The book 'Goals!' by Brian Tracy is an awesome book. If you are looking for success and do not know how to proceed, this is the book to read. Mr.Tracy presents a simple, powerful and effective system for setting and achieving goals. In this book Mr.Tracy discusses 21 steps / rules / strategies to follow to achieve great success. The author puts a lot of emphasis on clarity be it clarity of values, clarity of thought, clarity of goals, clarity of purpose and clarity on the approach to success. Clarity on what you want to achieve is the first step to success in any human endeavour.
The first steps in your path to success is for you to identify your core values. Author asks the readers to set positive core values like kindness, compassion etc. Invariably your actions will reflect your core values. If your goals and actions are in harmony with your core values, then progress happens.
As mentioned before, there are 21 steps to success. There is one chapter for each of these steps. Mr.Tracy explains each point with very relevant examples and provides us with specific actionable steps to be followed to meet the objectives outlined in the chapter.
This book is concept heavy. Concepts like 'Five year fantasy', 'Future Orientation', 'Idealization', 'Magic Wand Technique', 'Mindstorming', 'Momentum principle', 'Single Handling', 'Zero based thinking' etc are lucidly explained in the book.
In the introduction to the book, Mr.Tracy says that if there is one advice that he will give to anyone aspiring for success is to 'write down you goals, make plans to achieve them and work on it everyday till goals are attained'.
There is a lot of emphasis on writing in this book. For anything to impress in your subconscious, you have to write it down on a piece of paper. Be it values, goals, purpose, action plan or mindstorming, Mr.Tracy is fanatical when it comes to writing them down.
Two concepts impressed me. One was the ABCDE technique of prioritizing your tasks A category is the top priority followed by B. C Category is nice to have, D Category should be delegated and E Category should be eliminated.
Mindstorming technique where you write a question relating to your goals and answers with a minimum of 20 answers to the question is a very powerful creativity technique.
Finally, what should you do even before you start reading the chapter wise details of the book given below? Take a note book and write down hundred goals that you want to achieve in your lifetime. Once you complete the task, miracles start to happen.
That is the power of Goals !!
Read the chapter wise summary below.
The first steps in your path to success is for you to identify your core values. Author asks the readers to set positive core values like kindness, compassion etc. Invariably your actions will reflect your core values. If your goals and actions are in harmony with your core values, then progress happens.
As mentioned before, there are 21 steps to success. There is one chapter for each of these steps. Mr.Tracy explains each point with very relevant examples and provides us with specific actionable steps to be followed to meet the objectives outlined in the chapter.
This book is concept heavy. Concepts like 'Five year fantasy', 'Future Orientation', 'Idealization', 'Magic Wand Technique', 'Mindstorming', 'Momentum principle', 'Single Handling', 'Zero based thinking' etc are lucidly explained in the book.
In the introduction to the book, Mr.Tracy says that if there is one advice that he will give to anyone aspiring for success is to 'write down you goals, make plans to achieve them and work on it everyday till goals are attained'.
There is a lot of emphasis on writing in this book. For anything to impress in your subconscious, you have to write it down on a piece of paper. Be it values, goals, purpose, action plan or mindstorming, Mr.Tracy is fanatical when it comes to writing them down.
Two concepts impressed me. One was the ABCDE technique of prioritizing your tasks A category is the top priority followed by B. C Category is nice to have, D Category should be delegated and E Category should be eliminated.
Mindstorming technique where you write a question relating to your goals and answers with a minimum of 20 answers to the question is a very powerful creativity technique.
Finally, what should you do even before you start reading the chapter wise details of the book given below? Take a note book and write down hundred goals that you want to achieve in your lifetime. Once you complete the task, miracles start to happen.
That is the power of Goals !!
Read the chapter wise summary below.
Chapter 1: Unlock your potential
You become what you think about most of the time
Once you have a clear and specific goal, you will become an automatic goal seeking machine, much like a guided missile. Goal seeking mechanism is non-judgemental. If your goal is small you will reach your small goal. If your goal is big, you will reach the big goal. The size, scope and detail of the goal you choose is entirely up to you.
Reasons why people do not set goals.
1. they think goals are not important
2. They don't know how. Their goals are neither specific or clear. Most of the time, people have wishes, not goals.
3. They fear failure
4. They fear rejection and ridicule if they do not achieve their goals
Goals bring a sense of meaning and purpose to your life
One of the benefits of goal setting is that goals enable you to control the direction of change in your life. Goals ensure that the changes in your life are self-directed. By giving purpose to your life, goals allow you to be happy.
The starting point of goal attainment is desire. One must develop an intense, burning desire for your goals if you want to achieve them.
Success require only two things. One, you must know exactly what you want. Most people never make this decision. Two, you must determine the price you will have to pay to achieve this goal and get busy paying the price.
In life you have to pay the full price before you achieve success. Most people wait for success before they are ready to pay the price.
to unlock and unleash your full potential, you should make a habit of daily goal setting and achieving for the rest of your life. You should develop a laser like focus so that you arle always thinking and talking about what you want rather than what you don't want. You must become a goal seeking organism like a guided missile or a homing pigeon.
Chapter 2: Take Charge of your life
When you accept complete responsibility of your life, you transition from childhood to adulthood.
Greatest enemies of success and happiness are negative emotions of all kinds. They tire you out and take away all the happiness from life.
If you want to lead a happy life, one of the goals should be to free yourself from negative emotions.
The negative emotions of fear, self pity, envy, jealousy, inferiority complex and anger are mostly caused by four factors. Once you identify and remove these factors from your thinking, your negative emotions stop automatically and will be replaced with positive emotions of peace, love, joy and enthusiasm. The four factors are:
1. Justification: Justification comes from a sense of entitlement. Once you stop justifying, you become a more positive and effective person.
2. Rationalization. This is defined as 'giving a socially acceptable explanation for an otherwise socially unacceptable action'. You excuse the actions by giving an explanation that sounds good but which was not correct.
3. Hypersensitivity: You are overly bothered about what others will think about you. So you start living your life for other people and not for yourself.
4. Blaming: You blame others for all the bad thing that happened to you. This is the major negative factor. Once you stop blaming others, all the other factors disappear.
The solution to negative emotions is to accept responsibility. By freeing yourself from negative emotions by accepting complete responsibility, you begin to set and achieve goals in all areas of your life. Once you accept total responsibility, there is no limit on what you can be, do and have.
To keep your mind positive, refuse to criticize, complain bout or condemn other people for anything. Being angry with someone is to allow him or her to control your emotions from a distance.
You are where you are and what you are because of what you have done or failed to do. You are the architect of your destiny. As the architect of your destiny, you are free to make your own decisions. You are in charge.
You should consider yourself as the President of your own company. Just as a President will do, you have some responsibilities.
1. You are responsible for overall management of your personal strategy, including Setting goals, making plans, establishing measures and performing to get results.
2. You are responsible for outputs, the quality and quantity of the work you deliver
3. You are responsible for marketing strategy - self promotion and advancement, creating your image, and packaging yourself to be able to sell yourself for the best price
4. You are responsible for financial strategy, deciding exactly how much of your services you want to sell, how much you want to earn, how fast you want the income to grow, how much you want to save and invest etc
5. You are responsible for your people strategy and your relationships. Choose your friends and partners wisely.
6. You are responsible for personal research and development, personal training and learning. You need to identify the talents, skills, abilities and core competencies you will need to earn the kind of money you want to earn in the coming months and years.
The objective is to try and become a 'Growth Stock'.
