Relaunch Your Life
Module 3: Designing Your Map

Being Happy. That is what turning your life around is all about.

Being satisfied with your life does add contentment to your day-to-day activities. But how can you remain happy every day?

By setting goals.

Having something to achieve is what gets us up in the morning and makes us work. Your goal today might simply be to survive. That is still a goal. I want to help you get to the point where you are happy, not simply surviving.

Let’s go.

Part One

The Process of Setting Goals

The process of setting a goal will take quite a bit of time. Please make sure that you are able to set aside at least 30 minutes each day for a week, or one hour for four days to adequately grasp this information.

If you need to space this out over the course of two weeks, do so. I would rather you spend more time with this module and the next one than any others. It is THAT important.

A famous Harvard study in 1954 showed that goals were crucial to a person’s chance of success in life. And not only goals – but specifically, written goals.

This study followed a graduating class. They surveyed the graduates at time of graduation and found that only 3 percent had written goals. Later in life they surveyed them again. This 3 percent of the graduating class had greater financial security than the other 97 percent.  Written goals are important!

Famous people have personal screeners. These screeners keep the rest of us “normal” people from reaching them. Business owners have screeners as well – secretaries and assistants. But did you know you have a personal screener too?

Let me give you some examples.

Have you ever heard a new word and it stuck with you? All of a sudden you are hearing the word everywhere. Or, have you ever bought a new car and then see the same make and model all over town? That is your personal screening system at work. It is called your RAS, or reticular activating system. This RAS is what protects you from system overload. According to Susan Barrett in her book It’s All In Your Head, the RAS is located at the upper area of the brain stem and acts like a switch to alert your brain to information coming in from your senses.

If you think about all the information that surrounds us in any given day, you see that we would soon go crazy if we had to digest every sensory input that occurs. So, your RAS filters out what you don’t deem important. Another example of how your RAS works is this scenario. You are hosting a party. The atmosphere is very loud and you are straining to hear the person you are talking to. Suddenly, you hear your name said from across the room. Why? It is because your RAS knows your name is important to you, so it allows that information to reach you.

This is important when it comes to goal setting.

If you write your goal down, your RAS realizes that the goal is important to you. Suddenly, you begin to see opportunities everywhere, opportunities that you would not have noticed if you hadn’t written down that goal.

Just recently, this happened for me. I had set a goal to increase my income substantially. I was working out at the gym in my neighbourhood when it hit me. Gyms need the services of a life coach to help its members achieve their goals. Sure enough, the manager was very receptive when I approached him. I would never have thought of that avenue if I hadn’t been thinking about my goals!

Setting goals is not a difficult task. But by doing so, you will already be ahead of the large majority of the population.

So, let’s get started.

Part Two

A Goal-setting Primer

“Crystallize your goals. Make a plan for achieving them and set yourself a deadline. Then, with supreme confidence, determination and disregard for obstacles and other people’s criticisms carry out your plan. “ Paul Meyer

1. Write Your Obituary

The first thing you need to know to set realistic goals is what you want out of life.

An easy way to figure this out is with the obituary exercise. Sit down with your journal and think about what you want your obituary to say. Be silly with this. Do not limit yourself at all. As a matter of fact, put down ANYTHING that comes to mind. The only guideline is to remember that obituaries are short and to the point. Here is an example.

Thompson, Kristie, age 115, passed away quietly at her mansion in Knoxville, Tennessee on Tuesday. Thompson, a well-known motivational speaker, spent the last 80 years of her life helping others achieve their goals. As a former senator, she was responsible for helping with many peace accords in the Middle East, as well as humanitarian efforts in more than 40 countries.

She was the author of countless books, both non-fiction and fiction, which hit the New York Times bestseller list. She was an advisor to presidents and was crucial in the new education goal setting initiative recently passed in Congress. This new initiative requires schools across the country to carry goal-setting classes as part of the curriculum. This program is hailed as the largest success story in the history of education. She is survived by her three children, 10 grandchildren, 21 great-grandchildren, her younger brother and several nieces and nephews. Pallbearers include the President of the United States and many Hollywood celebrities. Services will be held tomorrow in Washington, as well over 3,000 people, including the British Prime Minister and other heads of state, are expected to attend.

As you can see, I held nothing back! It is easy to see what many of my goals are from this simple exercise. Service to others is part of my mission statement, and this comes through in the obituary exercise. Do not worry if you have trouble with this. Come back to it several times.

Once you’ve completed the obituary exercise, you are ready to begin goal setting.

I recommend that you allow a day to pass between the obituary section and getting your goals on paper.

Part Three

2. Brainstorming

Take out eight sheets of paper. Label them like this.

