A goal is a specific, measurable result that you want to produce at a determinable time in the future. Your goals are the stepping-stones toward the realization of your dreams, the second key element in the blueprint of your life.

Goals are experiences you have not yet had, places you have not yet been, people you have not met, a level of income you have not achieved, a type of relationship you are not now enjoying, or having something you don’t currently own. Like your dreams, there is no limit to the number of goals you can set other than the limits of your imagination. And although goals represent what you intend to achieve in the future, they are always set and worked on in the present. (more…)

When you are willing to set goals, your motivation becomes more focused and less confused in everyday interactions. Setting goals and designing your dreams and aspirations is a commitment to participate in a dynamic relationship and interaction between yourself and others. Committing yourself to be in a relationship with others helps to create an environment of self-support. The “willingness” to define your goals and aspirations provide you with the motivation to focus on achieving your goals.

Your “will” to take action and achieve your goals is different than wishing your goals to complete themselves. Wishing is a desire for the possibility of some act or state arbitrarily occurring. When it comes to making your goals happen, wishing can be self-sabotaging. “Willing” is self-responsible behavior. When you take conscious control of your life, you actively plan your course or direction. Determining your direction builds positive momentum in your life. Creating positive momentum and enthusiasm drive you to share your enthusiasm with others. When you encourage others to believe in themselves you build positive momentum in their lives. (more…)

You are what you are and where you are because of countless choices that you’ve made during your lifetime. Each choice has an influence, however slight, upon your path in life. You can choose to be cheerful, or you can choose to be gloomy. You can choose to be rude, or you can choose to be courteous. You can choose to love your neighbor, or you can choose to hate your neighbor. You can choose to be sober, or you can choose to be drunk. You can choose to be an asset to society, or you can choose to be a detriment to society. You can choose to eat sensibly, or you can choose to indulge in unhealthy eating habits. You can choose to be prosperous, or you can choose to be broke. You can even choose to be mentally healthy, or you can choose to literally destroy your sanity. When you understand that every choice has an end result, you place yourself in a position to become successful in every area of your life. Each choice that you make takes you either toward what you want in life or away from your heart’s desire.

Taking Inventory: You are where you are right now because of the choices you have already made, so taking at look at the past helps you understand the true impact that choices have on your life. You should take inventory of everything you have and everything you’ve done that has any significance. These things happened because of a series of choices that were made for you as a child and by you as you matured. (more…)

A winning attitude often takes work to develop. An important part of this work involves forming positive statements about yourself to replace old, negative, self-defeating thoughts. As a baby, you happily went about doing whatever babies do - touching, tasting, exploring, and learning. You were without thoughts about what you could or couldn’t do, so you tried many things. Very soon, an adult undoubtedly intervened, giving you messages like “Good boy!” “What a bright girl!” “No, no - that is bad.” We accepted these statements unquestioningly.

Over time, as we hear such statements repeatedly, we develop beliefs about ourselves, and begin to organize them into a belief system. Various experiences reinforce them and we begin to adapt our behavior to conform to them. If you were repeatedly praised as a bright child, you began to believe you were a bright child. Your young mind worked overtime, coming up with new ways to show how bright you were, and to elicit further praise. (more…)

Arrange a time when you can be uninterrupted for at least an hour, to concentrate your attention on defining your dreams. Sit down with your Dream List in a comfortable, quiet place to start visualizing your dream. What is your dream? Begin to picture some ideas about it. Allow vivid images to flow into your imagination. Create your ideal scene, writing anything that comes to mind, no matter how crazy or unrealistic it might seem. You can sort out and evaluate your ideas later. For now, just let them flow freely. Write in as much detail as you can. Describe your ideas in sparkling sensory images, being sure to include the feelings and sensations they elicit.

