Goals are not Enough

Today I read an article by John Carlton titled “What Makes an Entrepreneur?” and I found it had a lot of great truths about what it takes to achieve your aims, how setting exciting goals is a great first step, but it is also only that: a great first step. Afterwards you MUST create movement, any movement getting you a little bit closer to your goal. And maybe even more importantly he recommends you look at “what will happen if you actually reach your goal, what then ?”. Thinking about this will take away the biggest fear of all. Believe it or not, the biggest fear of all is the fear of success !

Here is his article. Enjoy.

“A few weeks back, I visited my hometown to see my family. Dad still lives in the same house he bought just after WWII, and it’s hard for me not to feel like I’m 15 again when I’m there.

Not that I feel all young and vibrant. Naw. More like I get back in touch with how freakin’ clueless I was for the first half of my life.

It was a great childhood, a gruesome adolescence, and even now ghosts from my past haunt every corner of the neighborhood.

Always interesting/spooky/insightful to go back to old stomping grounds. I love my family. And I’m still chewing over how that town shaped who I am today. In fact, it got me pondering long and hard about what “makes” an entrepreneur.

A lot of people – including me – talk about the value of goals in launching any entrepreneurial venture. Figuring out what you truly want… setting a plan in motion to attain it… and following through.

There is, however, a difference between “understanding” goal-setting behavior… and actually DOING it.

So here is what I propose you do this coming weekend: Give yourself a brutal reality check.

Are you spending enough time figuring out what you really want to do when you grow up?

This is not a trick question. Most rookie goal-setters need to refine their skills at this over a frustrating period of time.

The first goals you set are likely to be things you actually don’t want, after all. There is an art to looking deep into your own heart and soul and coming to grips with what REALLY rocks your boat… and what will continue to make nice waves in your future.

It’s never enough to want to be “rich.” You must spend time thinking about what “rich” means to you. Not to your buddies or your colleagues or anyone else. You.

And if you decide you want to be filthy rich… well, you’ve got to do more than just set that as a goal. Ya gotta work out your plan to get there. With lots of little goals along the path.

If you’ve yet to make dime one online, for example, then a goal of becoming a billionaire online isn’t a goal… it’s a dream. You’ve got to earn your first buck. Then your second. And go on from there.

Your first goal may be to weed through all the info available out there… find the resources you feel you can trust… and dig in.

Those subsequent “dig in” steps – the actual goal-by-goal stepladder that will take you toward your desired destination – cannot be glossed over.

And there are consequences to consider. You may not yet know what awaits you as a cash-generating genius. But you sure can examine how your life starts to change as you go.

Every detail of your life can morph in strange ways when the money starts coming in. Your friends and family may wrestle (often unsuccessfully) with your rise in status, liquidity, and self-confidence.

It won’t always be pretty. But the more you “arm” yourself with insights like these, the less surprised you’ll be when you hit each milestone in your quest for a better life.

You’ll be… uh, what’s the word?… prepared.

Goals are great. But I’ve known too many people who ONLY set goals. They never go after them.

Movement is key. And you’ll feel better about moving toward your goals if you spend some serious time thinking about them.

Play with them. Mold them. Constantly put them through your “What if?” grinder. (What if you can’t do it with your first idea? Will you try again? Try something else? What?)

The “secret ingredient” of great goal setting is to cogitate obsessively on the consequences of actually meeting each goal once you set it. This not only helps you blow through failure… it also creates a “vision” of yourself that keeps your motivation hot.

This requires “forward thinking”… which doesn’t come with the default equipment you’re born with. Ya gotta exercise it.

Without goals, you’re just being taken for a ride by Fate.

Goals do not guarantee anything… except, once you take steps to attain them, you will move SOMEWHERE new in life. And you’ll be doing as much of the driving as possible.

Fate will still screw with you. But you’ll no longer be helpless.

At first, even five minutes of focused “forward thinking” will make you sweat and want to go do something else.

Get over it. Stick with it. Soon, you’ll be an ace at peering into the fog down the line, and you’ll be able to exert more control over events than you ever dreamed possible in your pre-goal-setting days.

This weekend, get your five minutes in. Move through the sweat and avoidance.
Jumpstart something new.

What do you get enthusiastic about ?

Enthusiasm is such a beautiful trait. Don’t you love being around enthusiastic people ? Even if you don’t share their enthusiasm, don’t they make you smile ? Lift you up ?

