. Fuel your inspiration each day.
No matter how much or how little, always be doing something that moves you toward your goal. This fans the fire – not to manage your energy!

6. Forgive yourself.
Be forgiving if you make mistakes, want to give up, or somehow move away from your goal direction. Forgiving yourself will put you back on track.

7. Confide in others.
Tell someone you know and trust who will be supportive of you. Ask them to be a goal buddy to check in with. This is not the role for those who tend to be pessimistic or unsupportive, so select this person carefully.

8. Do an ecology check.
Ask yourself questions like, “What will happen if I do achieve this? What won’t happen if I do achieve this?” Ask the same questions about others who are affected. Who knows? You may uncover some results you had not considered.

9. Let the goal go.
Once you are in a stride with all this “doing”, put your energy toward knowing that the goal is set in motion and is on the way to you. Just follow your hunches, your instincts and your action plan.

Sign up at Pat’s website at http://www.prostrategies.com for her free teleclasses! And a free monthly ezine.

Pat Weber is a coach, certified telelcass leader, and corporate trainer. In her business coaching, she works with small business owners, independent professionals and salespeople to help them get more of what they want sooner than later by getting clear, focused and infused with energy.

Have you ever heard someone say, I could do it if I could just set my mind to it. Have you ever uttered these words, even just to yourself?

You can you know. And me too. I really can achieve what I set my mind to. This belief has pulled me out many times from difficult situations, and for anyone discovering this feeling, you cannot describe the power inside. No bragging, just quiet confidence.

Have you heard about the story of mothers pulling great weights off their sons or daughters in order to save their lives. And then find out that the weight they lifted was virtually impossible! Tell that to a mother who is trying to save her children. There is no impossible in her mind. There is no other acceptable alternative other than total and complete success.

You can use this principle! We will move heaven and earth when we feel it is important to do so. You really can get anything you want in life if you set your mind to it. The timing and strategy may change, but the result is in the bank, ‘if you set your mind to it.’

OK. You have my curiosity stoked, you say. Now you ask, how do you set your mind to it? Ahhhh. There’s the rub. The question of the ages rears it ugly head once again.

I have written a success story of mine below. I am not proud of where I was, I am proud of how I handled it and came back.

1987 - This period of my life was both the worst time of my life and the best time of my life. Anyone hitting rock bottom can relate.

That year 1987, my life was in the "crapper". I was in a downward spiral, and couldn’t seem to stop myself from ruining not only my life but my family’s too. I was drifting away from the very people who were most important to me.

It’s funny that even when you know that you are screwing up, you sometimes can’t seem to make change. That’s when you sometimes get lucky. At least I was.

I was drinking heavily, an alcoholic by definition, not by belief. I was up late drinking myself into a stupor and fell asleep with a lit cigarette in the ash tray. When I woke up the next morning, the cigarette had burned down, fell out of the ash tray onto the coffee table and burned a thin streak into the wood.

Now you would think that this would shake anybody up, but, this wasn’t the catalyst! No.

When our little girl Sheri came down this particular morning, she remarked, horrified, that I could have burned the house down! I could have died just from the look on her face. Well, I would move mountains for my family so it was enough of a picture that I gave up smoking right then and there. March 5, 1987 My focus was laser concentrated, quitting smoking was the most important thing to do in my life at this time.

If you notice, I never said that I gave up drinking there. No. Not enough leverage for that one yet.

Later that year we were at a friend’s wedding, and I still was drinking heavily. Probably more heavily if that could be possible. It’s a wonder that I didn’t get alcohol poisoning, I had no problem downing whole cases of beer, and requesting more. (24 packs in Ontario, where we were living at the time.)

When we came home that night, my wife and I got into an argument, and after verbally abusing her, the argument elevated. I HIT HER.

I struck my wife, a little more than 115-120 lbs soaking wet! What a big man I was. The argument continued for another few minutes, but she picked up the kids and left the house for her mothers.

At that instant, I realized even through my drunkenness that I had crossed the line.

When the next morning came, and I had sobered up a little, I could have cut my right arm off. In my life, I had swore that I would never become one who would beat on their wife. And I had hit her physically.