Suppose that, for the first time in your life, you have been given the opportunity to start anew, knowing everything in your life from now on will support you in “Living Your Dream.” See yourself walking down a narrow path lined on both sides by flowers and hanging vines. You are enchanted by the beauty all around you. Floral fragrances fill the air and brilliant-colored birds swoop and sing. Breathe in deeply and soak up the warm, soothing rays of the sun.
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Love, acceptance, and approval are the most powerful tools of reinforcing a human being can experience. When an individual has an attitude of partial approval or partial acceptance of others, an attitude of conditional acceptance develops. Statements such as, “I’ll accept you when…,” create hurt, anger, fear, and distrust. When you attach unreasonable conditions within a relationship, your opportunities for accomplishment and enjoyment diminish. An attitude of conditional acceptance creates resistance to healthy communication with others.

When you go to a restaurant and order a full-course dinner are you satisfied with a partial meal when you ordered a complete dinner? Of course not. Settling for being partially accepted as a person is not enough because it doesn’t provide enough emotional and physical nourishment. Conditional acceptance hinders your self-respect and creates resistance toward growth and change. If I allow myself to be partially accepted as a person, or accept others only on a conditional basis, this reduces the trust and comfort needed to achieve effective communication. (more…)

Motivation is a powerful tool for success. The degree to which you can remain motivated and continue to make forward progress determines whether you realize the life goals that you establish. But the reward for being motivated isn’t just raw goal accomplishment. The accompanying benefits of being motivated are numerous - and they can change your life.

When you fully understand these benefits of motivation, you can make motivating yourself a lifelong habit. Take a look at the following motivating traits and choose which ones (or all) can help you:

1. Creativity: Motivated people think more clearly. They focus more intellectual resources on their current project, and the result is more creativity. (more…)

1. Love. This is the wellspring of happiness, renewable and everlasting. We often think that being loved is the best feeling in the world, but it’s the second best. The best is loving someone else. Love is the polar opposite of fear, emotionally and neurologically. Thus, it is the antidote to fear and the first step toward happiness.

2. Optimism. Optimism provides power over painful events. Optimism is realizing that the more painful the event, the more profound the lesson. Once you bring this knowledge into your heart, you can never again look at any event as all bad. Optimism gives you power over fear of the future and over regret for the past.

3. Courage. This is your strongest weapon for overcoming the split-second power of fear. You can’t rise above fear without courage, because fear is hardwired into your neural circuitry. If fear is eternally programmed into your brain, though, so is courage. It comes from the neocortex and is a product of the spirit, the intellect, and the higher emotions of love and generosity. It is nature’s natural balance for the fear that has helped us survive. It’s the quality that allows us to thrive.

4. A sense of freedom. Nothing fills the soul like freedom. Freedom is choice, and choice is what makes us human. When we choose, we define who we are. Everyone has the power to make choices, but unhappy people don’t know they have it. They think it’s only for the rich. It’s not. I’ve met a thousand rich people who didn’t feel free. Choice is available to anyone who has the courage to exercise it.

5. Proactivity. Happy people participate in their own destinies and forge their own happiness. They don’t wait for events or other people to make them happy. They’re not passive victims.

6. Security. Happy people know that nothing, over time, lasts - not money, not approval, not even life itself. So they don’t measure security with a calendar or a calculator. They simply like who they are. They’re not slaves to popularity, longevity, or financial status. They know that security is an inside job.

7. Health. Happiness and health are interdependent. It’s hard to be happy if you don’t feel healthy, and it’s hard to be healthy if you’re not happy. Of special importance for happiness is healthy mood chemistry. You can have a happy life and not even know it if you’re tortured by faulty mood chemistry. An imbalance of the neurotransmitters serotonin and dopamine, for example, can mask the happiness that lies beneath it.

8. Spirituality. Happy people aren’t afraid to go beyond the boundaries of their own lives. They let go, and welcome extraordinary experiences. They have markedly less fear of death. They’re not concerned about dying - they’re concerned about not living.

