GOAL SETTING

Do not be discouraged by other people's reactions to your goals. When I was reaching for the goal of winning the title of Mrs. Utah, I had a hard time visualizing myself wearing a crown and banner. The quickest way to achieve a goal is to make it closer to your comfort zone. Taking the idea from the previous winner of the Mrs. Utah title, I drove to her house. With pageant dress and her crown and banner and holding her trophy, I got 5 or 6 pictures of myself as if I had really become Mrs. Utah. I placed the photos strategically near the places I frequented: My dresser, the bathroom mirror, the refrigerator and the car. We have one of those houses where people come in abundance, everyone from church and civic friends to basketball players. One of my husbands' friend's saw the photo on the refrigerator. Surprised, he said, "I didn't know your wife was Mrs. Utah". "Well," my husband explained, "She really isn't but she has a goal and wanted to visualize it." The friend got quite a laugh from this and with great restraint fought the urge to jest about it.

Other's reactions were doubt, intrigue, and questions. Comments were "Oh really?, how (pause) interesting," and "You really think it will work? Well, good luck!" with quite an air of unbelief. Well, after winning the title we received comments from the same people. "How exciting, I knew you could do it," and "Well, gee, why didn't you tell me it was such a big deal, I would have been there," and "How did that work again? I'd like to try it." Nevertheless, many of my friends now have photos of them achieving their goals on their refrigerators. So don't worry what other people think of your goals, just prove it by doing it!

Many positive thinking books will suggest writing down every goal right down to the tiniest detail, then read them every day. When I wrote down my goals it took up many pages...Now I hardly have time to read my scriptures daily let alone many goal pages so the goal pages just sat in my journal...until one day...

When I was a school teacher I'd have my class do art projects called collages. This is where we find pictures in magazines and paste them on a poster. One day I was thinking about a quote I'd heard about a picture being worth a thousand words and thought perhaps I could make a collage of the goals I should see each day.

I started collecting magazines and cut out pictures of the possessions, talents, and goals that I wanted to achieve. Each picture meant something perhaps no one else would understand. Then I formed a collage of my goals on a poster board and hung it in my bedroom. One picture I cut out was a small picture of some cheerleaders being presented a huge trophy by two guys.

Since I was the advisor of a group of college cheerleaders, I thought that would be a worthwhile goal, so I put it on the poster and forgot all about it. As time passed it became time for the cheerleaders and yell leaders to go to a summer cheer camp.

I had a good squad that year. Two of the yell leaders had formerly been with the circus and one of the girls had taken state in gymnastics. I'm a perfectionist by nature and so we re-worked all the routines over and over again until all their moves matched.

At the conclusion of the camp, Ford Motor Foundation came and announced that they were sponsoring a competition. They began bringing out all these huge trophies. We had not been aware that a competition would be taking place so we just did our best as we entered our place in competition. We were only a two year college and realized that we were up against many well-known four year colleges, so we didn't expect to place or win anything.

At the conclusion of the contest we listened and clapped as they called out the various college winners. Soon they announced the last trophy winner, "Utah Valley Community College!" Other squads turned around and asked "Who?" The squad just jumped up and down excitedly as I snapped away and took pictures with my camera.

Later as the photos were developed I was sorting through them in my bedroom. I came to one photo and stopped. I looked up at the goal chart-and the photo was exactly the same as the one I'd taken after the competition. The trophy was identical and the same two guys were the ones who presented it to us. Wow! I felt like I was in the Twilight Zone.

So, be careful what you ask for. You get it...EXACTLY!!

Many friends and family have since tried goal posters and it has been interesting to note all of them to date have achieved that which was in the lower right hand section first and seemed to work its way up. I don't know how consistent that will be, but I've got my long range goals upon the top 3 other sections and shorter range goals down in that lower section.

Goal posters seem to be effective. You can feed those suggestions to your subconscious mind daily. This should start the positive forces in your mind moving you towards their reality as it incorporates itself into your comfort zone.

Here are some questions to ask yourself...What will be your contribution to society? Have you wonderful ideas, a Strong heritage, a specific work, a positive attitude, the ability to persevere?

All these are very important contributions. What are yours? Define them on paper, and write them down.

Our quest is not to live a life and barely get by, small effort gives us small rewards. You have a great, a good and a mighty work to perform. You were meant to be. So be. Work harder than the typical or average and you can and will see success. The more you learn, the better you will do. It is a continuous cycle. So start pedaling!

Become who you truly are...Seek always the highest degree of life.

If you try to live without definite goals it will be like trying to build a house without a blue print. Spend whatever organized thinking time is necessary. If you put in hours of time to organize your goals, it can save you hours, weeks, days and possibly years of direction-less wandering or working in the wrong direction.

Preparing for a high school class reunion, the committee sent a form to fill out to former classmates of the things they were now doing, had done, and were planning on doing in the future. One former student had replied "undecided" to the future plans questions. Looking back in the yearbook his future plans had also been listed as "undecided." Needless to say he won the award for doing exactly what he'd planned on doing back in high school.

Some people are afraid to make goals; especially big goals, because of the competition. If your goal is worthwhile, it will attract worthwhile people. You must wear blinders and look straight ahead to what it is you want. It is time consuming and senseless to compare to others. The comparison process will affect most of your preparation time and will rob the precious thought process that should be conserved for your goal.

Accomplishing and sharing your talents and best character traits with others allows you to thank your Creator for the gifts you were innately blessed with.

If you give someone a gift and they abuse it, lose it or never use it, you will not want to share with them again. Each of us is bestowed with God-given talents and abilities. If you magnify the ones you now possess and use them wisely you can be assured that God will want to give you more. Soon you will discover other talents and abilities that you did not think you had.