Ensure to have internal locus of control
Responsibility, control and happiness form the golden triangle
The starting point of goal setting is to realize that you have virtually unlimited potential to be, have or do anything you really want in life if you simple want it badly enough and are willing to work long enough and hard enough to achieve it.
The second part of goal setting is for you to accept complete responsibility for your life and for everything that happens to you with no blaming and no excuses
Chapter 3: Create your own future
Leaders always think about the future and where they are going and what they can do to get there. This is called 'Future Orientation';
As per research, 'Long time perspective' was the most important determinant for financial and personal success in life. It is define as the 'ability to think several years into the future while making decisions in the present.
In personal strategic planning you should begin with a long term view of your life as well. Practice 'Idealization' in everything you do. Create a 'Five Year Fantasy' by thinking about what your life will look like in five years if it were perfect in every aspect.
The biggest obstacle to goal setting is 'Self Limiting Beliefs'. By underestimating yourself, you set either no goals, or low goals that are far below your potential.
By combining idealization and future orientation, you cancel or neutralize this process of self-limitation.
Researchers analysed people who were delivering average results for many years and suddenly exploded into great success and accomplishment. They found that the 'take off point' was when they started engaging in what is called 'Blue Sky Thinking'. In this, you imagine that all things are possible for you, just like looking up into a clear blue sky. You project forward several years and imagine that your life is perfect in every respect. Then you ask yourself this question: What would have to have happened to me to have created my perfect future.
Then you come back to present and ask, what I have to do now to achieve all my goals sometime in the future?
When practicing Idealization and Future Orientation, do not compromise on your dreams. Do not settle for smaller goals and half successes. Instead, 'dream big dreams'
Start with Business and Career. Imaging a perfect work life five years from today. Answer the following questions
1. What would it look like?
2. What would you be doing?
3. Where would you be doing it?
4. Who would you be working with? What level of responsibility would you have?
5. What kind of skills and abilities would you have?
6. What kind of goals would you be accomplishing?
7. What level of status would you have in your field?
Remember, 'We greatly overestimate what we can achieve in one year, but we greatly underestimate what we can accomplish in five years.'
Now idealize your perfect financial life.
1. How much would you be earning per year five years from today?
2. What sort of lifestyle would you have?
3. What kind of home would you live in?
4. What kind of car would you drive?
5. What kind of material luxuries would you be providing for you and your family?
6. How much would you have in bank?
7. How much would you be saving and investing each month and each year?
8. What would your net worth be five years from today?
Now idealize your perfect family life
1. If your family were perfect five years from now, what would it look like?
2. Who would you be with? Who would you no longer be with?
3. Where and how would you be living?
4. What kind of living standards would you have?
5. What kind of relationships would you have with the most important people in your life five years from now if everything were perfect in every respect?
When you fantasize your perfect future, keep asking 'How?'. Asking this repeatedly stimulates your creativity and triggers ideas to help you accomplish your goals.
Your health and fitness. Five years from now?
1. How would a perfect you look and feel?
2. What would be your ideal weight?
3. How much would you exercise each week?
4. What would be your overall level of health?
5. What changes would you have to start making today in your diet, exercise routines and health habits to enjoy superb physical health sometime in the future?
The primary attribute of high achievers is 'Action Orientation'. They take action
Your Ideal Personal Inventory. To achieve your full potential in five years,
1. What additional knowledge and skills would you have acquired five years from now?
2. In what areas would you be recognized as absolutely excellent in what you do?
3. What would you be doing each day in order to develop the knowledge and skills you need to be one of the top performers in your field sometime in the future?
Having answered all the above questions, it is time to get to work. Start by creating your perfect calendar from January 1 to December 31.
1. What would you like to do on weekends and vacations?
2. How much time would you like to take off each week, month and year?
3. Where would you like to go?
4. How would you organize your year if you had no limitations and complete control over you time?
With and exciting future vision, you will be highly motivated, enthusiastic and stimulated every day.
Remember, 'happiness is the progressive realization of a worthy goal'. The clearer you are about your long term future, the more rapidly you will attract people and circumstances into your life to help make that future a reality. The greater clarity you have about who you are and what you want, the more you will achieve and the faster you will achieve in every area of your life.
Chapter 4: Clarify your values
Leaders know who they are, what they believe in and what they stand for. Most people are confused about their goals, values and ideals and as a result they go back and forth and accomplish very little.
Life is lived from inside out. The core of your personality is your values. They make you the person that you are.
Five levels of personality: Your personality is like a set of five concentric circles that radiate outward. The innermost core of the personality is the values. Values determine your beliefs. If you have positive values like love, compassion and generosity, you will believe that people in your world are deserving of these values and you will treat them accordingly.
Your beliefs determine your expectations. If you have positive values, you will believe yourself to be a good person and you will expect good things to happen to you. Expectation leads to attitude. Attitude is an outward manifestation of your values, beliefs and expectations. If you expect good things to happen to you, you will be positive and cheerful and positive oriented. You will have a positive mental attitude when dealing with other people and they will reciprocate with positive attitude.
Attitude lead to actions. Your actions will be determined by your values, beliefs and expectations. For example, if you expect to succeed in a task, you will persevere. The action of perseverance will lead to achievement and success.
This is why most of what will happen to you in life is determined by what is inside of you. A positive, optimistic, goal and future oriented person - on the inside - will enjoy a happy, successful and prosperous life on the outside, most of the time.
Your goal must be congruent with your values and your values must be congruent with your goals. This is why clarifying your values is often the starting point to high achievement and peak performance. Values clarification requires that you think through what is really important to you in life. You then organize your life around these values.
Any attempt to live on the outside in a manner that contradicts the values you hold on the inside will cause you stress, negativity, unhappiness, pessimism and even anger and frustration.
You have to continuously review your values. Values clarifications is something you do on a 'go forward' basis. You continually ask the question 'What are my values in this area?'
You have to trust yourself. Self-trust comes from listening to your intuition. You become great when you trust your intuition and are confident that you are being guided by a higher power.
You can identify your values by observing your actions, especially under pressure. Whenever you are forced to choose between one behaviour and another, you will act consistent with your values.
Values are organized in a hierarchy. You have a series of values, some of them very intense and important and some less important. You have to determine who you are and what you really want is to organize your values by priority.
There are some ways to determine your true values. One way is to look at your past behaviour under pressure. You can look for answers to questions like what raises your self-esteem, what makes you feel important, what makes you proud, what you have accomplished in the past that gives you greatest sense of satisfaction and pride
Another way to determine your values is to analyse your 'hearts desire'. What is it that, deep down in your heard, more than anything else, you would like to be, have or do in life? What do you want to be famous for? How would you like people to describe you when you are not there? How would you want your family and children to remember you? How would you like people to talk to them about you?
When you are looking at your past, remember, your past is not your future. You may have had bad experiences in the past but that will change if you try.
Another way to identify your values is to look at how you will behave towards others? What is the impression that you will leave with others about you after talking to them?
You can also look at how you evaluate yourself. What is your self image? What is your ideal behaviour? The more your behaviour is consistent with your ideal behaviour, the more you like and respect yourself and the happier you are. Your self - esteem improves. Your aim should be to deliberately and systematically create the circumstances that raise your self-esteem in everything you do. You should act and behave like and ideal you.
Next you analyze your beliefs. What do you believe with regard to your work and career? Does your values include integrity, hard work, dependability, creativity, cooperation, initiative, team work etc?
Does your values about your family include unconditional love, continuous encouragement, patience, forgiveness, generosity etc?
What about money and financial success? Do you think honesty, thrift, frugality, education, excellence and persistence? Do you believe grit is important? If your answer is yes to the above question, there is a very good chance that you will achieve your financial goals faster.