I just came across some great quotes about enthuiasm. This one from Samule Ullmann, I absolutely love:

“Nobody grows old merely by living a number of years. We grow old by deserting our ideals. Years may wrinkle the skin but to give up enthusiasm wrinkles the soul.”

Think about it. Isn’t that so deep and so true ?

Ralph Waldo Emerson also commented on enthusiasm: ” Every great and commanding movement in the annals of the world is due to the triumph of enthusiasm”

What are you enthusiastic about ?

What were your ideals when you were younger ?

Remember a time when you were totally enthusiastic last ? What was it about ? Who was it with ?

How could you get enthusiasm back into your life ? How could you be enthusiastic more often ?

The Importance of Living Your Passion

I can’t believe I haven’t written about this topic earlier. Passion is so important. When you live your passion you feel ALIVE. You are filled with energy, enthusiasm and joy every day. And as if that wasn’t enough yet, you will bless those around you because enthusiasm is like a fire that ignites the hearts of all those you meet. Who wouldn’t want to live like that ?

The million dollar question is: How to find my passion ? And my simple answer is: CREATE it ! Yes, this is no mistake. You don’t need to search for it, discover it or find it. Your passion, purpose, reason for being or life contribution can actually be created ! Sure, you will need to spend a bit of work on knowing and understanding yourself. But from there PASSION IS A CHOICE (just like happiness is a choice) ! All you need to do, is to decide that you WANT to live your passion, that it matters to you.

There are lots of techniques to get you in touch with what brings you alive and what you feel passionate about. In my workshop “Discover Your Life Purpose & Love Your Life” I use the major one’s. But you could start with taking 15 minutes for yourself answering 3 simple questions:

“What do I love doing (even if I got no money for it) ?”
“If I could anything I wanted to do and money/time/family would be no issue, what would I do with my life ?”
” What did I use to enjoy as a child ?”

Answer each question with 10 lines at least. Don’t stop until you have filled all 10 lines. Then have a look at your answers. Anything you had lost touch with lately ? Anything that gets your hear beat faster ?

How could you get more of that into your life now ? What if you CHOSE AND DECIDED to put these passions into the centre of your life ? How would your life be different ?
What changes would you have to make ? And if you made them, what (or who) would you have to say “NO” to from now on ?

Now commit to ONE ACTION for the coming week that will have you live (one of) your passion(s). Then learn from it. Stay conscious about how you feel and what impact this one action has on you and those around you. Then decide to do it again until it becomes your life and who you are !

CHOOSE TO LIVE YOUR PASSION.

A poem from Celaleddin-i Rumi Mevlana

Passion makes the old medicine new:
Passion lops off the bough of weariness.
Passion is the elixir that renews:
how can there be weariness
when passion is present?
Oh, don’t sigh heavily from fatigue:
seek passion, seek passion, seek passion!

Financial crisis & happiness: Time to kick the habit of wanting more

“How to stay happy in these troubled financial times ?” some of my clients ask me ?

Former Soviet dissident author Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn had unique insights into the best and worst aspects of capitalism and communism. “Self-limitation is the fundamental and wisest step of a man who has obtained freedom and it is also the surest path to its attainment.”
English philosopher Bertrand Russell captured the concept elegantly: “To be without some of the things you want is an indispensable part of happiness.”

Isn’t it true that our pursuit of more and more has in fact made us more unhappy, unhealthy and exhausted ? There are plenty of studies to prove it. Emotional distress is a disease of the affluent world !

Yet, our most fundamental needs as human are to feel secure, to be part of a community, to feel competent and to feel autonomous and authentic. So in these nerve-wrecking times, with many of our savings being wiped out, it is high time to preserve our mental health and remember what truly matters to us:
The things that truly enhance our lives – family, friendships, good neighbours and health – have one thing in common: They can’t be bought. Having and working towards them is REAL WEALTH, a wealth no financial crisis can ever take away from us.

Realizing your dream is a radical act

Years back when I took my training courses and exams in coaching I remember the trainer stressing the fact that fulfillment, that path of truly following what matters to you and who you want to be, is a radical act that brings you alive.

I have worked on this with numerous clients and this summer, when realizing my dream of moving to and coaching from our beautiful new location in the Alps, I have experienced the full blast of it myself.

To create the life you really want, you most likely need to break with the familiar, “break shells and bust out of boxes that may have become quite familiar and neatly decorated, lined with the soft illusion of safety”. This is likely to be painful. Staying where you are is certainly easier, yet the question is: does it make you happy ?

