Goal Setting is an Art

Think about it, how many times have you sat down and made goals which you forgot about two weeks later? For most people it's the start of every year.

How many times have you started a diet and at the first sight of chocolate you decide you'll start over next week? This scenario is all too often the case.

The inherit nature of humans is to be happy. Because of this humanistic trait we set goals, start diets, create budgets, quit smoking, purchase gym memberships, and do a whole lot of other things that if completed are proven to improve our quality of living. Unfortunately most people are inherently reactive to situations in their life as opposed to being proactive. We want what will make us happy now as opposed to what will make us happier two weeks, a month, or a year from now. That's why when faced with chocolate or other goal breakers, we postpone our diet, stop going to the gym, and forget about the budget.

Goal Setting is an Art! If we want to be successful in accomplishing our goals and do the things that will make us happier in the long run we have to master the art:

3 Steps to Stay Committed to Your Goals

1.     Be Accountable to Someone

2.     Recommit to Your Goals Daily

3.     Keep Balance in Your Life

Be Accountable to Someone: Why do most weight loss systems fail? The lack of accountability. Jenny Craig works not because the food is healthier, but rather because you're reporting to a support group. The fact is it's easier to set diets, overcome addictions, and do the improbable if you have someone holding you to your commitment. 

You don't need a "group" to be successful at making and completing goals, but you do need one reliable person who you can report to each week. So often we fall short of our goals because the goals are personal and nobody else knows about them. When someone knows your goals and follows up with you regularly, your will to do increases.

Step #1 - Find a Goal Partner. This can be someone who has the same desire to accomplish their goals, or it can be someone who has a vested interest in your life (i.e. your spouse, parents, or siblings).

Recommit to Your Goals Daily: Every morning you should write out your goals and say them out loud. This will remind you of your commitment and bring focus to your day. As you go through this process, visualize yourself accomplishing each goal then write your goals as if you have already accomplished them. The visualization process gives you a taste of the satisfaction you will feel when you achieve your goals. 

Ralph Waldo Emerson taught, "That which we persist in doing becomes easier for us to do; not that the nature of the thing itself has changed, but that our power to do is increased." As you plan to accomplish your goals each morning and take steps each day that being you closer to your goal, your power to do increases. 

Step #2 - Make a Goal Journal. If you're going to write down your goals each day, you probably should have a place to write them.

Keep Balance in Your Life: Balance keeps you connected. If one type of goal is dominating your life, you might have a lot of focus and accomplish a lot in that area, but your quality of life will suffer. Just like water is a great way to quench your thirst; surround yourself with too much water and you'll drown.

Set goals to improve the following six areas of your life: 

Physical, Intellectual, Spiritual, Financial, Social, and Organizational. 

Also, make a goal to Serve someone else because, "He who serves the most grows the fastest".

Step #3 - Plan Six Personal Goals and One Service Goal Each Week.

24 Principles of WEALTH

I've been reading One Minute Millionaire, a very inspiring book by Robert G. Allen. When I tell people about this book the title usually scares people off, but this book has been one of the most useful books as far as changing my mind set and getting me to accomplish my goals.


24 Principles of WEALTH

1. Everyone Manifests - Everything begins as a thought. If you want something to materialize, you better start thinking about it.
2. Be Do Have - If we are focused on what we want to BE, then we'll be inspired to DO the things
   that will allow us to HAVE what we desire.
3. Live Life Above the Line - Don't blame, learn the lesson.
4. Abundance is Your Natural State - Sharing always creates more.
5. Givers Get - Reciprocity is real. You get what you send out.
6. Changing Your Reality is a Snap - Turn down Mr. Yabut (your internal voice of doubt) and turn up your internal cheerleader. Put a rubber band on left wrist and snap it when the Yabut's arrive.
7. Words Transform - If it doesn't serve, don't say it.
8. You are Your Wealth - Our invisible assets are what make us wealthy.
9. Wealth is Freedom - Wealth creates time which creates relationships which creates spiritual, physical, and finally Ultimate Freedom.
10. It Starts With a Dream - Plan your future in detail and think about it  when you go to sleep and every morning.
11. Clarity is Power - Think from your goals.
12. More Clarity is More Powerful - Write your six major goals down and read them out loud daily. Write your goals as if you already achieved them.
13. Tap Into Your Genius - The 4 characteristics of genius: Passion: They love what they do. Talent: They're good at what they do. Values: Doing what they do is extremely important to them. Destiny: They have a sense that what they're doing is what they were born to do.
14. Loverage - If you love what you're doing, it's much easier. Do what you love. Add enormous value. Loverage it.
15. Imagination Trumps Will - Imagining the best doesn't always work. Sometimes the worst does happen. But imagining the best works more often.
16. The Size of the Question Determines the Size of the Result - Don't limit yourself.
17. You Already Know the Answer - Trust your gut.
18. Be Congruent - You must have three things:  Desire, Belief, and Self-Acceptance that you can be wealthy. If you don't have one of the three, your energy is diffused.
19. You Are a Money Magnet -  You are what you consistently think about. If you're around other money magnets, it rubs off on you. When you are fully congruent, you are irresistible.
20. Knock and it Shall Be Opened - "Whatever you can do, or dream you can, begin it. Boldness has genius, power and magic in it." -J.M. Dent
21. Sharing is Having More - Donate the first 10% of your income to churches or charities.
22. God Knows Where the Gold Is - Test Him, and He will prove it.
23. Destruction is Creation -  Avoid hysteresis (returning to your natural state) and keep the pressure applied. Focus on the future and have it dominate your activities. Have one "off limits" and one "on target" commitment at a time to make and break habits.
24. Putting it All Together - Anyone can learn what to do. It's getting yourself to do it that's hard.

