We all have dreams and goals to which we aspire, but often, after the initiation into a new way of living and being, we soon find ourselves retreating to our comfort zones, and caught up in old patterns. This is because making a goal successful is an art in transformation that must be properly learnt and continually practiced, so that we break free from conditioned and unconscious behaviours and habits, and consciously create a new programme, that supports our chosen objective. A successful goal begins with the most important quality, a POSITIVE MIND STATE for success; it begins with BELIEVING IN YOUR OBJECTIVE. What do you believe about what you are setting out to achieve? What is this belief founded on? Do your beliefs support your objective? If not, how are you going to change them?
The second most important thing, is to set a CLEARLY DEFINED GOAL, that is in alignment with you most important values, because if the goal does not really matter, it will not stand the test of time, or outshine any challenges that arise. AFFIRM YOUR GOAL – why you want it, which values does it support, and what it will give you?
A successful goal must be SPECIFIC. When will your goal be achieved by? What will achieving this involve? What will it look like? How will you achieve it? What do you need to help you attain it?
You also need to be able to MEASURE your goal; what will be the measure of your success, and how will you mark your progress? If it is weight loss, you can measure your success in inches and kilograms, a business by revenue, clients, profit, and the pursuit of happiness, through a journal that has more positive moments and days, and more notable moments when you truly feel happy and at peace with yourself.
You must also ensure your goal is ACHIEVABLE: do you truly believe you can attain it? What evidence do you have to support this? You don’t have to be able to do everything yourself, but you do need to be able to enlist the support of those who can help, if you need it.
For optimal success, it is important to THINK OUTSIDE THE BOX. We do this by broadening our mind, which can be done in several ways:
- Study another industry –You might find that many of the problems people in other industries face are similar to the problems in your own, but that they’ve developed really quite different ways of dealing with them that may be of use to you.
- Explore other belief systems – our beliefs determine how we interact with each other and the world. Exploring how others think, can teach you a lot about how people relate to each other and the world around them. This can go a long way to supporting marketing campaigns.
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Try inspirational writing – When we write from an open mind, from feeling and emotion, our more creative right-brain processes are activated, that may bring new ideas and solutions that logic, analysis and left-brain processes were not able to perceive.
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Change Perspective – If the biggest challenge you are facing today became one of the smallest, because life suddenly brings others, how might you address it differently? By changing how you see a problem, you start to find new ways of managing and overcoming it.
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Work backwards – start addressing your objective as if it were already achieved, and think back through the steps you needed to make to attain it.
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See through the mind of a child – ask a child for advice on attaining your goal. Children are naturally creative and speak without prejudice, programming, and with a refreshing ignorance of convention, giving them a gift of perception that we do not allow ourselves to see.
Once you know what you want, how to achieve it, and have explored all options and ideas for moving from where you are now, to where you want to be, you will need a clear and realistic EXECUTION PLAN.
Identify the tasks that need to be done, by whom and for when.
How are your beliefs supporting you at this stage? Do you need to do some inner work, and improve your state of mind? Are you clear about what you want and where you are going? Are you ready to TAKE ACTION?
Antonia Behan offers personal and professional development sessions, to help you develop the inner tools and resources, and practical methods, that will enable you to build a clear pathway, and make confident footsteps, towards your chosen objective.
Sessions available in Ocean Village (Gibraltar) and Pueblo Nuevo, near Sotogrande (Spain).
Coffee Break Solutions available in Marbella. Find out more at: www.antoniabehan.com