Coming to health, do you believe in self-discipline, self-mastery and self-control with regard to diet, exercise and rest? Do you set high standard for health and fitness?
If your beliefs are consistent with your values and your behaviour, you will experience happiness.
The most important value of all is integrity. Integrity means you follow through on your commitment. You do not commit loosely. The more you try to live life to meet your ideal, you will be living with integrity. The higher your level of integrity, the happier and more powerful you will feel..
Decide today to be a man or woman of honor. Resolve to tell the truth and to live in truth with yourself and others. Write down our values in each area of your life.
Once you take complete responsibility for your life, then idealize your perfect future and finally clarify your values, you are ready to set clear, specific goals in every area of your life.
Chapter 5: Determine your true goals.
There is a direct relationship between the level of clarity you have about who you are and what you want and virtually everything you accomplish in life. Successful people invest the time required to develop absolute clarity about themselves and what they really want.
Intense desire is essential to overcoming obstacles and achieving great goals. For your desire to be intense enough, your goals must be purely personal. They must be goals that you really want for yourself.
One of the most important questions in goal setting is this: What do I really want to do with my life? If you could do or be or have anything at all in life, what would it be? In determine your goals, you start with general goals and then move to more specific goals. You start by asking the following questions.
1. What are your three most important goals right now in the area of:
a. business and career
b. financial goals
c. family and relationship
d. health and fitness.
Next step is to identify your major worries. You ask the question 'What are my biggest worries or concerns in life right now?' Once you identify these worries, ask yourself:
1. What are the ideal solutions to each of these problems?
2. How could I eliminate these problems or worries immediately?
3. What is the fastest and most direct way to solve this problem?
As per "Ockham's razor", the simplest and most direct solution, requiring the fewest number of steps, is usually the correct solution to any problem". Do not over-complicate your life. Always look for the fastest, direct and easiest way to solve your problems. For example, the Pareto Principle says that 20% of the activities in your life lead to 80% of the outcomes. Identify those 20% and do double of the same. After identifying the solution with the least number of steps, get going.
There are various ways to determine your true goals. In the 'magic wand' approach, you imagine that you have a magic wand that you can wave in any area of your life. When you wave the wand, your wishes will come true. So if you have a magic wand what will you wish for in various areas of your life. For example, what will you wish for regarding your skills and abilities? This approach helps you quickly identify your goals.
Another approach is to imagine that you have 6 months to live. If you know you have only six months to live, how would you spend those months? Who would you spend your time with? Where would you go? What would you want to be remembered for? What would you do more or less of?
When you ask these questions, what comes to the top of your mind will be your key goals in your life.
Yet another approach is to make your dream list. One of the tried and tested approach is to make a list of at least 100 goals that you want to achieve in your lifetime. Once you finish writing this list, remarkable events will begin to happen in your life and your goals will start to be achieved at a rate that you cannot even imagine today. This seems to happen to all the people once they have written down at least one hundred goals.
What would you do if you have all the money in the world? What would you do more of? What would you do less of? This approach releases us from fear of change. You have all the money in the world, you can do whatever you want. What would you do?
Another question that sates the creativity is this. What have you always wanted to do but been afraid to attempt?
Another question that could provide a clue to your goals is this. What do I most enjoy doing in each area of my life? If you could do just one thing all day long, what would it be? What gives you the greatest joy and satisfaction? 'Peak experiences' are those moments or times when an individual feels the happiest, most elated and most exhilarated. One of your aims in life is to enjoy as many peak experiences as possible.
The process of asking yourself question about your goals in each part of your life begins to clarify your thinking and make you a more focused and better defined person. You move from a 'wandering generalist to a meaningful specific.
Most importantly you reach a point where you can determine your major definite purpose in life. This is the springboard of great achievement and extraordinary accomplishment.
Chapter 6: Decide on your major definite purpose
Since you become what you think about most of the time, a major definite purpose gives you a focus for every waking moment. The more you think about your major definite purpose and how to achieve it, the more you activate the Law of Attraction in your life. You begin to attract people, opportunities, ideas and resources that help you move more rapidly toward your goal and move your goal more rapidly towards you.
By the law of correspondence, your outer world of experience will correspond and harmonize with your inner world of goals. Your outer world will reflect your major purpose like a mirror.
A major definite purpose also activates your subconscious mine on your behalf. Any thought, plan or goal that you can clearly define in your conscious mind will immediately start to be brought into reality by your subconscious mind.
When you decide upon a major definite purpose, you increase your level of attentiveness and become increasingly sensitive to anything in your environment that can help you achieve that goal faster.
How do you define your major definite purpose? It can be defined as the one goal that is most important to you at the moment. It is the one goal that will help you achieve more of your other goals than anything else you can accomplish. It must have the following characteristics.
1. It must be something that your personally and intensely want
2. It must be clear and specific. You must be able to write it down with clarity
3. It must be measurable and quantifiable. Instead of 'I want to make lots of money', it must be more like 'I want to make $100000 per year by (a specific date)
4. It must both believable and achievable
5. It must have a reasonable probability of success. It must not be too hard that you will lose motivation.
6. Your major definite purpose must be in harmony with your other goals.
Keep your goals realistic and ensure that it is in your control. Do not fall into the habit of deciding on unrealistic or wild goals where you will be setting yourself to fail.
If you are sure to achieve your goal, what would that be? This is a goal that you cannot fail. Start working to achieve this goal. The achievement will ensure that you will be motivated to go for more difficult goals.
Try the ten goal exercise to identify your major definite purpose. Write down 10 goals that you would like to achieve in the foreseeable future. Once done, go through the list and identify the goal which will have the greatest positive impact on your life?
That will be your major definite purpose. Focus on that to the exclusion of all other goals.
Note down this goal on a sheet of paper and write down all the action items that you can do to achieve this goal. Once done, take action on at least one of the items. Keep thinking about your goal and ask yourself the question 'How can I achieve this goal?'
Your selection of the major definite purpose and the decision to persevere till it is achieved will change your life for the better. So start working on your major definite purpose.
Chapter 7: Analyze your beliefs
1. It must be something that your personally and intensely want
2. It must be clear and specific. You must be able to write it down with clarity
3. It must be measurable and quantifiable. Instead of 'I want to make lots of money', it must be more like 'I want to make $100000 per year by (a specific date)
4. It must both believable and achievable
5. It must have a reasonable probability of success. It must not be too hard that you will lose motivation.
6. Your major definite purpose must be in harmony with your other goals.
Keep your goals realistic and ensure that it is in your control. Do not fall into the habit of deciding on unrealistic or wild goals where you will be setting yourself to fail.
If you are sure to achieve your goal, what would that be? This is a goal that you cannot fail. Start working to achieve this goal. The achievement will ensure that you will be motivated to go for more difficult goals.
Try the ten goal exercise to identify your major definite purpose. Write down 10 goals that you would like to achieve in the foreseeable future. Once done, go through the list and identify the goal which will have the greatest positive impact on your life?
That will be your major definite purpose. Focus on that to the exclusion of all other goals.
Note down this goal on a sheet of paper and write down all the action items that you can do to achieve this goal. Once done, take action on at least one of the items. Keep thinking about your goal and ask yourself the question 'How can I achieve this goal?'
Your selection of the major definite purpose and the decision to persevere till it is achieved will change your life for the better. So start working on your major definite purpose.
Chapter 7: Analyze your beliefs
The most important mental law is the Law of Belief. This law states that whatever you believe with conviction becomes your reality. You do not believe what you see, you see what you believe.
You are not what you think you are, you are what you think.
