Tag Archive for: Mindset

5 Mistakes Most People Make When Setting Goals

Most of us know that setting goals is critical to achieving what we want in life. But what a lot of us don’t understand is how to set goals…and to stick with them!

Here are the top 5 mistakes most of us make when we set goals…and how to avoid them.

1. The goals are too broad or vague – really big goals are more like “dreams.” Actual goals are much smaller and they are baby steps to be taken to achieve something much bigger (the dream). And that’s where most of us go wrong. We know what we want the end result to be (start a business) but we don’t build each step into our daily lives. So, life goes on and months or years go by and we still haven’t started our business. Once we know the desired end result, we should begin to break that down into actionable steps and then take those actions. Next, we can do something every week (or even every day) to take a little step toward the dream. Momentum comes from taking small, frequent actions.

2. Deadlines are unrealistic – we may have big dreams and want to be really aggressive to achieve them. This might work for some people but, for others, it will just overwhelm them and cause the budding entrepreneur to jump ship. It’s important to set realistic deadlines that can be met under almost any circumstance. We must take into account our other commitments and responsibilities when setting deadlines. We’ll see more achievement with steady (or even slow) progression than if we get overwhelmed and don’t take action at all.

3. We don’t change our thinking – When we’re trying to accomplish goals, we must change our mindset to picture what life will be like when we reach the goal and achieve the dream. If we only look at the way things are now, we aren’t inspired to continue. We’ll get dragged down and give up on the end prize. In order to change our thinking, we must find people and things that inspire us. We must surround ourselves with those people and things that offer us encouragement so we can have enough fuel to endure the trip. Keeping a “dream board” where we have our big goals posted in words or pictures is a great way to keep our eyes looking forward. Building a strong network of like-minded people that can provide support is critical to keep us motivated.

4. We listen to “nay-sayers” – Not everyone will be as enthusiastic about our new ventures as we are. Some people will try to sabotage us and get us to stop thinking big. We must stop listening to these negative people and sometimes this means limiting our interaction with them about our new business plans. This doesn’t mean we can’t love them and spend time with them (they might be good friends or even family members) but it does mean that we not let their negativity cloud our vision. It may not be that they want us to fail, they may just fear change. It’s up to us to shut out the negativity and continue on our path. This is another reason why it is crucial that we surround ourselves with a team of positive supporters that want nothing more than to see us succeed on our journey.

5. We don’t have a plan – Without a plan, we will most certainly never reach our goals or our dreams. We will continue to let life happen rather than making life happen. When we have a solid plan of action, we are way more likely to take the steps toward achievement. Many goal-setting gurus will tell you to write your goals down every single day, by hand. This is a great way for you to start the day thinking about the bigger picture. You can then define the actionable steps you can take TODAY to move toward the goal. Some days that step might be to make a couple of phone calls or listen to a CD program…other days it may mean something much bigger.

Set the goal, make the plan, get to work, stick to it, and you will reach the goal.

Unlocking Your Potential

Money & you potential

Unlocking Your Potential

by David Womack

We are locked into thought patterns that were formed during our compulsory attendance at life’s, “School of Hard Knocks”. In places where we already have one of these thought patterns installed, it is almost impossible to learn anything new. The new idea we have can not get into the place where it will fit because that place is already occupied.

For example, sometimes we try and merge the old pattern with the new into an unhappy marriage. The old ideas are often locked in place by pain or painful emotion, giving one a mindset that seems to be carved in stone. In areas where we have one of these grooves in our thinking we can not learn, grow or change. We try to overlay our old ideas on the new ones without fully examining and discarding the old ones first. When we get under stress we either revert back to the old ideas and patterns or we become paralyzed with indecision, because the two ideas can not be reconciled.

For example: If school was arduous and stressful there will be many areas later in life that inhibit our success in business and life.

Example 1:

Joe was teased relentlessly at school as a youngster. This ruined his concentration, made him very unpopular and his grades suffered. Of course that earned him a beating from his dad who believed that you can and should try to knock some sense into childrens’ heads. In later years, whenever Joe had to study something he felt scared and humiliated before he even began to study it.

He concluded he had an unsolvable study problem. With this conclusion he limited himself to work that required little or no book learning. This put a considerable cramp in his lifestyle. He had to depend on others for many things, for example accounting.

This in itself would not have been so bad, but he felt inadequate to even oversee the work. This left him at the mercy of unscrupulous accountants and employees and lacking trust. Working hard but not succeeding, eventually Joe gave up being in business and took a job where he did not have to deal with any of these headaches.

Example 2:

Mary had a fear of offending others that stemmed from an abusive childhood where any hint of self willed action was severely punished by her overprotective parents. This resulted in her having a very shy and timid personality. Mary would take no action that she thought might cause an upset.

She opened a flower shop with 2 employees whom she relied upon to make all the decisions for her. This worked for awhile, but they also made decisions about how much they should be paid and were rather generous with the flowers to the point the shop rapidly became insolvent. Mary observed what was going on, but could not make herself say no to them. Fortunately, she married a fellow who could – and did – say no. This action helped reverse the situation.