I have never had another alcoholic drink since that time. July 18, 1987. Quit cold turkey, with leverage that few people get to feel. Thank God for that. And of course I never hit her again. She is absolutely the most important person in my life, and I try to demonstrate that daily.

Change took on a whole new importance to me. I had tremendous leverage on myself. I had crossed a line in my mind, a threshold, that gave me absolute power over my actions. That is where we have to be when we expect change to last.

The results? That year, I quit smoking in the spring, and I quit drinking that summer. I started jogging at this same time and started out going around a little park behind our house, probably a 5 minute run but took me 11 minutes, pumping and puffing. During the next 3 months I worked up to 5 miles a day, and dropped weight from 245 to 185. My focus was concentrated solely on the fact that I knew I was better than this and I must change my life now. For myself and for my family.

I felt tremendous urgency. I felt better then than at any other time in my life. My mind was clear on the objective. Sure there were distractions, but my purpose was enough to get me through and manage them.

In 1988, I led my team at work to a company wide contest win, great recognition for me. And I took my wife Anne on her dream trip, a trip for 2 weeks to Hawaii. We took everything in we could, and took 33 rolls of film to sit together and look at later.

I journalled my thoughts and feelings at that time, but alas, I did not journal in a hard bound book, just a three ring binder. The pages tossed away sometime ago. Therefore, I have only my memory to serve me. (Journalling regularly is a great way to measure how much one has grown. I recommend it heartily.)

What really pulled me out was the realization that, not only was I completely fouling up my life and my family’s, but that I was not creating anything for them or myself. I was not being who I was supposed to me. My idea of who I am, was completely in direct contradiction to what I was acting out.

Now. Back to the Present.

So, how do you set your mind to it? How do you make what you want, the most important thing in your life for the time period needed to achieve?

How do you give it importance over those things you most value already?

Connect them up. Use what is already important in your life and connect it to what you want to have, with stronger, more powerful reasons associating the fact that one gets stronger and more potent with the other.

How do you take something you have doing for years and stop ‘cold turkey’, and turn it around to give you terrific momentum for the positive?

How do you take something that you have been trying to do for years, and failing, and turn it around so that you are successful at it immediately?

You must make it the most important thing to do in your life for the time period necessary to ingrain it into your life. And you must make it a MUST! Just like in the story of the mother saving her child. There is no other acceptable alternative other than total and complete success.

Connect it to something you feel is already critically important and merge them. Make one depend on the other and you will be pulled to success. Look forward to your new future!

My guess is that at some time in your life you have ‘set your mind’ to something and cruised to victory. This is the feeling you want to remember and practice.

Think back, pull the memories of successful changes you have already made and you will have your own personal strategy that you know works for you. You just have to consciously remember and practice it.

There are many ways to change. You probably already know these but are you using them? I have found them absolutely critical to habit development and change. The degree of success you have will be directly proportionate to the degree you apply these principles.

They create a ‘pull’ instead of you having to ‘push’. Logical reasons will help, but emotional reasons have the most power. Here are 5 strategies that I feel are critical.

1. Decision to Commit - Pure resolve that I am doing it. No matter what, whatever it takes. There is no option acceptable other than to do it.

2. Great Reasons that move me to ACTION! Strong Empowering Emotional Reasons WHY I must do this.

3. Connection to what’s already important. Anchoring positive thoughts over negative to control focus. Look forward to your new future.

4. Associating with people who have done it or are doing it. Immerse myself.

5. Change My Identity, to a Self Image that is consistent with what I want.

I use these strategies in conjunction with each other. It does however depend on the habit you want to create or replace.

More later at another time, this will give you a great place to start. Go for it!

Copyright 2004 Al Smith, All Rights Reserved

Al Smith writes for and publishes The Realgoalgetter Ezine. His articles deal mostly with goal setting, self improvement, motivation, and overall health and fitness. Stop by The Realgoalgetter Website and subscribe to The Realgoalgetter Ezine at http://www.realgoalgetter.com/ezines/index.html .

——————————-

This article is available for reprint in your publication free as long as it is kept intact and the resource box is included with the live links back to our web site.