motivational book

SUCCESS THROUGH GOAL

Success Through Goal Setting

The ability to set goals and make plans for their accomplishment is the “master skill” of success. It is the single most important skill that you can learn and perfect. Goal-setting will do more to help you achieve the things you want in life than will anything else you’ve been exposed to. Becoming an expert at goal-setting and goal-achieving is something that you absolutely must do if you wish to fulfill your potential. Goals enable you to do the work you want to do, to live where you want to live, to be with the people you enjoy, and to become the kind of person you want to become. And there is no limit to the financial rewards you can obtain. All you have to do is to set a goal for financial success, make a plan, and then work the plan until you succeed in that area.

The payoff for setting goals and making plans is being able to choose the kind of life you want to live. So why do so few people set goals? According to the best research, less than 3 percent of Americans have written goals, and less than 1 percent review and rewrite their goals on a daily basis. So the reasons why people don’t set goals have been of considerable interest to me. Here are four reasons why people don’t set goals.

The First Reason

They are simply not serious. Whenever I speak with someone who has achieved something remarkable, I learn that the achievement occurred after that person decided to “get serious.” Until you become completely serious and totally determined about your goals, nothing really happens.

The Second Reason

They don’t understand the importance of goals. We find that young people who begin setting goals very early in life invariably come from families in which the importance of goals is emphasized. The discussion that takes place around your family dinner table is one of the most powerful formative influences in your life. If your parents didn’t have goals, didn’t talk about goals, didn’t encourage you to set goals, and didn’t talk about people outside the family circle who had goals and were moving toward a higher level of achievement, then you very likely grew up with the idea that goals are not even a part of normal existence. This is the case for most people. And for many years, it was the case for me.

The Third Reason

Fear of rejection is caused by destructive criticism in early childhood and is manifested, in adulthood, in the fear of criticism by others. Many people hold back from setting worthwhile goals because they find that every time they set a goal, somebody steps up and tells them that they can’t achieve it, or that they will lose their money or waste their time.

Because each of us is strongly influenced by opinions of others, one of the first things that you must learn when you begin setting goals is to keep your goals confidential. Don’t tell anyone about them. Often, it’s the fear of criticism that, more than any other single factor, stops you from goal-setting in the first place. So keep your goals to yourself, with one exception. Share your goals only with others who are committed to achieving goals of their own and who really want you to be successful and achieve your goals as well. Other than that, don’t tell anybody about your goals, so no one is in a position to criticize you, or to discourage you from setting your goals.

The Fourth Reason

People don’t set goals because they are afraid that they might fail. In fact, the fear of failure is probably the greatest single obstacle to success in adult life. It can hold you back more than any other psychological problem.

The primary reason why you fear failure is simply this: You probably don’t understand the role that failure plays in achievement. Failure is an indispensable prerequisite for success. All great success is preceded by great failure. If you wish to fulfill your potential, you have to be willing to risk failure over and over and over, because there is no way that you can ever accomplish worthwhile goals until you have fallen on your face so many times that you have eventually learned the lessons that you need for great achievement.

Now, in order to be successful, you need to focus your mental and physical energy in a single direction toward a predetermined objective. People who are especially energetic or talented have a hard time with this. They are the ones who try to do several things at once and end up doing nothing well.

Setting well-defined goals enables you to channel your efforts and focus your energy toward something that’s important to you. Goal-setting gives you a target and enables you to develop the self-discipline to continue working toward your target rather than becoming distracted and going off in other directions.

Here are five keys that will help you to reach your goals more effectively. Each of these keys starts with one of the letters in the word “goals.” Whenever you find yourself getting off the track, simply repeat the word “goals,” and think about how each letter stands for a key that just might apply to your current situation.

Get to it

Sometimes, the only difference between a successful person and a failure is that the successful person has the courage to get started, to do something, to begin moving toward the accomplishment of a specific goal.

For example, when I was younger, I realized that because of my limited education, I was stuck in a low-paying job. I began reading the want ads and decided that I wanted to work in advertising, especially as a copywriter. I went to an advertising agency and applied for the job of writing advertisements. The head of the agency was very polite, but he told me that I was unskilled and totally unsuited for the position. He thanked me for coming in and wished me luck.

Now I was back on the street, but I had a goal. I wanted to be an advertising copywriter. I immediately took the first step, which was to learn more about how to write copy, so that I would not be turned down in the future because of a lack of ability. I went to the local library and checked out books on the subject of advertising and copywriting. Over the next 12 months, I read every book in the library on the subject. Meanwhile, I read magazines and newspapers and thought about how I could improve their advertising. I wrote sample advertisements and began taking them to advertising agencies.

After 12 months, two of the largest advertising agencies offered me a job as a copywriter, and I accepted one of those offers. My income doubled. I had worked at other jobs in the meantime. But I had never lost sight of my goal, and I had kept on doing the things that I needed to do to put myself in a position to eventually achieve my goal.

You, too, may have a long-range goal. In order to achieve it, you need to sit down and make a list of all the steps you will have to take to get from where you are to where you want to be. Then begin with the first and most obvious thing that you can do on that list. Complete it, and then start on number two. Don’t worry about the long term. Just concentrate on the obvious first step that you can take. Surprisingly enough, everything else will take care of itself.

Opportunity

Successful people do not wait for opportunities to turn their goals into reality; rather, they make their opportunities, because they are perfectly clear about the kind of life they wish to create. Once you have taken the time to decide exactly what you want, you will experience an endless flow of opportunities that will help move you in that direction.