Once you have become clear about what really matters to you, what uniquely defines success for you, you are ready to take the jump, make the changes towards a life that is more aligned with who you are inside. At that moment you can garantuee, absolutely garantuee that your inner critic, that voice that says “don’t try”, “it won’t work”, “you are crazy, stay where you are”, “what if you won’t make enough money”, etc etc will shout out its objections loud and clear. People around you might join in, pointing out all the risks….all the risks whether real or just their own fears and worries.

It is very important for you to know, that it is inevitable that your inner voice will point out all your fears, most likely blown out of proportions. This doesn’t mean you are on the wrong path. The fact, that your inner critic presents those worries and counter arguments so strongly, is a sign that you are on the right path, the path to fulfillment, to becoming alive !
The way to handle those objections is not to give up and return to where you were, but to explore those worries “you will not make enough money and starve”, and cut them back to realistic size “well, I will earn less at first, but I will survive, won’t starve”. Or maybe you realize them as your parents’/grandpa’s/teacher’s old voice. Ask yourself, what life would be like if you it stayed as it is for the rest of your life. Would that be ok for you ?

Knowing that you can expect those objections to come up is 90% of the battle won, because you are prepared, ready to tackle them, rather then being tackled by them.

When we had decided to leave Dubai and move to our dream location in the alpine countryside (with no major industry nearby), we had our own inner critical voices as well as many parents and people around us pointing out the risks. We could have kept talking and day-dreaming about it and stayed where we were.
Having taken the jump, gone through restoring an old house this summer (work I had no idea how to do) and creating our new home and coaching base was the best thing we have ever done. We are living the outdoor life, climbing mountains, cycling along lakes and running through the fields. We spend loads of time together as a family and engage with our neighbours. And we are helping other people realize their unique definition of a fabulous life, coaching them from this magical place – mostly on the phone.

But, yes, moving along the road of fulfillment is a RADICAL act. It is not about not having fear, it is about keeping going despite the fears, knowing that what lies on the other side is worth it.

Goal Setting for Success – the NLP Way

Goal setting is one of most powerful ways of getting what you want and yet, so many people shy away from it because it hasn’t worked for them in the past. Have you set goals in the past (for example New Year’s Resolutions) and then NOT reached them ? As a consequence, have you felt disappointed and lost trust in your ability to achieve your goals ? Some people get so frustrated, that they decide not to set any more goals and just live….this takes the pressure and disappointment away and feels better (after all: you can’t blame yourself for not achieving your goal, if you haven’t got one in the first place). However, this also leaves you drifting away and giving your power to your environment and the people around you.

This article is about putting you back in the driver’s seat and helping you find the courage to set goals SUCH that you are garantueed to achieve them. Following the below Questions to Achievable Outcomes or goals (drawn from NLP – Neuro Linguistic Programming) will be a sure way to state your goals such that you can achieve them easily. As a result, you will feel good about yourself, your self esteem will raise. No more disappointements.

Believe it or not, your ability to achieve a goal depends more on the way you state your goal then on the content of your goal ! Yes ! Read this again. The power lies in the way you set your goals. So here is the process for Goal Setting for Success:

1. What is your goal, aim or objective ?
Write down whatever it is you want or desire. For now, this will look pretty much like the previous goals you may have set in the past.

2. What specifically do you want (rather than what you don’t want !) ?
State your goal in the positive ! “I want to have a size 10″ rather than “I want to stop eating chocolate”. This is absolutely critical ! Our brain cannot process the negation, with a goal stated in the negative you essentially focus your attention on more of the negative.

Now think about how you can make your statement more specific. Rather than “I want to make more or a lot of money” specify exactly what you want, e.g. “I want to earn x000 per month after tax by day xy”. Don’t forget to think about the when: by when would you like to achieve it ?

Make sure your goal is achievable in principal by you. “Becoming a CEO is achievable in principal – even if you are at the bottom of the hierarchy”, “Flying through the air like a bird” is NOT achievable.

Don’t get afraid about being specific ! Many people like to keep their goals vague in order to keep some room for interpretation when it comes to judgement day. Trust me, keeping your goal vague is worse than not having one at all.

3. Where are you now in relation to the outcome ?
Think about your goal achievement like a journey. What is your departure point ? What is it like there ?

