I have written articles on setting goals in the past, but after reading a chapter in Jack Canfield’s book ‘The Success Principles’ on goal setting I wanted to add what else I have learned.
When setting goals you need to make sure that you unleash the power of the subconscious mind. To unleash your power of the subconscious mind, you have to meet two criteria. You goal has to be measurable to you and to anybody else, and you must put a time limit.
I will lose 25 pounds is not powerful. But I will lose 25 pounds by 2:00 pm on November 20th, 2011 is very powerful.
Be very specific as you can about your goals…include make, model, color, year, weight, size, dollars, and other details. If you set vague goals expect vague results.
Write your goals out like you are writing a detail work order. For example, Christi wants a house on the Intracoastal Waterway. She knows the color of the house. She can tell you what each
room looks like from the color of the walls to the furniture and view from the porch. She wrote this goal down and she
takes time to imagine living there, which is the next thing you need to do.
An exercise that Christi and I use is writing down a typical day in our life. We get into a meditation state, then we imagine our goals are accomplished and what it would be like. We start writing whatever comes to mind.
We keep writing until our train of thought ends or something interrupts us. When we read over them, we can’t believe the
details that we added. Each time, we do this exercise we know we are getting closer and closer to achieving our goals.
Try this exercise, it is actually fun. Let me make another point. Physically writing your goals down with a pen and paper
unleashes more power of your subconscious mind. So, close the laptop and start writing. You can always type it later if you want.
Let me give you an example of a couple of my goals. I am going to lose 6 pounds of fat and gain 4 pounds of muscle by 5:00 pm, November 15th, 2011. I am going to own a brand new 2012 Ford F150 4 door white with grey interior by 12:00pm, July 1st, 2012.
Do you set goals? Let me know your technique and tell me how it works for you. Can your goals be measured by someone else? Just like my goal of losing 6 pounds, anybody that sees my Body Mass Index results will know if I lost 6 pounds and gain 6 pounds of muscle.
I would love to hear from you. Leave me your comments below.
{ 15 comments… read them below or add one }
Jaden,
Just like Stevie, I stick to the “SMART” goals to help keep things in proper perspective as well as make sure I’m not being unrealistic.
Gotta keep it: Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic, and Timely
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Its always been my attitude to have so many goals. I mean come on we all dream and wants to make them happen. so we set goals. But without asking, is this doable? possible? I am guided with SMART in making my goals
specific
measurable
attainable
realistic and
timely
it works all the time!
I always believe that goal should always be concrete and quantifiable so we can able to quantify the results too.. If we cant measure our goals, we never really know if we have hit our goals or not.
thanks for sharing jaden..
jans
Hi Jaden,
This is very important subject for our working and personal life’s. I like to have goals that are difficult but achievable. Thank you for the recommendation of the success principles. Take care Rosemary
Hey Jaden,
Excellent post about such an important subject.
Goals are a road map of our life …. unfortunatly so many of us do not understand the process and you have explained it well.
Written goals do help ..but as you said a time frame needs to be established too…
Thanks for sharing your findings.
Cheers
Bryan
I often coach groups on achieving goals. It never fails that a client shares a goal around wanting ‘more money’. I will hand them a $1 or $5 dollar bill and tell them ‘Okay, you now have ‘more money’ don’t you. Goal achieved!” Of course, that is not what they meant (and they know that I know that that is what they meant).
Hey Jaden,
Excellent article on setting goals my friend, Got to love Jack!
I had the honor on meeting Jack once as he is a rep with my primary company, he is an excellent speaker and a real down to earth character.
Set your goals, Visualize having already achieved them, Be specific, and tweaking your goals is a great way to ensure their successful completion.
Thanks so much for sharing these tips Jaden,
Kevin
Hi Jaden! Great article on goal-setting … personally, I set goals for everything, just like my “To Do” List – lol! I have a list of goals with dates – although I don’t go as far as setting the times – and work hard to reach all of them. Of course, we don’t always reach our goals by the date selected, but I don’t stress out over it, I just reset the date for a little later
Hey Jaden,
Great post about goal setting. I enjoy setting goal and at the same time put a dateline for me to meet the goal. I do have both long term and short term goals and I will never fail to break them down into yearly, monthly, weekly and daily. I use this method to kick start myself if I am behind my goal.
Thank you for writing this post. It can be a common topic but it is not a common habit for many !
Cheers
Pearly
I appreciate you for making the effort to discuss this particular, personally I think clearly about this and also really like studying more on this specific subject. I also say that you have given good advise of setting goals in a time limit. I also set up goals now with the help of you and aside from this, I also arrange time limits but sometimes I achieve my goal sometimes not but I must say that time limit setting always help in completing the work on time or not very far from time.
Jaden, you’ve hit the nail on the head. Goals that aren’t specific and targeted (down to the day and time even, as you point out) aren’t nearly as powerful. Many people say “my goal is to make a lot of money with my network marketing business”. That’s simply not focused enough to do much good.
Jaden,
I agree, and would add if you really want to manifest these things. You must prepare and change your environment to match as you have already accomplished it. Make room for that new truck and purchase clothes that will fit.
If you do not believe with all your heart and change you environment to match. It will not become reality. You can write all the things down in detail. That is only the foundation. Now, you must live your life as it has happened and change your environment to match.
Jaden, your so inspiring and this is why I love your site. You keep me smiling and wanting to accomplish more. Thanks for sharing.
Great top off to your goals process Jaden. I have Jack’s book and it’s awesome. Adding a measure of time to a goal is not that easy for many people because it not only adds power to the goal, but accountability – and the possiblity of failure. When someone hesitates and says, well “I’ll try” they’ve already given themselves an out. Thanks for the inspiration!
Hi Jaden,
You have given good advise of setting goals in a time limit.I also set up goals and I also arrange time limits but sometimes I achieve my goal sometimes not but I must say that time limit setting always help in completing the work on time or not very far from time.Thanks for sharing this post.
Hello Jaden,
I like what you said about setting goals with time limits. I do not give myself a set time, but I do set up what I call my steps to my vision. This is how I measure myself on my productivity. I find that focusing on the the steps I get the done faster. I am going to try to set time limits and see how that works. I will let you know.