BYU's Football Independence - Planning for the Future

In response to Mick Akers http://bit.ly/jpiGZI

 

I'll give you three quick reasons why BYU had to go independent and why it will help them in the long run:

1)      Recruiting: Both the University of Utah and Brigham Young University focus their recruiting efforts in Utah. With Utah abandoning the MWC to enter the spotlight of the Pac-12 conference, BYU becoming independent and signing a contract with ESPN was key to maintaining its in-state recruiting dominance. If they would have stayed with UNLV and the depleted MWC, Utah would land the big in-state recruits and BYU would be left with the crumbs.

2)      Exposure/Money: BYU has loathed working with the Mountain West Sports Network aka “The Mountain” ever since it’s conception in 2006. The eight year deal with ESPN will increase exposure, the BYU fan base, and revenue. Every game will now be televised on either ESPN or BYUtv (both standard channels with DirectTV, Dish Network, and Cable). If that’s not what every collegiate program wants, I don’t know what is.

3)      Future: As mediocre as you think BYU is, that’s not what the numbers say. In the last five years BYU has posted a 50-15 record, not too shabby. BYU’s independence allows them to choose their opponents and if they’re successful only good things will come of it. So far BYU has deals with Notre Dame, Texas, Georgia Tech, and Boise State. Teams like Nebraska, USC, UCLA, and Ohio State are lining up to play BYU (http://t.co/xbjpvNb). I’m not saying BYU will go undefeated this year, but every journey has its beginning.

It will be interesting to see how this season turns out.

Go Cougs!

One Step Back, Two Steps Forward

There is no doubt about it, we ALL fall short! But more often than not, our most meaningful successes derive from our most difficult challenges.

I just got finished watching BYU’s Jimmer Fredette score 32 points in a losing effort against the New Mexico Lobos…but I’m not worried about the team’s future. Losing might be what the BYU basketball team needs to become and March Madness threat. With the recent Jimmermania sweeping the nation from ESPN spotlights to celebrity tweets, BYU players and fans have been looking to Mr. Fredette to secure the team’s future and bring the game home. That’s a pretty high expectation for any one collegiate athlete to live up to.

Now that BYU has fallen down, they’ll need to pick themselves up and make adjustments to make sure it doesn’t happen again. With a BYU loss, despite a good performance from The Jimmer, the rest of the BYU basketball team has to brush itself off and decide to make a difference.

My father raised me with a mindset of: “If it doesn’t kill you, it’s making you stronger”. Being a competitive person and growing up with a brother who was two years older than me, there were multiple times when I ended up getting thrown to the ground in a game of football or getting smashed while wrestling. But no matter how much I was in pain, my father—instead of coddling me—would ask, “Are you bleeding? Is anything broken?...No, then you’re okay”. Instead of making excuses for me, he challenged me to get better. This made me a better competitor with my brother and an even greater competitor with kids my own age.

Instead of avoiding challenges, think of them as an opportunity to do something amazing. More often than not, you’ll be surprised at how much you CAN DO. To all the “BYUs” out there and kids with older brothers take Mother Theresa advice, "Life is a challenge, meet it." 

P.S. this blog post had nothing to do with my last blog post being in October, my computer must have deleted all my posts  ;)

Yes You Can!

