Clarity of Goals Leads to Power
Clarity is the name of the game for creating and achieving the goals you want to reach this year. The secret to unlocking your greatness is to crystallize your thinking about your future and put everything down on paper.
Having ideas in your head that stay in your head are worthless. Writing crystallizes thought and thought motivates action. Writing increases your commitment level automatically. You will get extraordinary clarity when you begin the process of writing your ideas and keeping them in a journal.
Stop and think vs. run and routine.
It's absolutely critical that we become and remain clear on our intended outcomes. Mark Twain said, "I can tell anyone how to get what they want if I only could find someone who knew what it was."
When you're absolutely clear on what it is that you want and are determined to get it, there's no stopping you. Lack of clarity and focus is one of the most common failings. In this new economy we have to remain focused on our goals; if we come off track momentarily we need to recover quickly or we could be out of the running faster than a speeding bullet.
Most people are really clear on what they don't want and they spend a lot of time dwelling on those negatives; by some miracle or maybe it's by the law of attraction that they start getting more of what they don't want then what they do want.
Therefore, focus on exactly what you do want! Write it down. Create goals and action plans to get what you want and then visualize and affirm those goals every day!
CRYSTALLIZE YOUR THINKING
The subconscious mind doesn't deal well with generalities. It likes specific messages. By giving your mind clear instructions and no vagaries, you'll develop a powerful congruence, which will almost magically seek out and attract you're objectives.
Focusing your mind on what you want and instead of focusing on what you don't want is a powerful way to control your behavior and achieve your goals. Focus on specific outcomes for everything - telephone calls, meetings, tasks, etc., - for each day and each month.
The act of crystallizing your thinking is a discovery process where by you picture the end result in your mind. Visualize what you will see, hear, smell, taste and feel. Capture all your thoughts in brief phrases, single words, or any other form that works for you. Write it all down as writing crystallizes thought and motivates action.
Learn to ask yourself questions that will increase your clarity, focus your mind and generate solutions that will move you forward. Ask IWWCW questions. IWWCW stands for In What Ways Can We. Always be asking why, when, how, why not, what if, etc.
Tony Robbins says, "Quality questions create a quality life. The quality of the answers you get entirely depends on the quality of the questions you ask. Successful people ask better questions, and as a result, they get better answers." One of the biggest payoffs in retaining a consultant or counselor isn't so much the advice they give, but rather the questions they ask. They make us think.
Values
Each of us has our own value system. We're not talking morality here. We're speaking of beliefs we have that are well established even if they're not consciously apparent. Values are beliefs we hold in high esteem. When you operate outside this value system, you cannot be effective. It is paramount that you discover your values and honor them.
Abraham Maslow referred to this unity between our values and our everyday performance as self-actualization. "It is a bringing together of what I really value." The secret to achieving inner peace lies in understanding our inner core values-those things in our lives that are most important to us-and then seeing that they're reflected in the daily events of our lives." Remember what Goethe says: "Things which matter most must never be at the mercy of things that matter least." We must identify and focus on what really matters most in our life and get rid of everything that get's in the way of that. Abraham Maslow said, "What you CAN be, you MUST be." and he said, "If you deliberately plan on being less than you are capable of being, then I warn you that you'll be unhappy for the rest of your life." If that is the case than we really must develop the habit of focusing on what really matters most in our personal and professional life. In reality we all get off track of our goals from time to time. We are not perfect. We need to remember the mantra progress not perfection. That being said we need to practice our recover skills the self discipline of returning to the pursuit of our goals as soon as we can.
Beware of distractions as they can be the biggest goal killer you have in your life. Get into the Kaizen habit of incremental and continuous improvement to keep yourself on track. Selecting what to focus on and what to ignore is a very personal decision that requires great personal thought and judgment. So by continuously working on your personal plan of action and knowing who you are where you are going and how you are going to get there is very powerful to the process of personal mastery and the essence of effective personal leadership.
Continue to focus on your goals and the very important why behind the goals will keep you on track. Focus on the obstacles and what you do not want and you will get a whole lot more of that in your life. As Marcus Buckingham says, "clarity is the antidote to anxiety".
Michael Gidlewski
Achievement Unlimited
www.CreatingBiggerFutures.com
