Most of the hard work is done, and now it’s time to breathe life into your goal. My book Get Lucky Now! is about how to get what you want the easy way. Setting the right type of goals is the foundation that everything else is built upon. This blog continues the series of excerpts from Get Lucky Now.
For most of your life at school, at work, and at home, you have been conditioned, to a certain extent, to recognize success by the monetary value of your possessions. Society places less value on qualities that cannot be so easily measured and yet are far more important.
There is nothing wrong with material goals. In this affluent world, most of us dream of big houses, big cars, and fat bank balances but forget those who cannot even dream of their next meal.
So make your goal a means to an end and the result of doing other things skillfully along the way. When you reach your goal, do not be surprised when you look back and realize that the real fun was the journey, not the destination.
It’s Not the Results That Count It’s All About the Journey
In his book Awaken the Giant Within, Tony Robbins makes another powerful point that is well worth more careful thought:
“Achieving goals by themselves will never make us happy in the long term; it’s who you become, as you overcome the obstacles necessary to achieve your goals, that can give you the deepest and most long-lasting sense of fulfillment.”
Many mountaineers describe a sensation of anticlimax after a particularly difficult climb. They remember with much more lasting satisfaction the journey that took them there. Athletes who have trained for years to win an Olympic gold medal enjoy a temporary euphoria that is often replaced by a vague sadness or even depression. Their goal was their life. So what is left when their goal has been achieved?
Certainly dream of that big house and enjoy it when you own it; however, do not be surprised that once you own your new house, your goal has changed its shape, to a greater or lesser extent.
If it was for an even bigger house, then there may be many more house moves in store for you. If it is a new goal that germinated during the journey, then perhaps you stumbled across some unexpected open doors. This is what people call “serendipity,” “coincidence,” “synchronicity,” or just “a healthy dose of luck.” We will talk much more about this in later chapters.
Tickle your Imagination
Let us return to the present. Once you have decided on your goal, the more different ways you can remind yourself of it each day, the more successful you are likely to be. There are many ways to do this. Examples include writing the goal on sticky notes and sticking them on the bathroom mirror and the refrigerator or using the goal as the screensaver on your computer, mobile phone, and alarm clock.
The more places you can think of to display your notes, the more likely you are to reach your goal. It directs your unconscious mind and helps build a self-fulfilling prophecy. Keep in mind that writing is the doing part of thinking. It is a powerful connection to your unconscious mind. President Lincoln had no doubt about the importance of personal goals.
As Lincoln said, “A goal properly set is halfway reached.”
Olympic swimming champion Michael Phelps is a great example of the importance of constant reminders. When he announced his goal of eight gold medals in the China Olympics, he was incensed reading an article expressing doubts about his ability to deliver this prediction. He pinned this article to his locker and stared at it every morning until he left for China. Was this visualization? Was it a powerful affirmation? Was it a self-fulfilling prophecy? Who knows? But the important thing is that it worked for him.
Phelps said, “People say that I have great talent, but in my opinion excellence has nothing to do with talent. It is about what you choose to believe and how determined you are to get there. The mind is more powerful than anything else.”
It certainly is. So each chapter will provide opportunities for you to explore your own mind in new ways; to open doors to your mind that you never knew existed; and to open doors to more luck, health, wealth, and happiness than you thought possible.
Setting authentic goals is one of the techniques included in my NLP coaching programs.
In the next blog we will dive into the wonderful book, Zen and the Art of motorcycle maintenance. It’s time to get our hands dirty.