  • On top of the first sheet, write the words “career goals”.
  • The other sheets will be labelled
    • family goals
    • spiritual goals
    • physical goals
    • education goals
    • contribution goals
    • adventure goals
    • financial goals

Most people combine some of these into one category, such as “career and financial” but I feel strongly that while brainstorming it is best to have as many categories as possible.

Now, take one of these sheets of paper and a timer. Set the timer for 20 minutes and write down everything that comes to mind regarding that specific heading. At this time, do not worry if it is an achievable goal or not. You are simply putting down anything and everything you think will fit into that category. Write continuously for twenty minutes. When you finish, do NOT look back over the sheet. You will be tempted to erase some of your ideas. Take out another sheet and repeat the process.

I do not recommend doing more than three goals in any one day. Take a breather and come back to the remaining ones tomorrow.

Part Four

3. BIG SMART Goals

After you complete this exercise, you will have a list of possible goals. Take the lists and a highlighter. Highlight any of the goals that creates in you a sense of urgency, that is, any goal you want to work on now.

I tell my students and clients that in order to achieve a goal, your goal has to be BIG and SMART. These acronyms help us as we set our goals.

BIG stands for Bold, Integrity, and Goal.

Your goal should be a bold goal.
If you are currently running 5 K a day, setting a goal to compete in a 5K running competition is not bold. Setting a goal to compete in a marathon, however, would be.

Your goal also needs to have integrity.
Your goal should be in line with your values. Most of us would not rob a financial institution to reach our goal of more wealth. However, there are many small ways that can rob us of our integrity. You must guard against that as you achieve your goals.

Finally, you must have a goal.
Not a wish or a dream, but an actual goal.

The SMART acronym tells us how to set a real goal. Any goal you set must be a SMART one!

Specific: Your goal must be specific. You have to be very descriptive in what you want. What do you hope to do? Why do you want to do it?

Measurable: You have to know that you have achieved your goal. What criteria will you set to show you that your goal has been obtained? An example of a weak goal is “I want more money.” A measurable goal would state, “I earn ₤30,000.”

Action-oriented: Your goal must be action-oriented. Otherwise it is a wish and not a goal. Instead of saying, “I want ₤30,000” say “I earn ₤30,000” Use action verbs.

Realistic: This is not an excuse to set a small goal. Remember, a goal must be bold, but it must be attainable as well. Here is where you set a goal that will cause you to stretch beyond yourself. If you have been earning ₤20,000, you would not set a goal of ₤22,000. You also would not set a goal of ₤1,000,000, either! You would probably set a goal of ₤35,000. This would be a stretch, and you would have to work at it. You must create a sense of urgency in your brain.

Time-oriented: Your goal must have a time limit. You cannot have an open-ended date to achieve your goal. Otherwise, you will never work at it. You must set a specific deadline for completing a goal. For example, I didn’t say, “I will someday write a class on Turning Your Life Around.” I gave myself a specific deadline by which the entire course had to be completed.

Now you have the steps to set a successful goal.

Next week, we will work on writing these goals and managing them in bite-sized chunks so that they can be accomplished.

This week, concentrate solely on brainstorming for all of the areas we talked about.

Action!

Actions of the Week

1. Stop procrastinating!

If you did not do all of the exercises above, I highly urge you to do them before moving on to the next module. Each module builds on the one before it, and if you do not work on these exercises, you are wasting your time.

Experience does not come out of reading about something – experience comes out of doing. I imagine Sir Edmund Hillary felt a great deal different reading about climbing Mt. Everest than he did when he was actually climbing it. There is no substitution for trying.

2. Treat yourself!

You are halfway through this course. It is time to treat you for being such a hard worker! Don’t wait until you finish to reward yourself – reward yourself for getting this far. With children, jobs, and countless other things that take up our time, it is a big accomplishment to have gotten this far. Buy yourself something small that you’ve wanted or simply take a long relaxing bath. Only you know what you need now.

3. Keep up the journaling

It is very important to continue with your gratitude journal. I am sure it is helping you already in your daily relationships. This helps you see what all you have been blessed with in your life. It also allows you to give thanks for what you have. Abundance leads to abundance. That is a big reason why the rich get richer.

4. Write down your greatest strengths

We did this once, but I imagine that you can think of many more strengths today than you did three weeks ago. I can think of one for you – perseverance! Come up with at least ten. You can do it!

5. Read your mission statement daily and act on it

Keep your mission statement in the forefront of your mind. The only way to do this is to read it in the morning and at night. Read it more if you are able. Stick it on your bathroom mirror!

Until next week, keep smiling!