When I was little, I had the privilege of having a mother that would tuck me in every night before I went to sleep. I don’t know if she knows it, but those were some of the most cherished memories of my childhood, it was something I would look forward to each night. It was during that short time each evening when I told Mom everything that was on my mind. Because let’s face it, when you’re a kid there are certain things that you need to know before you go to bed, like why Mufasa had to get trampled by the  wildebeest? Really…why?

But besides the obvious questions, sometimes our conversations went deeper. I remember on various occasions telling Mom that, “I want to DO something GREAT”. I don’t think Mom knew how to respond to such a request, but she would always do the best she could to comfort me and reassure me that I was good at so many things. This answer never seemed to satisfy me…Greatness was all around me, but I never seemed to get a piece of it, what was I doing wrong?!

I’ll tell you what I was doing wrong, I believed greatness was only for special people that were born to wealth, providing them with the opportunities to explore their greatness. I believed greatness was only for the truly gifted individuals, blessed with prodigy like talents. BUT….I was wrong. WAY Wrong!

EVERYDAY ordinary people do extraordinary things; it’s simply a choice they make to BE GREAT!

This blog post is dedicated to all the ordinary people doing extraordinary things. The title, Yes You Can, is the motto of Dick and Rick Hoyt AKA Team Hoyt, two individuals who made themselves extraordinary. If you’ve watched one of the many YouTube videos dedicated to them, you know that their story is one of hope and inspiration.

To get to know Team Hoyt, watch this video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dDnrLv6z-mM

Feel free to visit their website for more information:

http://www.teamhoyt.com/

Aristotle is attributed with writing:

"Excellence is an art won by training and habituation. We do not act rightly because we have virtue or excellence, but we rather have those because we have acted rightly. We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act but a habit."

Ordinary people, Like Dick, Rick, You, and I are inherently GREAT. We are sons and daughters of God, we have godlike abilities. We are, if we CHOOSE, GREAT!

Special thanks to my mom for helping me think about such profound things at such a young age. I love you mom!

DOnt quIT

Does Anyone Read Emerson Anymore!

The single most important word in the English dictionary is “Do”. In a world of mass media: Facebook, Twitter, texting, Skype, cell phones, and a barrage of other social networks and communication devices, we are increasing the means through which we TALK, but these innovations have subsequently turned off our DOING ability.

As a young boy, my parents taught me to be a man of action. Chores were a regular part of my childhood and deep cleaning was the ultimate source of punishment. Fighting with my brother resulted in hours of weeding the rose garden while my other sibling would be sanding the garage preparing it for a good painting. This might have been my parents’ scheme to clean up the house, but I think it was something passed down to them by their parents and the generation before them. The country was built with the sweat and blood of millions of people coming to America looking for something better then they knew.

This country was destined to be the land of leaders. Think about it….in 1492, when the American continent was discovered, the people who came here were those looking for a change, those willing to take a risk, the DOERS of the world. To say the least, the American heritage is one of entrepreneurship, innovation, and creation! Although we are in a time of economic struggle, the world looks to us to see how we’re going to change to make everything better. We have the history and reputation of being excellent, powerful, and accomplishing great things.

So, now I look at the world…well the younger generations especially. I see us just getting by, hoping everything will turn out okay, hoping that the grownups will figure out the world’s problems so we can stay up till 3 in the morning and continue our quest to become a level 70 commander on “Call of Duty” OR so we get back to the TV and finally watch the last 3 episodes of all of our favorite sitcoms - “Biggest Loser”, “Grey’s Anatomy”, “The Office”, “Modern Family”, “The Bachelor”, “Chuck”, AND “Community”. It’s kind of sad….but there are people, a lot of people, whose lives revolve around NOTHING. Because at the end of the day, watching TV and playing games doesn’t motivate YOU or anyone around you accomplish anything!

SO…I outlined the problem, now how about a SOLUTION!!! The truth is there is no easy solution. The solution is DOING, being the person you wish you could become. The first step is always the hardest, but there are a lot of ordinary people who have accomplished a lot of extraordinary things simply by taking one step in the direction of excellence.

Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote, "That which we persist in doing becomes easier for us to do; not that the nature of the thing itself is changed, but that our power to do is increased". Pick one thing that you have been meaning to change in your life. Maybe waking up on time, or not hitting the snooze button five times before you get up, whatever it is, when the time comes to MAKE the decision, don’t think about whether or not you should do….simply DO IT!

Emerson also wrote, “Once you make a decision, the universe conspires to make it happen.”

I know we as individuals are capable of GREAT things! It doesn’t matter what situation we are currently in, it only matters in what direction we’re headed!

DOnt quIT