However, Mary felt dreadful when her employees became upset, therefore causing her to nag her husband for being so harsh with the employees. Of course this made him feel she did not appreciate his efforts to save her bacon and, subsequently, their marriage suffered. Her driving need to be liked and be safe from attack made her quite incompetent to lead or even allow another to lead in a decisive manner. Ironically, due to her obsessive desire to placate others she alienated the one person who loved her the most and was most important to her happiness.

Example 3:

Colin, through his successes as an athlete, had learned that you can always succeed if you just overwhelm the opposition with more effort and forcefulness. This worked very well in sports, but was not as successful selling insurance. When he saw he was not reaching the level of success he desired he worked harder and harder, longer hours, pushing himself more and more. As he did this he became more and more forceful with his customers causing them to avoid him as much as possible.

Colin refused to quit because he KNEW he could do anything if he just worked hard enough and put more effort in it. Eventually he suffered a heart attack and was forced to quit.

What do these people all have in common?

In each of the examples described above, none of these people could change. Their fixed ideas prevented them from learning and successfully making a change. Their ideas were so engraved they defied inspection, besides they had worked before, so they were “givens”. A “given” is an idea one does not inspect because it is so much a part of one’s thinking that one never even considers it. You just KNOW its right. In any area where one can not seem to grow or improve, despite heroic efforts, it’s most likely there are a crop of “givens” that need to be found and inspected.

This original text and more can be found in the book by Enid Vien titled, In Search of the Golden Nuggets

Dynamis Coaching and Clearing

Dynamis coaching and clearing is based on the idea that you really do know what you are doing and thinking, you’ve just simply buried the knowledge.

In times of stress, loss or moments of anguish you came to some conclusions and probably learned some lessons that are no longer appropriate to the circumstances.

From these conclusions and lessons you formed principles to operate by. They probably worked for you at the time, but in examining them you will find they are definitely working against you now. They have become blocks, barriers, or invisible ceilings. They’ve become so much a part of your operating principles that you can’t put your finger on them.

Part of the function of a Dynamis Clearing Practitioner is to help you find, uncover and re-examine those old lessons, conclusions and “givens”.

www.dynamism.org

photo credit: Freddy The Boy

A Teaspoon, a Bucket, or a Tractor Trailer? Reverend Ike Passes.

A Teaspoon, a Bucket, or a Tractor Trailer?

Financial Abundance

“The Ocean doesn’t care! The Ocean just wants to OUTFLOW!”

If you are familiar with this statement then you know Reverend Ike. And it is with my deepest sympathy that we remember the great Reverend and what he did for the world. The Reverend passed away on July 28, 2009.

Reverend Ike

Reverend Ike, also known as Frederick J. Eikerenkoetter, delivers a sermon in 1977.

In Money & You®, we have been teaching, and giving credit to, Reverend Ike for decades. Graduates of Money & You® will remember that over the course of the 3 1/2 day program, students are taken from a mindset of scarcity into sufficiency and finally to one of abundance. And one of the most memorable and favorite teachings from the 3+ days is in a segment called “Ring Toss” – it’s a segment that teaches how successful people play in business, and ultimately, it’s a game about leverage.

At this point in the program the energy is high, tensions can be high, and the instructor is having a blast with participants engaging in this-for-that bargaining and pleading for answers.  The reason why Money & You® works so well is participants discover the answer from within and they truly learn, rather than being lectured and told the correct answer that sits in a notebook on a shelf for the next 30 years. It’s a pivotal point in the weekend seminar and we always have many reviewers coming back to re-experience this particular segment. In fact, we have noted that there are at least two PhD dissertations on this game.

As the game proceeds, the instructions are quickly and always repeated for the class upon request. And after each reading of the instructions, the instructor adds his or her own most excited rendition of, “There is an Ocean of Abundance! There is an Ocean of What!?”

And the class, already anticipating the answer, resounds, “Abundance!”

To which the instructor responds, “You can come to the Ocean with a teaspoon, a bucket, or a tractor trailer! The Ocean doesn’t care! The Ocean just wants to outflow!”

That is the famous line the Reverend left us with – and we will always remember! We have used it with his permission and I must say thank you, Reverend Ike! Everyone loves to hear it. It’s almost a Money & You® trademark because our grads have psychologically anchored this phrase with a new paradigm of thinking – away from scarcity into sufficiency and finally abundance.

The Reverend was also an instructor at the Excellerated Business School® for Entrepreneurs where he taught hundreds of successful entrepreneurs and business owners in exotic places like Hawaii, where we held the now 8-day program for many years.

The Reverend was outrageous and that’s why we loved him! He expanded people’s comfort with their own deserve-ability. We still teach Reverend Ike’s philosophy and will continue to spread the word of Ike!

With Loving Thoughts,

DC Cordova

Read more about the Reverend here: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/30/nyregion/30ike.html

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Image by Getty Images via Daylife