The greatest revolution is the discovery that individuals, by changing their inner most attitudes of mind, can change the outer aspect of their lives.
All improvement in your life comes from changing your beliefs about yourself and your possibilities.
A set of beliefs that you hold lead to your self-concept. It precedes adn predicts your levels of performance and effectiveness in everything you do. Everything that you accomplish in your outer world is a result of your self-concept.
You could be holding self limiting beliefs. They put brakes on your potential for growth. Many people, because of their negative beliefs, most of which are wrong, falsely consider themselves to be limited in intelligence, talent, capability creativity or skill of some kind.
Let us look at the belief that you are not intelligent. What is intelligence? According to Dr.Howard Gardner, there are 10 different concepts of intelligence of which only two are measured. The ten intelligences are
1. Verbal: Measured
2. Mathematical: Measured
3. Visio - spacial: Art, Design etc: Not measured
4. Entrepreneurial: Starting Business or Startups: Not measured
5. Kinesthetic (Physical): Sports Participation and performance: Not measured
6. Musical: Not measured
7. Interpersonal: Getting along with people: Not measured
8. Intrapersonal: Getting to know you in detail: Not measured
9. Intuitive: ability to sense the right thing to do or say: Not measured
10. Abstract Intelligence: Ability to understand the concepts of Hinduism: Not measured.
You many not be even aware that you are a genius when it comes to one or two of the intelligences above. Your responsibility to yourself is to cast off the self limiting beliefs and accept that you are a talented person. You are engineered for success and designed for greatness.
All beliefs are learned. So you can unlearn the self-limiting beliefs
Imagine there is a 'Belief Store', where you can go and select the beliefs that you want. If you could choose only one belief in the store, choose this one: "I am destined to be a huge success in life". If you absolutely believe that you are destined to be a big success, you will walk, talk and act as if everything that happens to you in life is part of a great plan to make you success.
If you hold positive beliefs, any setback is temporary and is a learning opportunity.
As per the Law of Reversibility, if you act as if you were already the person you desire to be, with qualities and talents you desire to have, your actions will generate the feelings that go with them. If you want to be a dollar multi billionaire, act and talk like one. When you start to walk, talk, drss and behave like a multi billionaire, you soon begin to feel like a multi billionaire.
Your focus must be on creating the beliefs within yourself that are consistent with the great success you want to be in your outer world. You achieve this by challenging your self-limiting beliefs, rejecting them and acting as if they did not exist.
You also reinforce the development of new, life-enhancing beliefs by increasing your knowledge and skills in your field to the point you feel equal to any demand or challenge. Your aim is to reprogram your subconscious mind for success by creating the mental equivalent in everything you do or say.
You develop new beliefs by taking actions consistent with those beliefs. You act positive and optimistic and you will start to believe that you are a positive and optimistic person. You act as if you have a secret guarantee of success and only you know about it.
You are developing and shaping your character and personality by everything you do and say every day. Ensure that you do and say what is consistent with your self-ideal, the person that you aspire to be.
Decide to challenge and reject any self limiting beliefs. Every time you become aware of one, ask yourself this question, what if I am wrong? what if the opposite was true?
You have to keep your actions consistent with your beliefs. Your beliefs are always manifested in your words and actions. Make sure that everything you say or do from today is consistent with the beliefs that you want to have and the person that you want to become. In time, you will replace more and more of your self-limiting beliefs with life-enhancing beliefs. Over time you will completely reprogram yourself for success.
Chapter 8: Start at the beginning
Once you have decided upon your values, vision, mission, purpose and goals, the next step is for you to analyze your starting point. Exactly where are you today and how are you doing in each of the important areas of your life, in comparison to your goals?
Make a honest assessment of your current situation. Once you have baselined your current status, the next step is to practice 'zero based thinking'. You ask the question, 'Knowing what I now know, is there anything that I am doing today that I would not start again if I had to do it over? You cannot make progress in life if you are held back by decisions that you made in the past.
You have to apply zero based thinking to all areas of your life. Is there a relationship that you won't get into again? Is there any persons whom you are working with, with whom you do not want to be involved again? In the area of work and business, is there some job that you will not take up again?
When you practice zero based thinking, you undergo a lot of stress. There are many people who continue in a business or personal relationship, where the only correct decision is to get out of the relationship altogether. However, it takes a lot of courage to admit that you made mistake.
Look into your life and identify what is holding you back. Why are you not a multi billionaire? What is the major reason that you are not a multi billionaire? What are successful people doing differently from you?
In trying to identify your starting point, you must be prepared to start all over from scratch. You should be prepared to reinvent yourself. In reinventing yourself, stand back and think about starting your career over again today, knowing what you know now.
Your most valuable asset is your earning ability. It can be an appreciating asset (if you are continually updating your skills and knowledge) or a depreciating asset.
While reinventing yourself, see yourself as a 'Bundle of Resources' capable of doing many different things. You have a wide variety of skills, abilities, knowledge, talents and experience. There are many things you could do. Never lock yourself to a specific course of action.
While reinventing yourself, also take a deep look at yourself. What are the good habits that you have that are helping you and moving you toward your goals? What are the habits that are holding you back? What new habits you have to develop?
While analysing your starting point, you ask yourself four sets of questions.
1. Where am I now? The baseline. You collect data and information in this step
2. Where would I like to be in the future? Here you idealize and practice future orientation. You make a perfect vision for yourself if you were successful in all that you do.
3. How did I get to where I am today? What did I do right? What would I do differently? How did we achieve our greatest success?
4. What do I do now, to get from where I am to where I want to go? What should I be doing more or less of? What should I give up? What should I do that I am not doing today?
Taking the time to honestly evaluate yourself before you launch towards your goals will save you months and even years on your journey..It will dramatically improve the speed at which you achieve your goals.
Chapter 9: Measure your progress
As you set your goals and begin moving towards them, it is essential that you establish a series of benchmarks or measures that you van use to evaluate your progress, day by day and hour by hour. The more clear and specific the measures you set, the more accurate you will be in hitting your targets on schedule.
Your subconscious mind requires a 'Forcing System' composed of deadlines that you have imposed on yourself for task accomplishment and goal attainment. Without that it is easy for you to procrastinate.
The three keys to peak performance are commitment, completion and closure.
When you make a firm commitment to achieve a particular goal and you put aside all excuses, it is very much like stepping on the accelerator of your subconscious mind. You will be more creative, determined and focused than ever before.
The second ingredient of peak performance is Completion. There is a huge difference between doing 95% of a task and doing 100% of the task. It is very common for people to work very hard up to the 90% level and then slack off leading to delay in completion of the task. You must continually force yourself to resist the natural tendency to slack off and push through to completion.
Every time you complete a task, brain releases a small quantity of hormones called endorphins. This will give you a natural sense of elation and well being. Your job is to complete as many tasks as quickly to feel the 'high' of having completed them. You should develop a positive addition the elation resulting from 'endorphin rush'.
Identify key measures of progress in each of your goals. The act of measuring progress will improve the performance. One of the most helpful actions you take in your own career is to set benchmarks and create scorecards, measures and deadlines for every key task that you must complete on the way to one of your goals. In this way, you activate your subconscious forcing system.
The third ingredient of peak performance is Closure. Completion do not mean closure. For example, imagine that your goal is to prepare a document to be released to customer. Completion means that you have completed the document and shared with the customer. Closure means that you take feedback from the customer and regularly update the document till the customer accepts the document. An acceptance email from a customer leads to closure of the above task.
Break your long-term goals down into annual, monthly, weekly and even hourly goals. It is easier to complete hourly tasks rather than the humongous five year goal. Ever heard the saying, 'By the yard it's hard, but inch by inch, it is a cinch'?