4. Imagine the Outcome: what will you see, hear, feel etc. when you have achieved your goal ?
Close your eyes and paint a picture in your mind about what it will be like when you have achieved your goal. What will you see ? Who will you see around you ? Where are you ? What do you see in these people’s faces ? What do you hear ? What is being said ? What smells do you notice ? Any tastes that matter when you have achieved your goal ? How do you feel inside ? What do you feel around you (on your face, body etc) ?
Once you have a full picture with all your senses, imagine it was a picture or movie on television. Play around with its brightness, its colours, the size of the picture/movie, the volume to make it as inspiring and exciting as possible. Make a mental note of this picture/movie. You could also draw a picture or make a collage of it. Other people prefer to write down everything they saw in their mental image.

5. Evidence: How will you know when you have achieved your goal/outcome ?
Think about what signals or signs would tell you that you have actually achieved your outcome. What would be evidence or proof ? You really want to come up with something that is clearly there or not there at the specified time.

6. Congruence: What will this goal get for you or allow you to do ?
Have a think about what makes your goal important for you. What is it exactly, that you get out of achieving your goal ? And what is important about that ? Is that worth it ? If your answer to the last question is yes, you have a congruent goal.

7. Is this goal something that benefits YOU ?
You should set goals that benefit you in some meaningful way (even if your goal is to improve your husband’s work life, or your children’s social life – there has to be something SIGNIFICANT in it for you, otherwise you won’t achieve it). What is the significant, meaningful benefit you get ?

8. What resources do you need and which resources do you have already ?
Think about what resources you will need to achieve your outcome. Just make a list. Then think about which one’s you already have. Have you ever had or done this before ? Do you know anyone who has ? Can you act as if you’ve already achieved this ?

9. Ecological goal: What will gain and what will you lose if you achieve your goal ?
Here you want to look at the impact of your goal achievement on your others around you and the community or even the planet as a whole. How does it affect your partner, your family, your community, your country etc ? If it has a positive impact you are more likely to achieve it.

Finally ask yourself the following questions (the last one requires a bit of brain twisting but it works :
- What will happen when I get it ?
- What won’t happen when I get it ?
- What will happen if I don’t get it ?
- What won’t happen if I don’t get it ?

10. Now act “as if” it is a done deal that you will achieve your goal (you have already painted the picture of what that will look and feel like). You have seen it in your mind, you will go there with your body !

Don’t get put off by the work of going through these 10 steps. They will save you loads of work and negative emotions later. Spending time on those 10 steps will be an investment you won’t regret.
This process has worked for many people before (including myself and my numerous clients), so why would you NOT choose to re-apply what they learned and use the process for your own “Goal Setting for Success” ?

Setting goals will become fun ! Enjoy achieving your goals !!!

Courageously do it when it couldn’t be done

I came across this inspiring poem today and wanted to share it with you:

It Couldn’t be Done

Somebody said “it couldn’t be done,”
But he with a chuckle replied

That maybe it couldn’t, but he wouldn’t be one
Who wouldn’t say so ‘til he tried.

So he buckled right in with a bit of a grin on his face.
If he worried he hid it.

He started to sing as he tackled that thing that
Couldn’t be done and he did it.

Somebody scoffed. “Oh, you’ll never do that,
At least no one has ever done it.”

But he took off his coat and he took off his hat,
And the first thing we knew he’d begun it.

With a lift of his chin and a bit of grin,
Without any doubting or quiddit,

He started to sing as he tackled that thing
That couldn’t be done, and he did it.

There are thousands to tell you, it cannot be done.
There are thousands to prophecy failure.

There are thousands to point out to you one by one,
The dangers that wait to assail you.

But you buckle right in with a bit of a grin;
You take off your coat and go t it.

You start to sing as you tackle that thing
That “cannot be done,” and you’ll do it!

– Edgar Guest -

What thing will YOU tackle right now !??

Negative Emotions: Don’t let them get to you !

I want to share a simple technique with you on how to deal with some emotions you rather wish you did not have. The technique is called “witness”.

Instead of feeling the full impact of your emotions, become your own witness for one day and observe your actions as if you stood next to your real self watching what’s going on. Imagine you could see yourself as you have breakfast, walk out of the house, get in the car, drive to …whereever. “Move” your consciousness up by one level and just notice what you see, including the emotions you see this person (you !) having. If you get angry, let the witness in you notice this anger.

