ActionPlan For BlazingSuccess: Defining Your Goals

The goal is a concise, measurable result that you want to produce at a determinable time in the future. Your goals are the stepping-stones toward the materialization of your dreams, the second critical element in the blueprint of your life.

Goals are experiences you have not yet seized, places you have not yet been, people you have not met, a level of income you have not achieved, a type of relationship you are not now enjoying, or having something you don’t currently own. Like your dreams, there is no limit to the number of goals you can set other than the limits of your imagination. And although goals identify what you intend to achieve in the future, they are always set and worked on in the present.

A study of university business school graduates who had been out of school for ten years was conducted to determine how they were progressing toward their goals. Amazingly, 83 percent of the graduates had set no goals at all. This 83 percent reported that they were working hard and staying busy but had no specific future plans. Another 14 percent had goals, but their goals were mental, not written. However, this 14 percent was earning on the average three times the income of those who had no goals at all. Only 3 percent of the entire graduate group had written goals. That 3 percent was earning a whopping ten times what those with no goals were earning.

The message is clear: goals, particularly written goals, make the difference in your overall level of accomplishment. Among the business school graduates in the study, the short time they spent establishing clear, written goals made a dramatic difference in their income levels.

Establishing goals has a positive impact on your life. But if what you hope to achieve in life is based on your expectations, rather than on working to reach established goals, you are setting yourself up for the possibility of disappointment. Expectations have to do with how you believe other people should behave, and how the world should bend at your command. Your expectations may result in a large amount of grief, whereas established goals will result in a large amount of satisfaction and success.

The superlative choice is clear: develop your goals, drop your expectations. It is a mistake to expect that you will accomplish any goal because you deserve it or because there is something in your past that entitles you to it. Unfortunately, there is no such thing as “deserve.” You end up achieving in life because of planning and control, not because you have “paid your dues”.

NLP has taken the therapy world by storm and quite rightly so. It creates rapid lasting change and you don’t need a PHD to learn the simple skills. There are many, many trainers and training company’s pumping out Practitioner by the hundreds and it would be fair to say that there are varying degrees of competency amongst these. I certainly have been amongst those who have argued in the past that some training school are responsible for poor quality NLP training, thus sending out inexperienced practitioners into the world, free to practice in the therapeutic world of the venerable and insecure.

The challenge with NLP in my opinion, is not finding somewhere to learn it, or someone to teach it, but, actually being good at it. For me, there are two factors that can influence the ability of each individual practitioner.

1) Charisma

Even the most intense, most specialised NLP training course has yet to find a way of teaching this natural elegance to it’s delegates. I’m talking about the elegance that would just ease out of someone like Milton Erickson in an artfully conversational way creating major changes to the listeners’ unconscious mind. Is this a skill that can be learned? If so, how is it taught? Are there people that can never really learn this and are these people practising NLP? Yes of course they are. They are the people who attend the courses to become therapists, yet what they really need is to see a therapist. I’ll never forget, when we first set up People Building and were emailing therapists from all areas to let them know we were on the map. One lady emailed back saying that she was already an NLP Practitioner and had been personally trained by Dr. Richard Bandler and therefore didn’t need to be aware of our services. I had to bind my hands together to prevent the temptation of emailing back “That doesn’t mean you’re any good though, does it?”

2) The Law of Requisite Variety (the person with the most flexibility of behaviour has the greatest influence over others.)

I remember once when I attended an EFT seminar and met a very interesting bunch of therapists called Guided Self Healers. I don’t know anything about Guided Self Healing, so far be it from me to pass judgement on what they do, but I can tell you that they all seemed to be a bunch of nutters. I sat with them whilst they chatted enthusiastically about what number I was. They were sure I was a 9. I don’t know what being a 9 means, but I also know I am a Pisces (which this week means I’m going to meet a stranger, according to my horoscopes- how difficult can that be?!) I’m also a Goat (Chinese astrology) right handed, visual (mainly) and blonde (naturally dumb).

The thing with NLP is it’s great when you use it with a degree of fluidity. Yes, strategies can work, but a complex strategy may be run unconsciously. If you want to elicit an unconscious strategy from someone, they will become conscious about what they are doing, what happens to the strategy then? Yes, anchors can work, but if the client thinks it’s all a load of poppycock, are they going to experience the state when he anchor is tested? Yes, I’m mainly visual, but probably not when I have my singing lessons. It’s great that this stuff works, but being a true NLPer is about accepting that sometimes you get a different result to the one you were expecting, and to expect that anything else could happen instead. Lets stop putting people in boxes and expecting the norm and instead accept that actually anyone can be whatever they choose to do or be. Only then, can we practice as therapists who truly access all of our own internal resources in order to facilitate changes within the clients that we are working with.

That’s right I love receiving greeting cards! It doesn’t matter what time of year, whether it’s a holiday, my birthday, or just because, I like receiving greeting cards. You know I think what I like most is how greetings cards make you feel. A greeting card can really make you feel special or lift you up when you’re down.

Have you ever received a greeting card from someone unexpectingly and it lifted your spirits or made you feel extra special? Well, then you know exactly what I’m talking about. Have you ever thought about sending someone a greeting card just because you wanted to let them know you were thinking about them? If you have not done this you should try it. It makes not only the person you’re sending the card to feel good, but it actually makes you feel good too.

Did you know that in the United States consumers purchase approximately seven billion greeting cards a year which generates approximately eight billion dollars in retail sales. In addition, approximately ninety percent of U.S. households purchase greeting cards, with the average household purchasing thirty greeting cards a year.

I’ve sent greeting cards to relatives, friends, business associates and others on numerous occasions. I have received compliments such as; the greeting card you sent to me made their day and made them feel really good. In some instances, I was able to reconnect with friends and family I had not seen or talked to for a long time.

You know sometimes most of us lead very busy lives and we get tied up with our work schedules, family responsibilities and other things that tie up our time. While this happens time just passes us by so fast and before we know it, years have gone by before we have spoken with someone we know. I ‘m able to get that reconnection by sending out a greeting card to someone that I know. It’s so easy for me to make not only that person I’m sending the card to feel special, I feel good every time I do this as well.

I send greeting cards to my relatives, friends and business associates not only on their birthdays and holidays but just because I am thinking of them at that particular point in time. I like sending greeting cards that are unexpected that surprises the person I am sending the card to.

So, you may want to consider sending a greeting card to someone to make them feel good too. You may find that this will make you feel good too as well. Go ahead, try sending a greeting card to someone you know and you’ll be glad you did!