Smart Goals

“One cannot be content to creep when one has the urge to soar.” Helen Keller

As we are now well into the second half of the first decade of the New Millennium, many of us look back at where we’ve been and where we’re going. As we all know, the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and expecting a different outcome. So if you resolve to re-commit to any unfulfilled goal (lose 10 pounds, quit smoking, find a new job, etc.), I have some suggestions for taking the struggle out of the process and adding some ease and enjoyment.

You can live your life by your own design. Some of us can afford to have designer clothes, a designed home, a trainer to design our body, a mentor to design our career, etc., but we can all afford to design our own lives. Follow this easy three-step process to effect the changes you want to make in your life, and you will soon find yourself living powerfully, on purpose, and by your own design.

Change your language, change your life

The dictionary defines the word “resolve” as “to dissolve, melt, or change by disintegration.” With such negative connotations to that word, no wonder we fail! Change your “New Year’s Resolutions” to “New Year’s Declarations.” To declare means “to make known formally, to state emphatically.” Our founding fathers knew this…..can you imagine the “Resolution of Independence.” By focusing on what we do want rather than what we don’t want, we can change powerfully, rather than by default.

Write your goals down

You can write them in your journal, in your Palm Pilot, or on a cocktail napkin. The physical act of writing anything down is self-hypnotic, and sets up an automatic awareness for your subconscious to begin attracting resources, information, anything you need to attain that goal. You may have heard this called coincidence or synchronicity, but it is simply a natural ideomotor response that you generated by feeding your subconscious new instructions.

In her inspiring book Write it Down: Make it Happen, Dr. Harriett Klauser states that people who write down goals are 90% closer to manifesting them. Why not give yourself that head start? If you do not achieve your goal, there is no need to beat yourself up. You simply review your progress, get any feedback necessary, map a new strategy, and re-commit. Write it down again and this time you’ll be 180% closer to getting that goal. Further, as soon as you attain one goal, create another. Keep a constant “Things to Do List” for your life.

Set Smart Goals

In order to set yourself up to succeed, follow these guidelines and prepare to soar. Make your goals:

Specific and Simple

The subconscious, which is where all behavior comes from, needs clarity and precision. Broad goals such as “I will be happier in 2006” are too vague. As yourself what specifically would make you happier? A new career? Make that your goal. The subconscious is a doer, not a thinker, and it must receive the bottom line, crystal clear bulleted targets: “I’m enrolling in law school.” Or I’m being promoted to vice president.” Or “I’m becoming a non-smoker.” Don’t flood the engine of the subconscious with TMI (too much information) such as complex business plans and financial projections from the data processing department.

Measurable and Meaningful

How will you know when you’ve gotten your goal? Make it easy for your subconscious to help you attain your goal. “I’m making $250,000 this year.” “I’m doubling all sales quotas.” These are “idiot proof” measures that anyone (including your subconscious) can recognize and applaud.

Your goals should be meaningful to you

I can’t tell you how many people think they have no willpower or that they constantly self-sabotage. Actually, at the root of it all, they simply don’t want that goal. Perhaps they keep failing the Bar Exam because they really don’t want to be an attorney… they’ve been trying to please their parents, or someone else. Make sure your goals are in line with your dreams, because it will show up in your work, in your health, in your heart, in your face, and in your life.

Achievable.

All Areas of your Life. Act as if you have it now.

There is no point in chasing after a goal that is unachievable (although with quantum physics, the unachievable is beginning to be a thing of the past). It’s an unachievable goal for President George w. Bush to hold a third term. There are certain professional standards and limitations that we must honor, and allow them to guide us setting our goals.