Your Personal Goal Achievement Plan

“If you don’t know where you are going, you’ll end up someplace else.” ~ Yogi Berra

“We’ll eventually get somewhere.”

Imagine you are embarking on a cruise. You’ve spent months thinking about, planning and preparing for the trip. Your imagination is dancing with thoughts about the places you’ll go, the people you’ll meet, and the things you will see. You are ready for this adventure and ready to go.

As you settle into your stateroom, the captain’s voice comes over the intercom. “Ladies and gentlemen, this is your captain speaking. We are minutes away from leaving port. We have a beautiful destination in mind but we don’t have any idea how to get there. So we’re going to get started and see what happens. We’ll eventually land somewhere and I know you can’t wait to see where we end up.”

What do you think of your cruise now? Continue reading “Your Personal Goal Achievement Plan”

Why You Need Focused Energy

“If you chase two rabbits, both will escape.” ~ Source obscure

The Joke’s On Me

My daughters love to play practical jokes on me. The April Fool’s Day tricks they have orchestrated over the years have become legendary to my friends.

One morning, and not April 1, I got in my car and turned the switch. The car sprang into life! The lights came on, the wipers started beating back and forth, the blinkers started blinking, the heater sent out a blast of air, the radio blared. Those little stinkers had turned on everything they could in my car. Continue reading “Why You Need Focused Energy”

Positive Powerful Goal Setting

“Sometimes we may ask God for success, and [God] gives us physical and mental stamina. We might plead for prosperity, and we receive enlarged perspective and increased patience, or we petition for growth and are blessed with the gift of grace. [God] may bestow upon us conviction and confidence as we strive to achieve worthy goals.” ~ David A. Bednar

From Authentic Happiness To A Theory Of Well-Being

In 2002, Martin Seligman, the “father” of Positive Psychology, introduced the Authentic Happiness theory. The theory can be stated in this “happiness formula”: H = S + C + V where H is your level of Happiness, S is your happiness “Set point”, C represents the Circumstances of your life, and V stands for things under your Voluntary control. According to Seligman, we can influence as much as 40% of our happiness level through those things under our voluntary control. [Seligman; Authentic Happiness]

About 10 years later, in Flourish, Dr. Seligman explains how the theory of Authentic Happiness evolved into a deeper and wider Well-Being theory. Whereas the Authentic Happiness theory was concerned with happiness only, Well-Being theory is concerned with the broader concept of well-being.

Continue reading “Positive Powerful Goal Setting”

Magic Thinking

Forget magic. Real accomplishments require hard work.

“What’s missing, what we’re really looking for, is magic. Without realizing it, we want that momentary pleasure or excitement we feel to be a passageway into a whole new world—a world of ease. Unfortunately, it’s a world that doesn’t exist. Reality requires us to face three things: pain, uncertainty, and the need for constant work. No one, no matter how famous or rich, is exempt from these requirements.” ~ Dr. Phil Stutz, “Addiction and Magical Thinking”

Hard work is required.

Are you prepared to do the work required to succeed in reaching your BIG goals? Make no mistake – the Excelerated life is not achieved without effort. Sometimes it’s hard. Sometimes it’s boring. Many times, you’ll want to do something else. There will be times when you can’t tell that you are making any progress at all Continue reading “Magic Thinking”

Goals Are For Losers

Do you prefer winning once in a while or winning every day? That’s a difference between having a goal and having a system.

“. . . as far as I can tell, the people who use systems do better. The systems-driven people have found a way to look at the familiar in new and more useful ways. To put it bluntly, goals are for losers.” ~ Scott Adams

Goals vs. Systems

Goals are for losers? That’s a pretty odd statement for me to endorse as someone who spends his working time helping and encouraging people to set and achieve goals. However, after reading this in How To Fail At Almost Everything And Still Win Big by Scott Adams, best-selling author and the creator of the Dilbert comic strip, I have to say he has a good point. Continue reading “Goals Are For Losers”

SMART+Plus Goals

“The tragedy of life doesn’t lie in not reaching your goal. The tragedy lies in having no goals to reach.” —Benjamin E. Mays

You have likely heard of setting SMART (Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic, Time-bound) goals. In addition to those criteria, research in positive psychology and goal-setting has identified some other guidelines to help us create goals that will increase the positive effect of goal-setting. These are SMART+Plus goals.

According to www.statisticbrain.com, 45% of Americans “always” make New Year’s resolutions and another 17% “occasionally” make them. How many people successfully achieve their resolutions? Eight per-cent!

The statistics also show that “People who explicitly make resolutions are 10 times more likely to attain their goals than people who don’t explicitly make resolutions.” Continue reading “SMART+Plus Goals”

Have A Plan

“What is your dearest wish? What dreams do you have for the future? What do you want to be or do? Imagine your dream coming true. How wonderful would it be. How fulfilling.

“What holds you back from realizing your wish? What is it in you that stops you from really going for it?” ~ Gabriele Oettingen, Rethinking Positive Thinking

What holds you back?

As we near the end of another year, take a moment to reflect on this year that has nearly passed. Think back to January. Did you have big dreams? Make any resolutions? Set a BIG goal? Now that the year is almost over, how are you doing? Are you still on track? Continue reading “Have A Plan”

Ask A Big Question

“What’s the ONE Thing I can do such that by doing it everything else will be easier or unnecessary?” ~ Gary Keller, The ONE Thing

What do you want to be, do and have in your life? In your spiritual life? Your family life? Your professional life? In your financial life? In your social life? Your intimate or romantic life? You have goals and objectives in some or all of these areas . . . perhaps other areas as well. Or do you? Continue reading “Ask A Big Question”

Straight Line

Don’t do more than you need to do to reach your goal. And don’t do less . . .

What is the shortest distance between two points? Let’s say you’re at point A and you want to go to point B. The shortest way, of course, is a straight line. You don’t first go down to C and then over to D and, oh yeah, drop by E on the way. Or do you? Continue reading “Straight Line”