By this time, you would have forgotten what new year resolution you have set, gone back to work (if you are working) and everything has gone back to before the mayhem of Christmas and New Year and the holidays in between.
Except one. It is still January. The first month of a brand new year and a great time to set a new direction in your life.
But, you might say, “I am sick of setting goals. I don’t achieve them anyway. Why do I have to set goals?”
Maxwell Maltz answered that question sixty years ago. He was a plastic surgeon in the 1950s. He made a scintillating discovery in a new scientific field of his day called Cybernetics. He wrote in the book Psycho-Cybernetics that our “subconscious mind” is not just a mind but a goal-striving servo-mechanism.
He compared it to a torpedo or heat-seeking missile. It needs clear-cut targets to work on. And if you don’t give it one, it will find one.
And that is what I have observed. If I don’t set goals, my mind will find something and go after it full throttle. And it will not be in one particular direction, rather it will go in multiple directions. Leaving me exhausted, unfulfilled, and unhappy in the process.
I like to stay in charge of my mind. I want to lead it rather than it leads me. That’s why I give it things to strive for. That’s why you should have goals.
Purpose Of This Course:
To give you tools and steps to set big bold goals, not just for a year but for life. Goals that will excite you and scare you at the same time. Goals that are inevitable and become the mission of your life.
Three goal-setting mistakes to avoid:
Setting SMART goals.
Setting ‘outcome’ or ‘process’ based goals
Setting means goals.
Let’s have a quick look at these mistakes to give you context.
‘SMART’ way is the wrong way to set goals.
‘SMART’ is a classical goal-setting model we learn in colleges, universities and workplaces but ‘SMART’ is a really dumb way of setting goals
Here is why?
It keeps you average. For instance, take SPECIFIC. You do not want your goals to be specific. Specific goals limit you. They mean, you only attain what you envision that you set them.
You don’t want your goals to be MEASURABLE. Measurable can actually break the flow. There's a better method called the MTO method by Raymond Aaron.
We are taught only to set goals that we think we can ATTAIN. think our goal should be attainable. But that's not actually how some of the greatest minds work. They set big, bold, seemingly unachievable goals and then achieve them.
We think our goal should be RELEVANT to us, but much of what we think is relevant is programmed into us by external sources such as media, society, religion, culture, parents, and peers. Our goals need to come from our souls.
And finally, TIME-BASED. A time-based goal is not necessarily the most efficient way to achieve goals. It compromises quality and inhibits us to change direction. Open goals are bolder and allow synchronicity.
‘Outcome’ and ‘process-based’ goals are rejected by our minds.
We mostly set either outcome-based or process-based goals.
“This year I will lose 10 pounds,” is an outcome-based goal.
“This year I will go to the gym and eat healthily,” is a process-based goal.
Both don’t work. Because “these goals are filtered through our self-image and if inconsistent, are rejected or modified,” said Maxwell Maltz, the writer of ‘Psycho-Cybernetics.’
James Clear, the author of ‘Atomic Habits,’ who has been studying habits and goal setting for more than a decade suggests setting identity-based goals. That’s a better way of setting goals.
Your identity is your self-image chosen for you, by you. The more pride you have in a particular aspect of your identity, the more motivated you will be to maintain the habits associated with it.
“I am the type of person who eats healthy and never misses a workout,” is an identity-based goal.
Set identity-based goals, rather than outcome or process-based goals and you will have a better chance of achieving them.
But they are still a very limiting way of setting goals.
We set ‘means goals’ thinking they will lead us to the ‘end goals.’
Get a certain degree in school.
Make a certain amount of money.
Get a good job.
Purchase a nice car (or a house).
All these are ‘means goals. We often confuse ‘means goals’ with end goals. We choose college majors, career paths, and life paths as if they were ends in themselves when in reality they’re a means to an end.
‘Means goals’ never end. As soon as you achieve one, the bar moves higher, and you end up setting another goal, and another, and another. Each one is more difficult than the previous one, leaving you unfulfilled and disenchanted.
