Today I want to talk about setting goals! I love this topic because no matter how many times I post about setting goals, I know people really don’t follow through and set personal and professional goals. It truly is the only way to go from where you are currently to where you want to go in the future. It is the way to break paradigms, change habits and begin to gain clarity in your life! When you can clarity, you gain energy and that positive energy attracts others with positive energy! Soon, your life changes as you are achieving your desired results and you live your life with OnPurpose! So, while goal setting is can be challenging, the secret is to set SMART goals. This is an acronym for Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic and Timely! And in the next post, I will share more on how to set SMART goals!

As I work with clients, most tell me when I ask them if they have personal and professional goals set they tell me yes. But then I ask to see them and they tell me that they are in their mind and not written down on paper! So, the task at hand is always to write your goals on paper. Here are 5 reasons why we set goals and write them down on paper:

1. Your written goals are YOUR HEADLINES for the future.
2. Goals give us a tangible target as we move forward in life.
3. Goals tell your brain what to notice in the midst of a crowded thought life.
4. Goal setting is an essential tool for disciplining your mind to focus on what is lovely, excellent and worthy of praise.
5. Goal setting builds your character and disciplines you to say yes to the right things and no to the wrong things.

During my work helping clients, I always tell them that the goal is to become the best version of themselves. And most clients shake their head and agree that must be the goal. But “how” is always the question. And I always come back with:”You have to change your thoughts, change your paradigms and change your habits”. To improve your results in life requires a good deal of heavy lifting because we have a built in “cybernetic” system that always wants to take us back to our existing and preexisting paradigms. Many of these paradigms were formed and given to us as children from our parents and have been handed down from one generation to the next. And many of these paradigms are no longer useful and/or prevent us from achieving real results in our lives! That is why it is so important to works towards breaking those old paradigms by reprogramming our life and primary thoughts. The first step in this process is realize and document what our primary thoughts and beliefs are and how we see the world. Then it is important to work with a coach to help us secure new thoughts and habits. Its all about TRANSFORMATION! And Transformation is an inside out process.

Like most people, I struggle with becoming more productive and impacting more people in the remaining years I have left! I want to share my experiences and what I have learned to make someone else’s life easier. I always feel better at the end of the day when I feel like I accomplished something worth while towards my goals. So becoming more productive is essential. I can remember a time in my life when I felt fully alive and very productive, and I can also remember a time in my life when I felt hopeless, unclear and non productive. Please believe me when I tell you that it takes far more energy to feel unproductive and unclear! So that is the entire reason for my blog. I am hoping to help those who feel unclear and want to improve their results. I call this Helping You Succeed, Life and Work! If you want to have more influence and impact on others, here is the one thing you must understand very clearly:

You must Discover Your Value that you have to share with the marketplace. You need to understand what you have that you can share with the world and that sets you apart from someone else! I call this your Value Proposition Statement! Here are questions to help you understand and create your message:

1. What keeps you up at night and fascinates you?
2. What books do you like to read?
3. What issues do the people around you struggles with that you find yourself always helping?
4. What is the one thing that you feel you want to share with them to help them grow?
5. What do people come to you for as far as advice, counseling, teaching or any other help regularly?
6. What is the one thing that you can see could help others around you if they knew about it and would transform their results?
7. If you don’t help these people, what is at stake for you? How will this impact your own life results?

When I think about conversations today, it reminds me that is so difficult today to be your own person because people, society, politics and money all try to pull us into a place where we are always longing for something or someone else. It is easy to fall into the trap of wanting more! More money, different job, better job, bigger house, better vacations and on and on it goes. but what effect does this have on us? It pulls us away from living each day in our own show and trying to be someone else and not concentrating on our own life and what we currently have today. So here are some simple steps to living your life and not wishing you were someone else:

1. BE THANKFUL! Focus on what you have and try to express gratitude daily for what God has given you. Like your health, your family, your ability to live in this great country.
2. BE PURPOSEFUL! Try to make at least one person happy each day. Go the extra mile to add value to the people around you. That takes the focus off of you and puts it on someone else.
3. BE POSITIVE! Positive people tend to be happier people and happier people tend to be living their life as the main event and not a side show!
4. BE GENEROUS! When you are FREE from things and stuff, you tend to be more generous and giving. This is where true meaning and happiness exists.
5. BE HOPEFUL! Don’t be a Debbie Downer, be hopeful and encourage others to dream big! Don’t envy others. Develop a plan and execute that plan to achieve more.

Have you ever heard the expression: “The Apple Doesn’t Fall Far From The Tree?”. Well, the reason you have probably heard it is that someone in your family or a friend probably said that about you when comparing certain habits of your mother and father to you. And the funny thing is, the older we get, we even start to see some of those habits from our parents in us. This of course can be good and bad. If your mother and father had good habits, then you are blessed, but if your mother and father were what I call “difficult” and drama oriented, well, probably more than not, you have inherited these habits as well. All of these generational habits passed down to you can make changing very difficult. As we tend to see life through the lens of our paradigms (habits) it is often a good thing to go back and review how these habits are producing the results we are getting in life. If we like the results we are getting in life, than keep rolling. But if we find ourselves looking to improve our results, we need to go back and start reviewing some of our habits. And finally the best way to change habits and paradigms is through clear goal setting and achieving.