For Personal Development: The Miracle of Goal Setting – Part 2
In Part 1 of this series we examined what needs to happen in order to gain clarity on our needs and desires. We’re going to be looking at translating these into solid goals for the future. This is vitally important to provide a coherent direction for our future and to metaphysically magnetize the Universe to co-operate with our visualizations.
At this stage clear descriptions are necessary. All that has to be done is to take each goal and list its qualities. If its a better job for instance, describe what it’s like. What does your day look like, how is your office furnished, what do you get to do that’s fun and interesting? All of these factors should be described. I suggest that you use a separate piece of paper for each goal. That way you can add to it later if you wish.
You are assembling your visual image for the goal as you do this and will begin magnetizing the necessary situations to come together for you as you write them down. As the image gains clarity and depth you have the opportunity to “own” these factors. It will feel more tangible and do-able.
A key aspect of goal setting is intention. Intention is the decision to do something and then doing it. We exercise our intention on a daily basis. Whenever we decide what we’re going to do with our day and then do that, we have created and exercised our intention. Goal setting requires this sort of mind-set. This is somewhat different from a wish list, though the same items may be there.
The intention that must be employed in goal setting is that of knowing that you have created definite steps towards achievement and will carry them out. So far we’ve been working up to this. I’ve found that if we utilize our creativity in the process, we have far more control over the outcome. I suspect that as you’ve been assembling your thoughts and making your descriptions of your goals, ideas have been coming to you of certain steps you can take for the achievement of some of them.
Some of the steps to take for a given goal are obvious. Make another sheet of paper for each goal. Scribble the things you need to do for their achievement on each page as the ideas come to you. At this stage it doesn’t matter so much if they’re in the proper sequence, as long as they’re written down. Don’t be concerned if there are some goals that you haven’t got a clue about how to go about making happen. We’ll get to those. Meanwhile, fill in your second sheet of paper with the steps you need to take. Here are some examples of steps you might need to take for your new job:
Sign up for a relevant night class.
Update your resume.
Research the firms you’d like to be part of.
For these tangible goals and for some of the goals that are more ethereal, there’s an additional step that will aid in magnetizing the Universe to manifest your desire. This step involves a personal reconstruction. For example, if you’ve been working as a landscaper your working wardrobe is considerably different from what it will be as a New Age seminar leader. Instead of spending your free time on “beer with the boys” you will be meeting others in coffee shops for philosophical discussions, attending meetings, practicing public speaking, etc. If you were to begin making these alterations to your lifestyle now, inserting some of them into your existing life, very interesting results can occur. In metaphysics this is called “acting as if”. This means that we are acting as if our goal were already fulfilled. This is a powerful technique to goal fulfillment and notes for this should be included in your “goal setting steps page”.
Some of your goals may exceed your grasp far enough that you may have no idea at all of how to implement them. Usually these are less tangible goals, such as “raise my IQ”, or “release any tendencies towards self-sabotage”. I think of goals like this as “hound dog goals”. This means that sometimes you just have to sniff out the answers. For instance if you want to be smarter, then sniff out intelligence. Lurk in a mensa chat room. Sit in the library for a few hours. Just as an old hound dog might do, go to where you sense intelligence is happening and breathe it in. Let it inspire you. You’ll find ideas coming to you. You’ll intuit other places to go, people to ask, references to look up that will propel you a bit further in achieving your goal. Yes, this is going at it blind. But this sort of activity will take your goal out of the realm of wishful thinking and give you something tangible to do about it. This is important if you truly want to manifest your desire and will set you on the track to doing something about it. For example, you may learn that you can take a speed-reading course, avoid all intoxicants and take herbs to sharpen your mental acuity. As you do these, other possibilities will come to you.
So, get your sheets of paper together and fill them in. Remember, one sheet of paper to fully describe what “living your goal” will look like, and a second one to list the steps to its achievement.