If your five year goal is to increase your hourly rate, read 15 minutes everyday. If your long term goal is to reduce your weight, try to reduce 100 grams a day, you would have reduced 3 Kgs in a month. If you read a classic for 15 minutes each day, in 7 years, you would have read 100 of the best books ever written.
What gets measured, gets done. To progress in your goal, it is important to set measures and track them rigorously Your ability to set specific measures on your goals, keep an accurate record and track your performance each day will ensure that you will achieve your goals on schedule
Chapter 10: Remove the roadblocks
Many a time, while trying to achieve their goals, people give up even before they make the first try. The reason they give up is because of all the obstacles, difficulties, problems and roadblocks that invariably appear as soon as they decide to do something that they have never done before.
The fact is that successful people also fail many times, but they do not give up when faced with obstacles.
You should expect to fail many times before you achieve your goals. You should look up on failure as a price you pay on your road to success. Start thinking in terms of solutions rather than in terms of problems. Develop 'solution orientation'. Think about solutions most of the time. Always look for ways to get over, around and past the obstacles. When faced with a problem, always ask, 'How can I solve this?'
Problem solving is a skill that can be learned. The more you focus on solutions, the more and better solutions will appear. The better you get at solving a problem, faster you will get at solving the subsequent problems. Remember that you have the ability to solve any problem or to overcome any obstacle if you intensely desire the goal.
As per the 'Theory of Constraints' propounded by Eliyahu Goldrat, there is always one critical obstacle (Goldratt calls them bottlenecks) that stand in way of achieving your goal. Your job is to identify that obstacle and resolve it. Once you do that another obstacle could become critical. By patiently resolving one critical obstacle at a time, you end up in completing your goal.
Remember, 80% of the obstacles that you face will be internal. It means that it is you who is the major roadblock in you achieving your goal. Two major internal obstacles are fear and doubt. The fear could be fear of failure, poverty, loss, embarrassment, rejection or ridicule that holds people back. Second internal obstacle is doubt. We doubt our own abilities. We compare ourselves unfavourably to others and think that others are somehow better or more competent than we are.
Fortunately both Fear and Doubt are learned emotions. They can be unlearned or replaced with more positive emotions like confidence and courage. You develop courage and confidence by developing your knowledge and skill. The more you learn, more confident you will become.
Fear and doubt can lead to what is known as 'Learned helplessness'. People with this feel that they are incapable of achieving their goals or improving their lives. The major refrain of learned helplessness is the phrase "I can't". This self limiting belief keeps them down.
The way to overcome learned helplessness is by setting small goals, making plans and working on them each day. In this way, you gradually develop greater courage and confidence like building up a muscle. As you become more confident in your abilities, you can set even bigger goals.
Another mental obstacle that one should over come is the 'Comfort Zone', the tendency to become complacent in their current situation. It stifles ambition and desire. The way to over come this is by setting big, challenging goals. You then break these into small, manageable goals and start achieving them one by one.
One of the most creative ways of overcoming obstacles is by continuously asking the question, 'What else is the problem'. Whatever the problem, define it in several different ways before you attempt to solve it. Beware of any problem that has only one definition, or only one solution.
Always ask 'What else could be the problem'. Most of the time, the obvious reason could be the wrong reason.
Assume that your problem statement is "I am not earning enough money", what else could be the problem?
"I am not adding value to be worth more money", what else could be the problem?
"I am not good enough", what else could be the problem?
"I do not use my time efficiently during the work day", what else is the problem?
"I spend my evening watching TV, my weekends socializing and I hardly read or learning anything that will help me do a better job"
Now you have found the real problem. You have a clear idea what you have to do differently.
Note that each of the above problem statements have a different solution. So if you do not identify the right problem, you will end up spending energy on the wrong problem without getting the expected result.
Once you identify the major obstacle, convert it into a positive goal. For example, you could now set a goal to continually upgrade my skills and abilities to be in the top 10% of money earners in my field.
You then make a list of steps needed to achieve that goal.
The exercise of identifying what is holding you back and then setting clear written goals to remove that obstacle puts you back in control of your life.
One your problem or obstacle is clear to you, ideas, opportunities and answers will come to you from various sources. You will begin to attract the kinds of resources that will help you overcome the obstacle or difficulty and move you more rapidly toward your goal.
By removing the major obstacle, you will often make more progress in a few months that most other people make in several years.
Chapter 11 become an expert in your field
In our economic system your income will be determined by three factors. First, what you do, second, how will you do it, and third, the difficulty of replacing you
One quality of the most successful people is that at a certain point in their careers they decided to commit to excellence. They decided to be the best at what they do. They decided to pay any price, make any sacrifice, and invest any amount of time on their goal to become very good in the chosen fields
Remember, none is better than you and no one is smarter than you. They are just better or smarter in different areas.
All business skills are learnable. You can learn anything you need to achieve any goal that you set for yourself. There are no real limits on what you can accomplish, except for the limits that you place on your own mind. As the saying goes, to achieve something that you have never achieved before, you must become someone that you have never been before. Another similar saying is to have more, you must first be more. In most areas of life, it is more hard work and dedication then natural ability and talent that lead to excellence and great success.
You have to continually upgrade your skills. Your earnings ability can be an appreciating or a depreciating asset, depending upon whether or not you are upgrading it or simply allowing it to become obsolete.
You begin your journey to excellence by asking the question, what additional knowledge, skills and information will I need to lead my life in the months and years ahead?
Project yourself forward 3 to 5 years and imagine that you are one of the very best, highest paid people in your industry. What should have to have happened? What would you have to have done, learned, or accomplished to reach this point? What skills would you have had to master to lead your field?
It is almost inevitable that your career change continually as you grow and mature. You must be consistently looking down the road and thinking about the skills and competences you will need to earn the kind of money you want to earn in the years ahead.
Here is a question that you have to ask everyday. What one skill, if you developed and did it in an excellent fashion, would have the greatest positive impact on my career? This should become your Focal Point for personal and professional development. Write it down, set a deadline, make a plan, take action on plan and then do something everyday to get better in this particular skill.
One of the most important steps you take in your career is to identify what it is that you are really good at, or what you can become good at, and then put your whole heart into becoming excellent in that area.
One of our greatest goals in life is to identify and isolate the one or two skills that you can do better, and enjoy more than anything else, and then concentrate on becoming absolutely excellent in those areas.
The question is how do you identify and determine your special talents and what you are uniquely suited to do. There are eight ways to do that.
1, You will always be the best and happiest at something that you love to do. It brings out the very best in you and you get a tremendous amount of satisfaction And enjoyment when you are engaged in that particular work
2, You do it well. You to have a natural ability to perform in this area
3, This talent has been responsible for most of your success and happiness in life until now
4, It is something that was easy for you to learn and easy to do. In fact, it was so easy to learn that you actually forget when and how you learnt it
5, It holds your attention. It absorbs and fascinates you.
6, You love to learn about it and become better at it all your life.
7, When you do it time stands still. You can often work in you in your area of special talent for long periods without getting tired
8, you really admire and respect other people who are good at what you are most suited to do. You want to be like them and emulate them in every way.
If the above apply to anything that you have done or are doing now that is your heart's desire
Please remember, you might be only one skill away from doubling your productivity, performance, and income.
You may only need to bring up your skill level in one area for you to be able to use all your other skills at a higher level.
People with learned helplessness avoid areas where they are weak. That is not the correct approach. Whenever you start something new, you can expect to do it poorly. You might fail at first. This is a price that you pay to achieve excellence in your field. Persevere, never give up
Use magic wand technique. If you could have a magic wand and have any wish at all with regard to your talent and skills, what would you wish for?
