For Personal Development: The Miracle of Goal Setting – Part 1
When we carefully enumerate our goals for the future, a kind of magic happens. This magic is that of visualization and affirmation, the primary tools in reality creation. This means that in addition to the fact that we have clearly stated our intentions through the action of goal setting, we have also begun to attract the necessary conditions to manifest what we want from the Universe.
Its very unusual for someone to succeed who hasn’t established coherent goals for themselves. From a material perspective alone, it’s necessary to organize the various steps towards success in order to reach that success. Far too often we hold a fuzzy idea of what we would like our future to look like without sitting down and working out what the necessary steps are to achieve it. Sometimes we may feel overwhelmed by the difficulties we perceive in reaching our goals and thereby give up before we start. This isn’t necessary if the process is followed in a methodical fashion.
What if you don’t know what you want in your future? Many people move through life “by accident”. They “progress” by falling from one situation into another. They have no plan and have neglected making conscious choices for their future. There are also people who have had their interests, dreams and choices invalidated by others. These people will often need to have these interests and desires rehabilitated before they can create goals. There’s a process for working that out as well.
The person who is undecided, conflicted or unaware of what they want in their future needs to practice a couple of preliminary steps before actual goal-setting begins.
Keep a dream journal. Keep notes of both your nightly dreams and daydreams. These will often hold the key to where your passion lies, and this of course is what you will want in your future.
List your favorite hobbies. Often we are already doing what we need to be doing in our lives, but not giving these endeavors high enough credibility. These are important. The joyful activities that you participate in are the ones that best express your creativity and thereby, what you need to contribute to the world.
Play imagination games. Design a future for yourself, the best one that you can think of. It doesn’t matter whether this future appears to be “possible” or not, what is important is that it causes your spirits to soar. As you allow yourself to experience your highest joy, you are far closer to your right goal than you may have ever dreamed yourself to be. There is something achievable here and you can have it.
As you work with these methods you should see a trend emerging. There ought to be a similar pattern of activity running through each exercise that will point you toward your right goals. The primary difficulty in this is accepting the truth when you see it. If you have had trouble with determining your life goals, it is very likely that your desires have been repressed or invalidated. This makes it awkward to recognize the truth of our own needs. So, it may be necessary to honestly sit down and face what your inner truth is, whether it conforms to your own or others expectations or not. Effective goal-setting is dependent upon a realistic assessment of your needs and wants, and a conditioned expectation simply won’t do.
One barrier to the acceptance of your dreams and desires can be the assumption that they are impossible. The concept of “impossible” is a mindset to keep you from attempting to attain what you want in life. It has no relevance in fact. I have worked with dozens of people in goal rehabilitation and not one of them who had believed that their goal was impossible, was actually incapable of producing the desired outcome. On many occasions it was incomprehensible how the individual could have believed that their desire was not achievable. The resistance was simply a conditioned, often very emotional response to creating the joy that they truly wanted in life.
Also, there can be fear of personal fulfillment. There can be many reasons for this fear, but frequently it has to do with a sense that one will be isolated in their fulfillment. This occurs because we tend to associate with others who’s sense of personal limitation is similar to our own. So, if they believe that only a certain degree of fulfillment was possible and we exceed that, then they won’t wish to associate with us any longer.
If you are very clear about what your dreams and desires are, then you’re ready to begin the goal-setting process.
Continue > Goal Setting: Part Two