1. Start with the commitment to make the marriage work.

2. Understand that you deceived each other in the courtship process and practice the skill of forgiving. While you were courting, you always put your best foot forward in order to accomplish your objective: marriage to the one you were courting. For this reason, you probably agreed to almost everything. Fortunately, you can overcome the problems that arise when you reveal those deceptions with a strong commitment and by recognizing that you not only want the marriage to work but also want to make it thrive.

3. Work at verbalizing your true feelings without taking punitive action against your mate. Say that you and your spouse swap cars, and when you switch back, you find that your mate has returned your car with the gas tank almost empty. Punitive action would be returning your mate’s car with an empty tank the next time in order to get even. Instead, pleasantly say to your mate, “Honey, you may have noticed that when I use your car, I return it at least half full of gasoline. I would really appreciate it if you would show me the same courtesy.” Chances are superb that if you handle the situation gently, lovingly, and with a big hug and smile, your mate will respond appropriately.

4. Take time to build the skill of courteousness. Building the skill of courteousness is good advice for husbands and wives to follow. Discourtesy is really disrespect; you’re seldom discourteous to anyone you truly respect. Marriage counselors say that one thing lacking in many poor marriages is genuine respect for each other. In marriage, we are often more discourteous than we are in friendships or in business relationships. Venting your anger in marriage and thinking that doing so costs nothing is irresponsible. Hurt relations always cost, especially in marriage.

5. Eliminate the words always and never from your vocabulary - as in “you always do this” or “you never do that.” Those statements aren’t true, and they can elicit nothing but a defensive retort from your mate.

6. Practice looking for the good in your mate and work on finding the humor in problems. Many couples report that, in the midst of a heated argument, something hilarious happens or is said, perhaps an interruption by a child or an innocent but appropriate remark that hits the funny bone. At any rate, the anger immediately dissipates and laughter sets in - not at each other but with each other.

7. Remember that your mate is not a mind reader. Many couples expect each other to know that they really don’t enjoy being kidded about their expanding waistline, their receding hairline, their inability to wake up instantly, their dislike of sloppiness, or their need for support and encouragement about a specific thing. But you need to gently tell your mate what your needs are. He or she can’t read your mind. Resentment builds within you if your mate doesn’t meet a need or conducts himself or herself in a way that displeases you, but he or she may not have a clue as to the nature of the problem.

Planning for success is an important way to overcome barriers to growth. It’s similar to taking a vacation. You need a guide or a road map to keep you on course and give you direction. Would you attempt to navigate a ship on the open sea without a chart or map? Of course not. Even the ancient mariners used the stars and constellations to find their way.

A plan is a powerful tool for achievement. It’s a magic key that helps you reach your goals and gives you the momentum to get through difficult passageways. Planning prevents unnecessary detouring, and helps you take responsibility for your actions. Goals are what keep you going and give you your focus. Keep focusing on your goals and continually take the needed steps to reach them. Your ability to keep moving after achieving one goal depends on how clearly you see the next step to set new goals.

Goal-setting is an ongoing, reciprocal process between you and the world. Accomplishing your goals helps you to overcome inner barriers of fear, and affirms your self-confidence. Goal-setting is not a mundane process. It generates out of your human need for self-drive and accomplishment. This drive for accomplishment is innate, it comes from within you. When you set goals, it solidifies you physically, mentally and emotionally. You begin to feel more connected to yourself and to the world.

There are six ways to focus on your goals and plan your success. It is important to include the following in your goal-setting procedure:

1. Identify your goal and make it a realistic one. You must care about it.

2. Select a goal that you can work on, rather than something someone else has selected for you.

3. Make sure it’s specific, not vague. For example, choose a skill like “Communicating more effectively with your friends by using positive vocabulary,” or “Managing your time more efficiently by stating a time and date for getting your goal accomplished.” Selecting a goal you can do something about gives you the power and influence to actively and assertively accomplish your goal. (more…)