Become a lifelong "do-it-to-yourself" project. Be prepared to invest one, two, three years to become absolutely excellent in a critical area.
The three plus one formula for mastering any skill is simple and it works every time. First, read in the skill area each day, even if only for 15 minutes to 30 minutes. Second, listen to educational audio programs on the subject in your car. Third, attend seminars and workshops on your subject. Fourth, practice what you learn at the earliest possible opportunity. Every time you hear a good idea, take action on it.
Remember, you can become an expert in any area if you work hard at it for a long time.
Chapter 12: Associate with the right people.
A key part of goal setting is for you to identify the people, groups, and organisations whose help you will required to achieve your goals.
There are 3 general categories of people who's help and cooperation you will need in the years ahead. They are one, your business Associates, two, your family and friends and three, the people in groups and organisations outside your business for social circle. You need to develop a strategy to work effectively each group.
When it comes to work, one of the best strategies that you can use to make a list of everything you believe that you have been hired to do. Answer the question why am I on the payroll? Write down everything that you can think of and get this list prioritised by your boss. Now start working on top priority items.
Two qualities that promotability are one, ability to set priorities and two, the ability to get work done quickly.
Remember that the priorities could change. It is important reprioritize regularly.
Some of the strategies to associate with the right people are:
One, create a reputation of dependability
Two, invest in relationship building
Three, network professionally
Four, make a list of top people your community. Understand their interests and communicate with them on their relevant areas interest
Five, interact with the right people. Associate with people that you look up to and would be proud to introduce to your friends. Almost every major change in your life will be associated with change in the people you live or work with.
Once you identify the right people to associate with, treat them with kindness, respect and courtesy. Treat them like million dollar customer. By helping people you will build up a great reservoir of positive feeling towards you that will benefit you year after year.
Chapter 13: Make a plan of action.
Your ability to set goals and make plans for their accomplishment is the 'master skill' of success. No other skill will help you more in fulfilling your potential in achieving everything that you are able to accomplish.
The purpose of planning is to enable you to turn your major definite purpose into a planned, multitask project with specific steps - a beginning, middle and end - with clear deadlines and sub-headlines.
More than the plan itself, the process of arriving at a plan by thinking through each element is important. Every minute spent in planning saves ten minutes in execution.
The 'Six P formula' for success is 'Proper Prior Planning Prevents Poor Performance'. There are seven advantages to Proper Prior Planning
1. The planning process forces you to organize your thinking and identify all the key issues that must be dealt with if you are going to be successful
2. Thinking through helps you to plan your actions carefully before you begin.
3. A good plan enables you to identify flaws and errors that could prove fatal to your business
4. It enables you to identify weaknesses in your plan and make provisions to compensate for the same.
5. Planning enables you to identify strengths and potential opportunities that you can take advantages of to increase the likelihood of success
6. It enables you to focus on core activities required for success
7. It will save you time, money and energy by reducing confusion and mistakes and rework.
Planning is a discipline and a skill. It is both a habit and competence and can be learned.
When you create a plan, you have to follow the steps given below:
1. Identify the tasks required to reach your goal.
2. Organize them in priority
3. Organize them in sequence
4. Identify the limiting factor. This is the potential bottleneck that has to be addressed first.
5. Identify the time and resources required to complete each task. Modify the plan based on the outcome of this step.
6. Assemble your team start working on it
7. Review and revisit the plan regularly.
The main guideline in planning is to always think on paper. Be continually making lists and sublists of each step in the process. Keep updating and revisiting your plan.
Note that the act of planning improves and streamlines the entire process of goal achievement. Making a plan and executing that plan is the key to personal and business success.
Chapter 14: Manage your time well
To achieve your goals, you must get your time under your control. A sense of control on time is possible only if you practice excellent time management skills. Time management, like any other skill is learnable. No matter how disorganized you have been in the past or how much you get caught up in low value activities, you can change and learn to manage your time well.
If one side of coin of success is your ability to set clear goals for yourself, the flip side of the same coin is the ability to get yourself organized and work on your most valuable tasks every minute of the day. To change or improve your life in any way, you have to make new choices and new decisions that are more in alignment with who you really are and what you really want.
The starting point of time management is for you to determine your goals in the order of priority and value. You need to be absolutely clear, at any given moment, exactly what is most important to you at that time.
What is intelligence? Intelligence is what Intelligence does. You are intelligent if you act intelligently. And an intelligent way of acting is anything that you do that is consistent with achieving the goals that you set for yourself.
Time management begins with goal clarity. You note down exactly what you want to accomplish in each area of your life.
The basic tool of time management is a list, organized by priority, and used as a constant tool for personal management. The fact is that you can't manage time; you can only manage yourself. That is why time management requires self-discipline, self-control and self-mastery.
You should plan your life with lists of long-term, medium-term and short-term goals and projects. You should plan every month, in advance, with a list of the things you want to accomplish during that month.
Use advance planning. Make weekly plans. Plan every week in advance, for the tasks to be completed in that upcoming week.
You should learn to separate urgent from the important. Urgent tasks are determined by external pressures and requirements. You must complete urgent tasks quickly so that you can focus on the next set of tasks, the important tasks.
Important tasks are those that can contribute the very most to your long-term future. These task will show results in future if action is taken now. These tasks should be in alignment with your goals. You should learn to value each task by 'Consequence'. A task is valuable or important if there are significant consequences attached to its completion or non-completion. Your aim in time management, is to spend more time doing more of the tasks that can have the greatest possible consequences on your life and work.
One way to identify the important tasks is to identify those 20% of tasks with 80% of value to yourself. While you must focus on these tasks and complete them quickly, you can procrastinate on the remaining 80% of tasks that add very low value.
A very smart way to prioritize your tasks is to use the ABCDE method. Review your list of tasks and assign any one of the values A,B,C,D or E to the task. An 'A' task is very important. It has serious consequence for non-completion. You should always do your 'A' tasks before anything else.
If you have more than one 'A' task, organize them by priority, as A-1, A-2, A-3 etc. Put entire focus on completing the A-1 task first before you go to the remaining tasks in the ascending order.
A 'B' task is something that you must do, but it has minimal consequence for non-completion. Focus on these tasks only after completing the 'A' tasks.
'C' task is nice to have. They do not have any consequence.
You should delegate the 'D' tasks and eliminate the 'E' tasks.
The rule is that you should first finish your 'A' tasks before you start on your 'B' tasks. You should finish your 'B' tasks before you start working on 'C' tasks.
Your ability to choose in terms of what you do first, what you do second and what you do not do at all determines your entire life. Choose wisely.
Single handling is one of the most powerful time and personal management techniques. As per this, once you have selected your A-1 task, you start on that task and stay on it with single-minded concentration until it is 100 percent complete. You discipline yourself to concentrate on the task without diversion or distraction.
Create blocks of 30, 60 or 90 minutes when you can work without interruption or pause on your most important tasks. These chunks are essential for the accomplishment of any large, important task.
One way to create long periods of work time is to rise early and work nonstop on a major task, project or proposal.
As you begin your day and regularly through the day, you ask yourself the following five questions.
1. Why am I on the payroll? What is it that I have been hired to accomplish? You must be very clear about what you are hired to do.
2. What are my highest value activities? These are the activitiwe3 that represent the highest and best use of your talents, skills, experience and abilities as they relate your life.
3. What are my key result areas?
4. What can I and only I do, that if done well will make a real difference to my company? Once you identify this, focus on this task with full concentration.
