If you want to get anything substantial achieved in life, meet your goals or grow as a human being, you’ve got to have a plan in place. But not just any plan. A realistic, sustainable, executable plan with the energy and support to make it happen.
Whether that’s a New Year’s resolution, a new business plan or a healthy new lifestyle change – there are ways to make your goals more achievable. Here are six of my favorites that I use whenever I’m taking on a new project, a new lifestyle upgrade or working on manifesting a crazy big dream (which is pretty often these days):
1. Create three to five top level goals
It’s easy to get carried away with creating a huge list of goals. I used to create a manifestation list at the beginning of every New Year filled with 20-30 goals for the year. Needless to say, it’s cumbersome, intimidating and a bit, well, overwrought! Starting with three to five top level goals to focus on is a LOT more manageable and allows you to create a clear, executable action plan for each one. Examples of big top level goals would be: get a 15% raise at work, travel to Japan, buy a new car for my birthday, start my new business by October, etc. I think there’s a good balance of specificity and openness when writing your goals down. You don’t want to be too general so as to not hold yourself accountable for taking action, yet you don’t want to be too specific to restrict the manifestation of something even better coming down the pipeline. Play with your list, edit if necessary, and then place your list of goals/manifestations at your desk and/or meditation area.
2. Move backwards from the Ultimate Manifestation Point (UMP)
When we set goals, it can sometimes feel so huge, so vast, so megalithic, that we don’t even know where to start. Well, starting from the end (the UMP) can be a great way to envision how to backtrack your steps and create an action plan from there. A valuable way to accomplish this is to contact any potential mentors or avatars in your field and ask them how they manifested their dreams. If you don’t have the courage (or avenues) to contact them, research their stories online. You can pattern your strategy from people that have already accomplished what you want to. While your personal path to success will always be different from everyone else’s, it’s still important to get a birdseye view of the roadmap that other people used so you can potentially model your action plan from that.
3. Get clear on your strengths (and weaknesses)
When you’re starting anything from scratch, it can be really easy to take on too many responsibilities and burn yourself out. This is not a sustainable path to success. While sometimes necessary to get your new business, creative project or lifestyle off the ground – it’s really important to get clear about your personal strengths and weaknesses. Nobody can (or should) do it all. If you want to achieve big success, you’ll have to scale eventually. And to scale, you need to give up control and delegate to capable people who you trust. For example, I know my big strengths are being on camera, writing and edutaining (educating and entertaining). When it comes to website building, or launching a new online product or video editing, I work with highly skilled professionals who know how to execute better than I do. There’s a great saying from Steve Jobs that I always keep in mind here, “Be the best you can be, and work to surround yourself with people who are even better.”
4. Surround yourself with people who know more than you
This is an extension of some of the points from above. In summary… if you’re the smartest person in the room, then you’re in the wrong room. Always seek out people who are further along on the path than you are. You can learn from their lessons, their victories and their hardships. It’s so important to surround yourself in a community of like-minded people with the same goals, intentions and dreams to support one another’s continual growth and evolution. Don’t be afraid to ask people for support. You may be shocked to find that you get a response from some of your biggest heroes or mentors (see point #5 below!)
5. Don’t be afraid to ask for exactly what you want
Fear is one of the biggest things that holds you back from achieving your goals. Fear of not being worthy, fear of failure, fear of success… but specifically I want to address the fear of asking for exactly what you want. Here’s what I’ve found: if you don’t ask, you don’t receive. So many times we want to send an email reaching out for support or mentorship, but we don’t do it. Usually because we listen to the voice in our heads that says, “I’m nobody. Why the hell would they respond to me?” Here’s the thing: your desire for growth, success and contentment has to be greater than your fear and self-imposed limitations. If you can being to shift your mental attitude to “No matter what it takes, I’m accomplishing this goal” you will access the courage and inner resources to make it happen. First you need to get clear on exactly what you want. Second you need to make your desire greater than your fear. Third you need to ask for what you want until you get a “yes!” Don’t be discouraged. Keep asking and play the law of averages. Eventually the door will open.
6. Believe it to see it!
The old adage, “I’ll believe it when I see it”, is, well, old. It’s too cynical and jaded to be effective. Instead of waiting for the physical evidence to appear in your life, align your energy and your mind to be in your desired state of being already. For example, you can wait until you have a certain amount of money in the bank to feel wealthy and abundant – or – you can align yourself with the energy of being present to the abundant that already exists in your life. The phrase “without vision, the people perish” comes to mind here – that when you have a vision, a dream, a primary focus driving you forward in life, you can create an internal state of being that will eventually mirror your outer circumstances. Wealth, success, contentment and joy are all an inside job. Instead of waiting for the right circumstances, people, job or account balance – practice aligning your mind and your emotions with the state of being that you want. Not only will you feel better as you work toward your life goals – your vibration and energy will attract that which you desire a lot faster!
