Getting What You Want vs. What You “Need”

By Chris Pappalardo

Happy July everyone, can you believe we are halfway through 2024? So, let me ask you? How is your year so far? Are you on track to accomplish what you wanted this year? Behind? Ahead? Did you make goals for 2024? Now is a great time to take a few minutes and look at the goals you set for yourself and see how you are doing? If you didn’t make any goals, let’s create some! If we don’t have goals, how will we know if we are on track or not? Now, if you are like most of us, life has happened this year and you haven’t accomplished as much as you had hoped. So who wants to change this non-goal, not-feeling-accomplished situation? This is when you should raise your hand and/or nod your head YES! Why not, you have nothing to lose.

What separates highly successful people vs people who “get through the day” is they have written goals and they review them daily or weekly at least. They don’t lose sight of why they get up everyday. There are many studies that have proven that people who write down goals have a 72% higher chance of hitting them. Just by writing them down once. Imagine how much you would achieve if you reviewed them everyday.

2nd important key, write down what you WANT not what you need. Goal setting is about dreaming and imagining. It isn’t very inspiring to wake up everyday to make just enough

to pay your bills. Does that thought make you want to jump out of bed and get going? No it likely does not. If you say to yourself any of the negative self-talk such as: I don’t deserve what I want, I don’t have time to think about what I want or I have never thought about what I want or other people get what they want, not me. Relax, take a deep breath. You can be a master at goal setting for your wants and desires instead of needs in a matter of minutes.

How great would it feel if in thirty minutes you had one year, three year, five year and ten year goals for things you want? Plus, you can review them AND change your mind if you think of better goals later. Yes, you heard me, you can change your mind. First, get a notebook of some sort to write in. You will want to keep this list. If you don’t have a notebook, find a blank piece of paper. You are going to want to use physical paper and pen or pencil, not your computer if possible.

Are you ready? Are you really ready to focus on what you want instead of what you need?

? ? ? 1) Sit in a quiet place where you won’t be distracted AND do this alone!!!

? ? ? 2) Set a timer for 15 minutes (every phone has a timer in the clock/alarm setting)

? ? ? 3) Start writing down everything you want, no need for details yet. Example, you

want a very specific new car, write down ‘new car’. We will fill in details later in

another step. Struggling to think of what you want ask yourself these questions:

• where do you want to go?
• who do you want to see?
• what do you want to accomplish?
• health goals?
• spiritual goals?
• financial goals?
• what things do you want to own?
• who do you want to help?
• do you want to pay off your student loans?
• Financial freedom?
• cleaning service for your home?

Just keep writing anything that pops into your mind. Anything you think you might want, write it down. Don’t stop writing until your timer goes off.

? ? ?4) Once the timer goes off, you're going to do a very important step. Write down a number beside each item you wrote. The numbers you will use are "1, 3, 5 and 10". Write a "1" beside every goal you want to achieve in one year, a 3"" beside every goal you want to achieve in three years, a "5" beside every goal you want to achieve in five years, a "10" beside every goal you want to achieve in ten years.

Don’t think! Just guess, trust your gut. Write a "1, 3, 5 or 10" beside every item. This should take no more than a minute or two.

? ? ?5) Now look at the list, Ask the questions, Do you have a lot of one year goals and not very many ten year goals? Do you have a lot of ten year goals and very few one year goals? Is the list balanced? What time frames have the most and the least number of goals? We want enough in each category to keep us dreaming and living in the current moment.

? ? ?6) Circle your top 3 one year goals, three year goals, five year goals and ten year goals (you should have a total of twelve goals when finished circling).

? ? ?7) Last step!!!! On another piece of paper transfer the twelve goals and write a bit more detail about each one so you can see, hear and feel having achieved them.

Congratulations! You now have a list you can review every day and every week. Can you do one thing each day, just one, that moves you towards any of these goals? And if you were to accomplish just one thing each day, that moves you towards your goals, how would that feel? How would it feel to know no matter how busy you are, you did a little something for you to move you forward. It could be a 10 minute activity or thought. It doesn’t have to be much. AND if you don’t know what to do, simply read your goals every night before bed and every morning when you wake up AND your subconscious mind will think of actions for you to do. Please try this. Take control of your time bit by bit. Keep what you want in front of you and you will stay on track and even if you don’t hit your goals, do you think you will still be closer to reaching them than before? Of course you will!