5. What is the most valuable use of my time, right now? All techniques and methods of goal setting, personal planning and time management are aimed at helping you to accurately answer this question.
When you discipline yourself to ask and answer this question repeatedly, and you are sure that whatever you are doing is the answer to this question, you will start to accomplish to and three times as much as people around you. You will become more productive and more successful.
Dedicate yourself to getting better and better at the few tasks that you do that account for most of your results.
You can become excellent at time management with daily practice. Make a list of your tasks every day, before you begin. Organize by priority and start working as per the rules discussed in this chapter. Each time you complete an important task, you will experience a burst of elation, enthusiasm and heightened self-esteem. You will feel energized and stronger.
Develop a sense of urgency, create a bias for action. Get started, get going and work fast. Discipline yourself to select your most important task, launch into it immediately, and stay with it till it is done.
These time management techniques are key to peak performance in every aspect of your life.
Chapter 15: Review your goals daily
There is a difference between 'Positive Thinking' and 'Positive Knowing'. Positive thinking, if not controlled and directed will turn into 'Positive Hoping', which will not help you in goal attainment. What you need is 'Positive Knowing'. You must absolutely know and believe in the depths of your being that you are going to be successful in achieving a particular goal.
One of the important mental laws is, whatever is impressed is expressed. Whatever you impress deeply into your subconscious mind will eventually be expressed in your external world. Your aim in mental programming is to impress your goals deeply into your subconscious mind so that they 'lock in' and take on a power of their own.
There is a power in writing and rewriting your goals every day. Take a notebook and on day one write a list of top 10 goals that you want to achieve Repeat the process on day 2 (without referring to your previous day's work). You might observe that your goals has been refined / changed as each day progresses. At the end of 30 days, your goals would have become clearer, sharper and crystallized.
Once you do this, your life will undergo amazing turns. You will start attracting people and resources to your life to help you to achieve your goals. You will progress at a rapid rate.
To get the most out of this method, your goals must be written in positive, present and personal tenses. Your subconscious mind is only activated by affirmative statements phrased in the present tense. Therefore, you write down your goals as though you have already accomplished them. Instead of writing 'I will earn $50000 in 12 months', write 'I earn $50000 a year'.
Your goals must be positive. You should not use any negative words or phrases in your goal statement. Instead of saying 'I will lose 10 Kg of weight', say 'I weigh 70 Kg'.
The goals must be personal. Every goal must start with a the word 'I' followed by an action verb. Remember, you are the only person in the world who can use the word 'I' in relation to yourself. When your subconscious mind receives and order that starts with the word 'I', it is like the factory floor has received a production order from the Head Office and it goes to work on it immediately.
Begin each of your goals with phrases such as 'I weigh', 'I earn', 'I achieve', 'I win' etc.
To add power to your goals, set a deadline to each goal. For example you will write, 'I weigh 75 Kg by 30th April, 2018'
Once your subconscious mind accepts your goals as commands from your conscious mind, it will start to make all your words and actions fit a pattern consistent with those goals.
When you write down a goal, you activate a series of forces in the universe that often make the impossible possible.
You can multiply the effectiveness of this method with a couple of additional techniques. First, after you have written down your goal in the positive, personal , present tense, write down at least three actions that you could take immediately to achieve that goal, also in the present, positive and personal tense.
For example, your goal could be 'I earn $50000 over the next 12 months'. You could then write, under the goal, 1. I plan every day in advance 2, I start immediately on my most important tasks 3, I concentrate single-minded on my most important task until it is completed.
Write down your goal in index cards and regularly read it. As you read the goal to yourself, imagine the goal as if it were already a reality. Actually see yourself at the goal, enjoying the goal, feeling the pleasure of having achieved the goal.
Alternatively, as you read your goals, imagine specific steps that you can take immediately to achieve that goal. You should actually imagine yourself taking those steps. Then relax and go on to the next goal.
Ideally you should read your goals twice a day, one in the morning after you wake up and two, in the evening just before going to bed. As you do it, you will impress these goals more deeply into your subconscious mind. You will move from positive thinking to positive knowing. It is only a matter of time before you achieve those goals.
Chapter 16: Visualize your goals continually
When you begin to tap into and unleash the power of your subconscious and super conscious minds, you will often achieve more in a year or tw than most people achieve in a lifetime.
Your ability to visualize is perhaps the most powerful faculty that you possess. All improvements in your life begins with an improvement in your mental pictures. You are where you are and what you are today largely because of the mental pictures that you hold in your conscious mind at the present time. As you change your mental pictures on the inside, your world on the outside will begin to change to correspond to those pictures.
Visualization activates the law of attraction, which draws into your life the people, circumstances and resources that you need to achieve your goals. Visualization also activates the law of correspondence which says, 'As within, so without'. As you change your mental pictures on the inside, your world on the outside begins to change.
Successful people are those who visualize the kind of success they want to enjoy in advance. Prior to every new experiences, the successful person visualizes previous success experience that are similar to the upcoming event. A successful sales person will visualize the past successes, for example.
Unsuccessful people also use visualization, but to their detriment. Unsuccessful people, prior to a new event, recall, reflect upon and visualize their previous 'failure experiences'
Your goal should be to take complete control of the visualization process and be sure that your mind and mental images are focused continually on what you want to have and the person you want to be.
You control the molding and shaping of your own personality and character by the mental images that you dwell upon hour by hour and minute by minute. By changing your mental images, you change the way you think, feel and act. You change the way that you treat other people and the way they respond to you. You change your performance and your results.
The four parts of visualization are:
1. Frequency: How often do you visualize positive visions?
2. Duration: How long do your visualize. How long can you hold on to that mental picture of a successful you.
3. Vividness: There is a direct relationship between how clearly you can see your desired goal or result in your mind and how quickly it comes into reality.
4. Intensity: What is the emotion that you attach to the visual image? Is your emotion intense enough?
Visualization is neutral. If you imagine negativity, you will get it. Visualization has all kinds of practical benefits like finding your perfect home, finding your perfect soulmate etc.
Make your life an ongoing process of positive visualization, continually imagining and 'visioneering' your ideal goals and your perfect future.
Chapter 17: Activate your superconscious mind
Superconscious mind is a universal power that you can access any time to achieve any goal that you really want as long as you desire it intensely. The law of Superconscious Activity, is this: Any thought, plan, goal or idea held continuously in the conscious mind must inevitably be brought into reality by the superconscious mind.
Superconscious mind works best when you are in a mental state of calm, confident, relaxed expectation. Your intuition is your contact with the superconscious mind. Your superconscious mind is stimulated by clear, written, specific goals, intensely desired, visualized regularly and constantly worked toward.
Whenever you relax, visualize and emotionalize a specific result that you intensely desire, you stimulate your superconscious mind into giving you ideas and energy for goal attainment.
Superconscious mind explains the phenomena of Serendipity and Synchronicity.
Serendipity is the process of making happy discoveries along the road of life. Whenever you have a clear goal that you desire intensely, happy unexpected events and experiences occur in your life, each of which help you achieve your goal. The interesting point is that if you look for something good in every situation, you will always find it. The very attitude of expecting good things to happen to you seems to trigger their occurrence over and over again.
The second phenomenon that you will experience regularly is called 'Synchronicity'. Totally unconnected events seem to happen in synchronization to help you reach your goal faster. There will be no direct cause and effect relationship between these separate events. They are disconnected in time and space..
There are two ways to stimulate3 your superconscious mind into action. The fires is for you to concentrate and work intensely on achieving your goal. When you work on some thing intensely, serendipitous and synchronous events will happen to let you reach your goal.