By removing yourself from the direct impact and choosing to experience your emotions from the perspective of the witness you gain 3 big advantages:
Not only will you see the situation with a wider angle, seeing a bigger picture…you will also notice that those strong emotions simply won’t feel anywhere near as strong as they used to and most importantly: you will gain some vital seconds before you react, some vital seconds to CHOOSE ! how you react. This gives you power and puts you in the driver’s seat.

NLP has known this technique for decades and calls it dissociation (if your life was a picture, you would see yourself in it) as opposed to association (seeing your life out of your own eyes). Feelings are being experienced more strongly when associated and less strongly when dissociated. As a result, NLP recommends dissociation for negative emotions and of course association for positive emotions (you don’t want to just be a witness when you have the best time of your life ! )

Try being a witness today ! What is different and how does it make things better for you ?

Being pro-active pays-off or “Who moved my cheese ?”

If you have read the book “Who moved my cheese ?”, you know it is all about dealing with change in life. Change can be a blessing or a curse depending on your perspective and on whether you are in control of what’s changing or whether you are a victim of change. Often people are scared by change, particularly if it hits us by surprise and if the outcome or end result is unknown. Yet, here are the truths about change:

1. Change is going to happen

2. You can choose to try to fight it or adapt – or even better: be pro-active and create the change YOUR way !

3. Although you can’t stop things from changing, you can control how you respond/react to them

4. Everyone reacts to change differently

5. Often when a door closes, a new, “better” one opens – but you need to choose to see it !

Yesterday, I experienced a real life example of these principles. Listen to this:

I could not believe what I saw in the letter, but indeed, our landlord was telling us with 6 month’s notice that he was not going to renew the tenancy agreement for our villa beyond December. He was going to demolish our entire compound of 10 villas built only 4 years ago ! If you know Dubai, you know that it has become common practise to “re-develop” plots to increase the profits. It is also a way to kick-out tenants with the view to charge new tenants a multiple of the previously charged rent (rent increases to existing tenants are limited to 7% p.a.).
When we rented the villa 4 years ago, the rent was at the top end of the market, but with rents rising 30% p.a., I knew that villas like ours where now being let at double the price we were paying. Finding an affordable villa that was still near my daughter’s school (traffic in Dubai is terrible) could have become a nightmare for us … but instead, after the initial surprise about the notice, I just couldn’t help but smile….

We had spend the past 6 months trying to work out how we really wanted life to be for us, where we really wanted to live ourselves, where we would be able to do the things that deep inside us mattered most to us and had meaning and ….where we really wanted our daughter to grow up. And the result was, that we took the decision to move, move away from the stress, the city life and lack of nature in Dubai ! Yes, we had decided months ago to not only move locations but also scale down and simplify our life so that we could do more of the things that mattered to us, be the type of wife/husband, mother/father, friend/colleague etc we really wanted to be and create those events and experiences that we would be proud of in old age.

Yes, we were going to leave anyway !

I felt so relieved, and so happy. The little voices in our heads had surely tried to convince us to keep things as they were “Why bother changing ? It is so much work. Just stay and enjoy life. You have it good, don’t be ungrateful for what you have…” The little voices were trying to convince us to just stay one more year, earn some more money, just keep going one more year. But we had finally chosen not to listen to them and go anyway. We committed ourselves to a new place in beautiful nature, where we would be able to spend more time with each other and live on a lower budget. And it felt so right.

I was so glad that we had not waited for things around us to change, holding on to the hope that what we liked about Dubai would stay the same… I suddenly felt (rather than just knew) what it meant to be in control of your life …rather than being controlled by life’s events. We had created our own change, the change we really wanted, the change that was surely hard work, too, but had a clear direction for us and hence felt wonderful !

And the best of it all….I know how to repeat this !
If you spend the time to figure out what really matters to you, clarify your values and those of the loved one’s around you, you have a guiding light for your path ahead. You can initiate the change that is needed to make you live more aligned with what matters to you, to have more integrity. This is a choice and you have to be pro-active. But as a result, you will change your life – rather than your life changing you.

Combine Ideas for New Solutions

“The time has come,” the walrus said, “to talk of many things: of shoes – and ships – and sealing wax – of cabbages – and kings.” Combining unusual ideas is at the heart of creative thinking. The ancients mixed soft copper and even softer tin to create hard bronze. Gutenberg combined the wine press and the coin punch to create a movable type and the printing press.

Think of your most important project right now: What different and unusual ideas can you combine to find some creative solutions and ways forward ?

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