Use Goals
to Help You Grow
Our inventions, big and little, our medical
discoveries, our engineering triumphs, our business success – were first
visualized before they became realities. A goal is an objective, a purpose. A
goal is more than a dream; it’s a dream being acted upon. A goal is more than a
hazy/unclear ”Oh I wish I would”, A goal is clear “This is what I’m working
toward”. Nothing happens; no forward steps are taken until a goal is
established. Without goals’ individuals just wander through life. They stumble
along, never knowing where they are going, so they never gat anywhere. Goals
are essential to success as air is to life. No one ever stumbles into success
without a goal. Get a clear fix on where you want to go. The important thing is
not where you were or where you are but where you want to get. Without goal we
cannot grow. No goal is like going to an airline ticket counter and saying
“Give me a ticket”, the people selling the tickets just can’t help you unless
you give them a destination. And the most important lesson in career planning,
before you start out, knows where you want to go.
Two steps that
will help you to forward planning:
- Visualize
your future in terms of three departments: work, home and social. Dividing
our life this way keeps you from becoming confused, prevent conflicts, and
helps you look at the whole picture.
- Demand of
yourself clear, precise answers to this questions: What do I want to
accomplish with my life? What do I want to be? And What does it take to satisfy
me?
Planning guide
below help us an image of me, 10 years from now:
A.
Work
Department: 10 years from now.
1. What income level do I want to attain?
2. What level of responsibilities do I
seek?
3. How much authority do I expect to gain
from my work?
B.
Home
Department: 10 years from now.
1. What kind of standard of living do I
want to provide for my family and myself?
2. What kind of house do I want to live
in?
3. What kind of vacations do I want to
take?
4. What financial support do I want to
give my children in their early adult years?
C.
Social
Department: 10 years from now.
1. What kind of friends do I want to have?
2. What social groups do I want to join?
3. What community leadership positions
would I like to hold?
What worthwhile causes do I want to champion?
Success requires heart-and-soul effort, and you can
put your heart and soul only into something you really desire. Switching from
what you don’t like to do to what you do like to do is like putting a
five-hundred horsepower motor in a ten-year-old-car.
People these days are measured by the size of their
dreams. No one accomplishes more than he sets out to accomplish. So visualize a
big future.
Five weapons are used to commit success suicide.
Destroy them, they’re dangerous:
- Self-depreciation.
Example: I would like to be a doctor (or executive, etc.) but I can’t do
it, I lack brain, education, etc.
- Security-it
is. Person who say “I’ve got security where I am” use security weapon to
murder their dream.
- Competition.
The filed is already overcrowded.
- Parental
dictation. But my parent wants me to do this so I must.
- Family
responsibility. It would have been wise for me to change over five years
ago, but now I’ve got a family and I can’t change.
The only way to get full power, to develop full go
force, is to do what you want to do. Surrender to desire and gain energy,
enthusiasm, mental zip and even better health. And it’s never too late to let
desire take over. Successful people have their eyes focused on a goal, and this
provides energy. The point is this – energy increases, multiplies, when you set
a desired goal and resolve to work toward that goal.
When you surrender to your goal, the goal works
itself into your subconscious mind. Your subconscious mind is always in
balance. Your conscious mind is not, unless it is tune with what your
subconscious mind is thinking. Without full cooperation from the subconscious
mind, a person is hesitant, confused, indecisive. Now, with your goal absorbed
into your subconscious mind you react the right way automatically. Example: Our goal through our subconscious
mind signal us saying “do this” or “don’t do that it won’t help get you where
you want to go.” The goal constantly speaks. “I am the image you want to make
real.” Here is what you must do to make me real.” Use goals to live longer. No
medicine in the world and your physician will bear this out – is a powerful in
bringing about long life as is the desire to do something.
The person determined to achieve maximum success
learns the principle that progress is made one step at a time. A house is built
a brick at a time. Every big accomplishment is a series of little
accomplishment. Commit this question to memory and use it to evaluate
everything you do: “Will this help take me where I want to go?” If the answer is
no, back off, if yes, press ahead. Examine yourself. Decide what specific
things you should do o make yourself more effective.
Thirty Days Improvement Guide:
Between now and ___________ I will
A. Break
these habits:
(suggestion)
1.
Putting off things.
2.
Negative language
3.
Watching TV more than 60 minutes per day
4. Gossip
B. Require
these habits:
(suggestion)
1. A
rigid morning examination of my appearance.
2. Plan
each day’s work the night before
3.
Compliment people at every possible opportunity
C.
Increase my value to my employer in these ways: (suggestion)
1. Do a better job of developing my
subordinates
2. Learn more about my company/department,
what it does and the customers it serves
3. Make three specific suggestions to help
my company become more efficient.
D. Increase my value to my home in these ways:
(suggestion)
1.
Show more appreciation for the little things my wife does that I’ve been taking
for granted.
2. Once a week, do something special
with my whole family
3. Give
one hour each day of my undivided attention to my family.
D.
Sharpen
my mind in these ways:
(suggestion)
1.
Invest two hours each week in reading professional magazines in my field.
2.
Read one-self-help book
3.
Make four new friends
4.
Spend 30 minutes daily in quiet, undisturbed thinking.
Lots of conscious effort, invested day by day, made
the person what he is. Building new positive habits and destroying old negative
habits is a day by day process.
It’s true that many factors outside your control do
affect your destination (maybe serious illness, death in your family, you may
meet with an accident). So here is a point we must fix firmly in mind: prepare
to take detours in stride. If you are driving down a road and you come to a
“road closed” situation, you wouldn’t camp there, nor would you go back home.
The road closed simply means you can’t go where you want to go on this road.
You’d simply find another road to take you where you want to go. (Ex. Military leaders
do, when they develop a master plan to take an objective, they have a plan A
that if doesn’t’ work, switch in to plan B). When we detour we don’t have to
change our goals. We just travel a different route.
The biggest and most rewarding kind of investment is
self-investment, purchasing things that build mental power and proficiency.
Profit comes from only one source: investment. To profit, to get the extra
reward above a “normal” income in the year ahead, we must invest in ourselves.
We must invest to achieve our goals.
Two sound
self-investments that will pay handsome profits in the year ahead:
- Invest in education. True
education is the soundest investment you can make in yourself. Let’s be
sure we understand what education really is. Some measure education by the
number of years spent in school, or number of diplomas, certificates and
degrees earned but these doesn’t necessarily produce a successful person.
(Ex. Gen. Electric with 12 out of 41 executives has no collage degrees and
two of the most outstanding presidents never had an opportunity to attend
collage. They (the business) are more interested in competency not
diplomas). A diploma or degree may help you get a job, but it will not
guarantee your progress on the job. Real education, the kind worth
investing in, is that which develops and cultivates your mind. How well
educated a person is, is measured by how well his mind is developed – in
brief, by how well he thinks. Anything that improves thinking ability is
education.
- Invest in idea starters. Education help you mould your mind, stretch
it, train it to meet new situations and solve problems. Idea starters
serve a related purpose. They feed your mind; give you constructive
material to think about. Resolve to purchase at least one stimulating book
each moth and subscribe to magazine or journals that stress ideas. But it
costs too much. Obviously a much more successful minded person replied.
“Well, I’ve found that I can’t afford not to take it” Again, take your cue
from the successful people. Invest in yourself