The ‘end goals’ are about fulfilling our potential, experiencing love, traveling around the world, being truly happy, and contributing to the world because doing so gives you meaning, and learning a new skill for the pure joy of it.
They bring you joy in and of themselves, not because they confer any outward label, standard, or value attached by society. Nor are end goals undertaken for the purpose of payment or for material reward.
How to set ‘end goals’ that become a mission in your life.
Very often we set goals based on what is possible for us. But what if you are capable of achieving more? Much more. What if you learn to unlock the power of your unconscious mind, tap into intuition and the Universe and start reaching your goals effortlessly? Will you then set the bar low?
The question is NOT that are you worthy of your goals, the question is are your goals worthy of you? - Bob Proctor.
This is where the course starts.
We will find your goals and mission in life in three steps which I learned from Vishen Lakhiani.
Step 1:
All end goals fall into three different buckets.
Experiences
Growth
Contribution
Experiences
No matter what you believe about humanity’s origins, one thing is clear, we’re here to experience all the world has to offer—not objects, not money, but experiences. Money and objects are there to generate experiences. Experiences give us happiness in the now, a key component of an extraordinary life. We need to feel that daily life holds wonder and excitement to sustain our happiness—which fuels our movement toward our goals.
Growth
Our soul is here to grow. Growth deepens our wisdom and awareness. It may be growth we choose or growth that chooses us. Growth makes life an endless journey of discovery. If you want to make a mark in this world you need a vision of how you want to grow. If you don’t want to leave a mark on the world, you are failing your soul.
Contribution
The third is contribution. It is what we give back from the wealth of our experiences and growth. What we give is the special mark we can make on the world. Giving moves us toward awakening, the highest level of happiness, by providing meaning in our lives, and it is a key component of an extraordinary life.
Think about these three essentials framed as questions.
What experiences do you want to have in this lifetime?
How do you want to grow?
How do you want to contribute?
What do your ideal love relationships look like? How do you communicate, what do you have in common, the activities do you do together, what a day in your life together looks like, what holidays are like, what moral and ethical beliefs do you share, what type of wild passionate sex are you having?
What experiences would you like to share with friends? Who are the friends you’d share these experiences with? What are your ideal friends like? Picture your social life in a perfect world—the people, the places, the conversation, the activities. What does the perfect weekend with your friends look like?
What adventures would you like to experience? What places have you always wanted to see? What adventurous things have you always wanted to do? What kinds of adventures would make your soul sing?
What would your home look like? What would it feel like to come back to this place? Describe your favorite room—what would be in this wonderful space? What would be the most heavenly bed you can imagine sleeping in? What kind of car would you drive if you could have any car you wanted? Now imagine the perfect workspace: Describe where you could do your best work. When you go out, what kinds of restaurants and hotels would you love to visit?
Action Steps:
Set aside half an hour.
Get a sheet of paper, a pen, and some meditative music on your phone.
Get comfortable, close your eyes and sit in a meditative state with meditative music. As you relax and thoughts start floating around in your mind, ask yourself what do you really want to experience in this life. Not achievements, not accolades, not financial gains but experiences. Write down at least one in each category. Don’t think too deeply. Take just 1-2 minutes per category.
Question 2: how do you want to grow?
In order to have the above experiences, how do you need to grow? What sort of man or woman do you need to evolve into? Personal growth is also a goal. When you watch how young children soak up information, you realize how deeply wired we are to learn and grow.
Describe how you want to feel and look every day. What about five, ten, or twenty years from now? What eating and fitness systems would you like to have? What health or fitness systems would you like to explore, not because you think you ought to but because you’re curious and want to?
What do you need to learn in order to have the experiences you listed above? What would you love to learn? What kinds of art, music, or theater would you like to know more about? Remember to focus on end goals—choosing learning opportunities where the joy is in the learning itself, and the learning is not merely a means to an end, such as a diploma.
