What Have You Set Your Sights On For This Year?

I love the idea of ‘setting your sights” on something.  It’s not just “I know what I want”, it’s “I’ve seen what I want and it’s constantly in my focus.”  That person who has their sites set will most likely do significantly better, than the person who only ‘knows’ what they want.

I’d love to tell you how to, not only set your sights on something but also to massively increase the odds of obtaining your goals.  Yes!  We are talking about Goal Setting.

 “If you want to be happy, set a goal that commands your thoughts, liberates your energy and inspires your hopes.”

—Andrew Carnegie

First off, in case you did not already know, one of the most important steps ion goal setting is to WRITE THEM DOWN.  If you don’t take any other of my advice, please take this - write your goals down!  Not type them in or dictate them, write them down! There’s a lot of evidence that goals written down have much more of a chance of being obtained or achieved than goals not written down.  As a matter of fact, Brian Tracey says that you can write 10 goals down at the beginning of the year and put them away in a drawer and not look at them again, and you will probably achieve 8 out of 10.

 “The trouble with not having a goal is that you can spend your life running up and down the field and never score.”

—Bill Copeland

That sounds incredible but I’ve seen it.  I’ve experienced it. - One year, while I was running my consulting business which I was fully engaged in.  (I was on a plane every Monday morning and returning every Friday night or Saturday morning, just to do it again on Monday.)  I was traveling 90% of the time and it was tough, not only on me but the entire family. Before the end of the year, I wrote my goals for the year. One of them was that I would be off the road by June 15.  I folded the goals up and put them away.

The following year, as I was about to reset my goals, I pulled out that paper.  I was amazed because that June I finally had enough consultants working where I could come off the road and was given an office in my Customer’s building, which was 20 min from my home.  This was incredible.

There are some secrets to significantly increase the odds of getting or achieving goals. A lot of it is in the creation or formation of your goals.  A lot of you may be thinking, “No! The key is to take action!” While you probably have little or no chance of obtaining a goal if you don’t take action, you probably have less chance of getting what you really want, if your goal is not properly set, even if you do take action.

Another thing to know about goal setting is that you should always state your goal in the positive. That would seem to be natural, but sometimes we focus so much on getting rid of something, leaving something, or stopping something that we don't like, that we focus only on the negative.  If that is the primary intention of your goal, think of what you’d want to do instead and form your goal around that.

When creating your goal, you want to form the statement of your goal so it is as compelling as possible.  When you read your goal it should sound like something you really want and motivate you to move towards it.  

The model of SMART Goals will help us even further. While this acronym may sound cute, it is actually quite ‘smart’ (huh huh).  What it stands for is actually quite smart. (Is that better?)

• Specific - be specific about what you want.  “I want to drop a lot of weight.” is not specific.  Do you know what a lot is? How will you know when you’ve dropped that amount?  How will you even know when you’re getting close? “I want to drop 35 lbs.” or “I want to get to 165 lbs.” would be much more appropriate.
• Measurable - Your goal should be something you can measure, so you know if you are advancing to it and how fast or slow.   If your writing a book and your goal is to finish it, you should be able to measure, on a weekly or monthly basis, how many pages that have been written to know how far you’ve gotten to the finished # of pages that you set.
• Achievable and As If Now - Achievable - Is this something you could or should be able to achieve?  Have others achieved this or something similar? For years motivational speakers and authors have said, “shoot for the moon and be happy when you get to the clouds”.  The idea of setting big goals is appealing and much better than setting goals that you know you’ll most likely get anyway.  You should stretch yourself, and go for something worthwhile and something you’ll have to put effort and work towards, but not something lofty like making 10 million dollars this year when the most you’ve ever made is 50K. As If Now  -  This simply means to form your goal as if you’ve already obtained it.  This is a fantastic mind-hack.  The old way which started with “I will …” or “I want …” are not that effective.  Though ‘I will’ is much stronger than ‘I want’, both create imagery of you lacking your goal.  The mind works so much better if you can ‘see’ what you will do or what you want to happen. Forming your goal like you’re already there, is so powerful.  “I do weigh 165 lbs” or “I have made 100K” are very powerful as they force an image, either consciously or subconsciously.
• Relevant - (sometimes listed as Realistic but Achievable covers most of what Realistic would be)  Is your goal relevant to you and what you are doing in life? Is it in line with other goals?  Will it help other objectives in your life? Being relevant may prevent some of us from making too many goals.  We could get carried away. Ask yourself, “Is this really releva\nt to where I want to go and who I want to be right now?”
• TimeBound - Set a timeframe that you would like to have the goal accomplished.  This is critical and sets this type of goal setting apart from the typical ‘I want to lose a few pounds’ goals. Set a realistic time frame.  If it is weight loss, dropping 35 lbs in 1 month is not realistic or healthy. You certainly can make goals that will require hard work, aggressive, but stay away from near impossible.  Again, think of it being Achievable.

The SMART Goal model has been around for a long time and varies a little in the acronym meaning.  If you stick to the basics, you will write great goals.

“All successful people have a goal. No one can get anywhere unless he knows where he wants to go and what he wants to be or do. ” —Norman Vincent Peale

Let’s step it up a notch.  Having written your goal (on paper) as a positive compelling goal that is specific, measurable, achievable, relevant and timebound, you have done most of the work.  You may have something that sounds like this. “It’s December 1st, and I have made an incredible amount of $145,000 for the year!” or “It’s July 1 and I am down to 165 lbs, having lost 30 lbs in the last 3 months and I feel great!”

Now to ‘Set Your Sights’ on your goal.  Ask yourself what would be absolute proof that you’ve obtained the goal.  If it has to do with weight, would you be on a scale looking at the magic number or would you be getting into an outfit that you have not fit in for years?  If it is a financial goal, how would you know that you got there? Would you be looking at your bank statement or your financial books?

I had a client that had a specific outcome for a very critical upcoming meeting.  His thought of proof was that he’d be leaving with a big grin on his face. He did the visualization I am about to describe, and he later took a selfie of himself leaving the meeting with that big grin on his face.  He got his desired result.

Last step - Visualization.  

1. Take this image of absolute proof that you have obtained your goal.  You may be alone or with others If you want, put a calendar in the background with the date circled.  Look at the image. Do you look like you’ve just achieved this goal? Make it so you are looking thrilled, excited or whatever you will feel when you do achieve this goal.  (If you’ve just achieved a big, worthwhile goal, you should look like you have.)
2. Step into the picture.  Step into you in the picture.  See what you’ll see, hear what you’ll hear, and feel what you’ll when you achieve this goal.  Make it vivid and compelling. Enjoy the feeling.
3. Step back out, looking at you in the picture again.  Make it bigger and brighter in your mind. Say to yourself, “Lock this in!” while hearing the sound of a padlock. 

Now think about your goal.  Is it more assured in your mind?  Does it feel like this will not be a problem?  Does it feel like it’s already happened? It varies but you have just imprinted your goal into your future.  You can now keep it in your sight till it comes to be.

There is nothing that absolutely guarantees that you will achieve your goal, but the above process will greatly increase your odds of doing so.

Create some goals which will help, not only yourself but others as well.  Help make the world around you a better place.

Kevin Martin is an author, speaker, coach, and hypnotherapist. To find out more about Kevin and his coaching services, go to www.poseffects.com.