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by Judi Singleton ================== ABOUT THE AUTHOR ================== Judi Singleton is the webmistress of Jassmine.com and Gotojassminesitenow.com, and the owner of Jassmine's Journal . She was a counselor for 20 years. You can receive her inspirational newsletter, Jassmine's Journal, by sending an email today to jassminejournal-subscribe@yahoogroups.com ========================================================================================== The person with a fixed goal, a clear picture of his desire, or an ideal always before him, causes it, through repetition, to be buried deeply in his subconscious mind and is thus enabled, thanks to its generative and sustaining power, to realize his goal in a minimum of time and with a minimum of physical effort. Just pursue the thought unceasingly. Step by step you will achieve realization, for all your faculties and powers become directed to that end. -- Claude M. Bristol We all have dreams and desires but if we do not know how to go about achieving them they are nothing but pipedreams. But with a clear plan in mind one can turn the pipe dreams of today into the reality of tommorow. In life, we need reasons for what we do. Goals keep us from just reacting to what's going on around us. Goals can inspire and motivate. They help us make our life happen rather than letting it happen. Most of all, Goals produce results. There are three main points to goal setting:
2. Reinforcing your goal 3. Tracking, Measuring and assessing progress In this article we will look at each one of these steps and access how they work. All around us the internet is changing. Because of the so called recession, everyone is starting to charge for what once was free for the taking. Every site had free stuff. Some still do, but, for example, I had a free list at Listbot and now they are charging. I was quite happy with my site and thought about staying with them even if they charged. However my small ezine is not in a financial postion to pay the prices that Listbot will charge. So what to do? Why are people charging for everything that was free? The media tells us that stocks for dot.com's are down. All around us dot.com's are failing. So if this little ezine was to survive I needed to get a really good map of where I was going. Well, I am a person who dreams the impossible dream -- always have and always will. I have been told since I was a child that I was a dreamer. Well I am, and as I said, will always be but the difference between my dreams and some others I talk to is that I accomplish them. Believing that I can accomplish anything I set out to do and I deserve success is the first step in accomplishing any goal. How did I get this belief in myself? Partly because to my parents I was the "apple of their eye." They believed I could do anything including fulfill their unfulfilled dreams. I never did do that but I have fulfilled a lot of my own dreams. So with experience behind me I learned that if I stay focused, I can accomplish the impossible dream. So why should a little recession or other dot.com's going down influence my little ezine? One thing I don't do is listen to the media much even though as an ezine owner I am part of that media. I need to stay focused, and that is why I do not listen to negative input from people or the media; it just breeds fear and fear never accomplishes anything. So I go apart in my own little world and I dream my impossible dream. If I want to know where I am going I must have a clear picture of where I want to be in the next year, five years and beyond that. Life is for living and I intend to live fully until I die. I find that getting away from the computer and writing down my goals helps me. I personally have to sort through wants and desires, and values to define where I want to be. This step can't be vague. One has to be like that little child at Christmas that knows what she wants, that doll, that bike. Often when I am meditating on goals I try and recapture that feeling of childhood where I could feel myself playing with that pretty doll, brushing her hair, or riding that bike, wind in my hair. Wanting this one thing more than anything, thinking I would die without it. This is the kind of feeling you have to have for what you want before you write your goal. Then the next step is to weed out the wants, desires, brought on by what others say you should want and by family programming of what you should be doing. Well-meaning friends and family often make suggestions. But this is your goal and you need to draw upon your unique dream to pull out this goal. This is a process that can take weeks to or months achieve, but don't get discouraged that things are not moving fast enough. This is a really important step because this is the basis of your map of getting what you want in life. One of the common pitfalls at this stage is to be in a all or nothing frame of mind. I want all of this now not later! It is important to set goals that are medium term and easily recognizable so one can say to themselves, "Yes, I am on my way because I have accomplished this goal. Now on to the next one." Another pitfall might be to set goals that disrupt everything else in your life. So look at this carefully. What would you do if you had no obstacles to doing anything you want in life. Believe in yourself you can do it. Don't be a perfectionist if everything doesn't go just as you plan and give up. This all or nothing kind of thinking has no room in this plan. You are developing a plan that is uniquely yours, that will make you desire having it just as you did that Christmas doll. Also, choose who you share your goal with carefully as it is fragile, not yet manifested and of this world, and can easily be smashed. There is a time to share with others, but not yet. Solidify it on paper; this brings it as a real thing into the real world. So now in the next few weeks or months you will know where you are going and why you are going there. You no longer are lost in the forest. You soon will be able to draw a clear map. Next week I will write on the clear map. How not to buy a ticket to Seattle when it is San Francisco you long for. Remember -- dream the impossible dream. |