What skills would help you thrive at your job and what skill would you enjoy mastering? If you’d love to switch gears professionally, what skills would it take to do that? What are some skills you want to learn just for fun? If you could go back to school to learn anything you wanted just for the joy of it, what would that be?
Where are you now spiritually, and where would you like to be? Would you like to move deeper into the spiritual practice you already have or try out others? What is your highest aspiration for your spiritual practice? Would you like to learn things like deep states of meditation, lucid dreaming, or ways to overcome fear, worry, or stress?
Action Step:
Using the same action steps as above set your goals in the four growth categories. How do you need to grow to experience the ‘experiences’ you have set yourself?
Question 3: how do you want to contribute?
If you get to have the above experiences and have grown in these remarkable ways, then how can you give back to the world?
How all of your unique experiences and growth can help you contribute to the world. It doesn’t have to be a big dramatic gesture—it is doing your work to the best of your ability, teaching others, playing the piano at a nursing home, helping rescued animals get adopted, or spearheading a clothing drive at work.
If you want to be happy, make other people happy. - Dalai Lama
In this section, you’re essentially asking yourself:
What are your visions for your career? What level of competence do you want to achieve and why? How would you like to improve your workplace or company? What contribution to your field would you like to make? If your career does not currently seem to contribute anything meaningful to the world, take a closer look—is that because the work is truly meaningless or does it just not have meaning to you? What career would you like to get into?
What creative activities do you love to do or what would you like to learn? It could be anything from cooking to singing to photography (my own passion) to painting to writing poetry to developing software. What are some ways you can share your creative self with the world?
What wonderful experiences would you like to have with your family? Picture yourself being with your family not as you think you “should” be but in ways that fill you with happiness. What are you doing and saying? What values do you want to embody and pass along? What can you contribute to your family that is unique to you?
How would you like to contribute to your community? Your community could be your friends, your neighborhood, your city, state, nation, religious community, or the world community. Looking at all of your abilities, all of your ideas, all of the unique experiences you’ve had that make you the person you are, what is the mark you want to leave on the world that excites and deeply satisfies you?
Action Step:
Using the same action steps as above set your goals in the four contribution categories.
Step 2:
Larry Page, the founder of Google, has a rule in Google called the 50/50 Rule - it encourages the Google employee to set at least half of their goal where they are quite likely to fail. That is how Google
This technique has been instrumental in making Google one of the best companies in the world.
Action Step:
Under each of the three categories (Experience, Growth, and Contribution) set goals that your soul desires but you are less likely to achieve them.
Step 3:
In the third step, you are going to set self-fueled goals. Self-fueled goals are the goals that you can achieve even when you have lost everything( your connections, your money, your home, everything).
An example of such a goal is: “I am surrounded by love.” You could be homeless, and lose your family and friends but if you know your love comes from inside you, will feel loved.
Another example is “I am always learning and growing every day.” You could be homeless and yet can go to the library, check out books and learn and grow.
Action Step:
Under each of the three categories (Experience, Growth, and Contribution) set self-fueled.
Advantages of setting goals in three steps
Your life is not about you. Rather, your life is about the lives of everyone you touch. When you make your life about the lives of everyone you touch, you will never wake up feeling anxious or worried, or stressed again.
You must adopt this philosophy so powerfully that when you walk into a room, your intention should be to heal the room. You should pretend as if you are chosen by the universe, to fix the world to heal the world to enhance the world.
I want you to make that intention now. Close your eyes right now. Ask yourself a question, how will I light up someone's day today?
Here are my goals.
Notice how these goals are non-specific, non-measurable, challenging, and not timebound. They excite me and scare me at the same time. They are like a life mission. I don’t need to set new goals each year. I need to take baby steps toward them and invoke the power of the universe and my own intuition guides me towards them.
Homework:
Your homework this week is to write and frame your goals.
Next week I am going to teach you strategies to achieve them.
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