The second way to stimulate your superconscious mind is to relax completely and get your mind busy elsewhere. In other words, the harder that you 'Don't try', the faster your superconscious mind will work for you.
Note that these two approaches are opposite of each other. You should try both approaches on every goal.
Your superconscious mind will bring you the exact answer you nee, at exactly the right time for you. Therefore, when you receive a superconscious inspiration, you should take action immediately. Don't delay, The recommendations of superconscious mind comes as 'Time stamped information'. The very act of moving on a superconscious flash will trigger additional superconscious insights and inspirations that will help you.
The superconscious idea or solution has three qualities.
1. It is a complete answer to every aspect of your problem or given you everything you need to achieve your goal.
2. It will be a 'blinding flash' of the obvious. A superconscious inspiration will feel natural, easy and perfectly suitable for the situation.
3. Superconscious solution will give you a burst of happiness and excitement, even exhilaration.
Whenever you get a superconscious solution, it will be accompanied by the energy, enthusiasm and motivation you need to take action immediately.
When you make a regular habit of listening to your intuition and trusting your inner voice, you will probably never make another mistake. By tapping to your superconscious mind, you begin to bring your whole life into harmony with this great universal power.
By developing absolute clarity about your goals and by reviewing and visualizing them regularly, you can make this superconscious power to work for you consistently and predictably all the days of your life.
Chapter 18: Remain flexible at all times.
In these times of change, the most important quality that you can develop is flexibility. It can be defined as the willingness to change in the face of new information or circumstances.
Rapid change is happening all around. There are three factors that are driving change. First one is the explosion of information and knowledge in every area of our lives. To remain flexible you must be constantly open, alert to new ideas, information and knowledge that can help you in the achievement of your goals. Keep up the habit of reading and continuous learning.
Second factor driving change is the rapid growth and development of new technology. Be aware of the technological changes that are happening around you and that can impact your goal achievement. Learn to work over or around them. Be flexible to explore new technology.
The third element driving change and requiring greater flexibility is competition. Be flexible to react quickly to competitive developments.
Do not hesitate to say 'I was wrong', 'I made a mistake' or 'I changed my mind' based on the availability of new information.
Always be open to re-evaluating your goals and objectives in the light of new information, technology or competition. Resolve to recognize and embrace change whenever they occur. Your aim should be to be alert and aware of the change, to find it and then to take action in that new direction as quickly as possible.
Chapter 19: Unlock your inborn creativity
Your creativity is like a muscle. If you don't use it you lose it. Just like a muscle, if you do not exercise your creativity and stretch it regularly, it becomes week and ineffective. Your ability to generate ideas must be constantly utilized to by kept in top condition.
Fortunately, at any time, you can begin tapping into your creativity and using it at a higher level. In order to build your mental muscles, you have to 'pump mental iron'. You have to stress and strain on your brain, concentrating all of your mental energy to generate ideas and solutions.
'Mindstorming' is the most powerful technique to improve your intelligence and increase your creativity. It is simple to implement and could have life changing benefits.
You begin the process by taking a paper and writing your goal in the form of a question at the top of the page. The question should be simple and specific.
Now start answering the question using the 'Three P Formula'. Your answers must be Personal, Positive and in Present tense. In other words your answers must be written as affirmations or instructions from your conscious mind to your subconscious mind.
You have to discipline yourself to generate at least 20 answers to each question. This is very important.
Once you have at least 20 answers, go back over your list and review your answers. Then select at least one action that you can take immediately to begin moving yourself more rapidly toward your goal or toward solving the problem.
You can multiply the effectiveness of this process by taking the best answer that you identified in the first list and writing it at the top of a fresh sheet of paper as a question. Then try to generate 20 answers to that question. This approach will have enormous potential to unleash your creativity.
Whatever answer you choose in the end, put it into action immediately. Do something, do anything. The faster you take action on this exercise, the greater and more continuous will be the flow of ideas as you go through the day.
To effectively solve any problem, you have to follow a structured approach consisting of the following steps.
1. Define the problem clearly
2. Identify the possible causes for this problem. Keep asking the question, 'are there other causes?'
3. Identify the possible solutions. Keep asking the question, 'is there a better solution?'
4. Ask, what must the solution accomplish. What is the ultimate objective.
5. Assign specific responsibility or take responsibility to implement the solution
The two approaches, mindstorming and systematic approach to problem solving, give you a significant advantage in problem solving.
Always be sure to think on paper. Write things down. There is something that happens between the brain and the hand when you write. You get a greater sense of clarity and understanding with regard to the issues involved. You think and perceive better.
Do scenario planning. Identify the top three good things and worst things that could happen in the future that could directly impact you. With the answers thus obtained, do mindstorming to prepare for the challenges.
For every problem, develop more than one option. Create a 'Plan B' for every potential challenges that you could face.
Think Long-term. Add value continually. Always be looking for ways to use your creativity to add value by doing thins faster, better, cheaper or easier in some way. Find ways to make yourself more valuable everyday.
Chapter 20: Do something every day.
Successful people are intensely action oriented. Their actions are focused on adding value. In your life, you will always be compensated in direct proportion to the value of your contribution. If you want to increase the size of your rewards, you must increase the quality and quantity of your results.
Always ask for 'more responsibility' from everyone. Once you are given the same, work hard at it, complete it as fast as you can, then ask for more responsibility.
Remember, your success in life will be in direct proportion to what you do after you do what you are expected to do.
As per the momentum principle of success, it takes considerable energy to get yourself into motion and moving. But it takes much less energy to keep yourself moving.
Successful people plan their days and hours. There is a direct relationship between tight time planning and high income.
Mentally and physically, the faster you move, the more energy you have. The faster you move, the happier you are and the more creative and enthusiastic you become. Start quickly and let momentum principle carry you to completion.
Chapter 21: Persist until you succeed
The single most important quality for success is self discipline. Self-discipline means that you have the ability, within yourself, based on your strength of character and will power, to do what you should do, when you should do it, whether you feel like it or not.
Character is the ability to follow through on a resolution after the enthusiasm with which the resolution was made has passed.
You need self-discipline in order:
To Set your goals and make plans for their accomplishment
To continually upgrade your plans based on new information
To always concentrate on the most important task on hand
To invest in yourself everyday and to build yourself up personally and professionally
To delay gratification,
To save your money
To keep your thoughts on your goals and dreams and keep off your doubts and fears
To respond positively and constructively in the face of every difficulty
The most important demonstration of your self-discipline is your level of persistence when the going gets tough. Each time you persist in the face of adversity and disappointment, you build up the habit of persistence.
In his book, 'Pushing to the Front', author Orison Swett Marden (How this book came about is itself a story of persistence in action), states that "There are two essential requirements for success. The first is 'get-it-it-iveness' and the other is 'stick-to-it-iveness'. There is no failure for the man who realizes his power, who never know when he is beaten; there is no failure for the determined endeavour; the unconquerable will. There is no failure for the man who gets up every time he falls, who rebounds like a rubber ball, who persists when everyone else gives up, who pushes on when everyone else turns back."
An interesting paradox in life that you need to be aware of is that if you are an intelligent person, you do everything possible to organize your life in such a way that you minimize and avoid adversity and disappointment. The paradox is that it is impossible for us to evolve, grow and develop to our full potential unless we face adversity and learn from it. All of the great lessons of life come as a result of setbacks and temporary defeats, which we have done our utmost to avoid.
The way you respond to disappointment is usually an accurate predictor of how likely you are to achieve great success.
Your greatest successes almost invariable come one step beyond the point where everything inside of you says to quit.
It is when things seem worst that you must not quit...
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