For example, a young woman worked for me as an executive secretary. At the same time, she had a goal to be a successful real-estate agent and investor. So while she worked for me, she regularly took night courses to get her real-estate-agent’s license and also to learn how to buy and sell real estate profitably. Over the course of a year, she and her husband bought, fixed up and sold three houses. They made more money from their real-estate transactions than they did from their jobs. At the end of the year, she got her real-estate-agent’s license.

My secretary did not wait for an opportunity to come to her. She set a goal, made a plan and went to work to prepare herself for the opportunity when it arose.

Ability

Many people hesitate to set high, challenging goals because they lack the ability necessary to turn those goals into reality. But remember that we all lacked knowledge and experience when we started out in our careers or fields of expertise. Do you remember when you started your first job? You probably felt a little clumsy, inadequate and unsure about how to do it well. As you progressed and got more experience, you became more and more confident, and in many cases, you did an excellent job without even thinking much about it.

Since you gain the ability necessary for high achievement through knowledge and experience, if you increase the speed at which you acquire both of those, you increase the speed at which you move ahead.

Leadership

Leadership is simply the ability to get results. And you begin to get results when you accept full responsibility for yourself, for your job and for the outputs required in your position.

You demonstrate leadership when you refuse to make excuses or blame anyone or anything for the problems you are having. The acceptance of the responsibility of leadership enables you to move ahead and take action. When you are not satisfied with your job or income, and you sit down and make a written plan to change it, and then take action on that plan, without waiting for anyone’s approval or permission, you are behaving like a leader.

Stay with it

Between you and every goal, there is a series of obstacles, and the bigger the goal, the bigger the obstacles. Your decision to be, have and do something out of the ordinary entails facing difficulties and challenges that are out of the ordinary as well. Sometimes your greatest asset is simply your ability to stay with it longer than anyone else. When you look around you, you will see that all achievement is the triumph of persistence. You will see men and women everywhere who are struggling with and overcoming adversities in order to accomplish something that is important to them. And so can you.

So these are the words and phrases to remember in setting and achieving goals: The first is get to it! Get started; take the first action at hand. The second is opportunity. Begin to prepare yourself now so that you will be ready for the opportunities that will inevitably arise. The third is ability. Resolve to learn what you need to know to live the kind of life you want to live. The fourth word is leadership. Take charge of your time and your life, and accept responsibility for your results. And, finally, stay with it. If you stay with it long enough, nothing can stop you from finally winning.

The Power of Thought

INTRODUCTION

You are the architect of your own life: it is yours to make or to mar.
By the power of thoughts you are building; are you building aright?

The power of thought, as Emerson says, is a spiritual power. It is the greatest power that man has at his disposal. The world today is in its present state simply as a result of mankind's collective thinking; each nation is in its present state of either peace and prosperity, or poverty, murder and anarchy, simply as a result of its thinking as a nation; and each individual is what he is, and his life is what it is, and his circumstances are what they are, simply as results of his thoughts. What a man thinks, he becomes; what a man thinks is the mainspring of all his actions; what a man thinks attracts to him his circumstances and environment; what a man thinks determines what type of friends and companions will gather around him; what a man thinks decides whether he shall be happy or miserable, successful or unsuccessful, healthy or unhealthy, prosperous or poverty-stricken, hated or loved. What a man thinks either builds up his character or pulls it down. What a man thinks can overcome fate or strengthen it, can bring him into alignment with his glorious destiny, or make him an outcast and a wanderer in desert places. Indeed, there is no limit to the power of thought, because it is a spiritual power of intense potency. It is the power which distinguishes man from the brute, it is the power by which he can mount up to God, it is the power which can make the unsuccessful successful in the battle of life, it is the power which can make the loftiest achievement possible, it is the power by which difficulties can be overcome, disadvantages of birth and parentage surmounted, and the life beautified and inspired and energised with God-given powers.
By thought man either blesses or curses himself. By it he brings into his life either success or failure, health or disease, happiness or unhappiness, poverty or prosperity. It is all in his mind and the character of his thought. Whatever there is in your life or mine, of disharmony, lack, sickness or unhappiness, is the result of our disharmonious thought. We live in an orderly Universe, but we do not react harmoniously to our environment, we are not in correspondence with the hidden law and order around us. It is not necessary for the universe to be altered; what is needed is that we ourselves should be changed. Within ourselves is the cause of the disorder in our own individual world--for we each live in a little world of our own creation-- therefore, the disorder and trouble that afflicts us, or the lack that restricts our life, can never be overcome, save by a change of mind, habit of thought, and mental attitude.
In the following pages an attempt is made to show how the reader can, by changing his thoughts and mental attitude, "reverse the lever" and come into harmony with the Divine Idea. When this is accomplished, his life will blossom like the rose, "he shall be led forth with peace; the mountains and the hills shall break before him into singing, and all the trees of the field shall clap their hands."

Chapter 1
THOUGHT THE CAUSE OF ACTION
THERE is the conscious mind and there is the subconscious mind. The conscious mind gathers knowledge and experience through the senses. It learns from books, conversation and experience. It reasons and forms conclusions. Finally its thoughts pass down into the subconscious mind. The subconscious mind is the mind of action. It is responsible for all that we do. It is the seat of memory and of instinct. It is a reservoir of tremendous power, it is of extraordinary intelligence, it carries out all the complicated processes within the body, which make life possible. The wisest and most learned of men cannot begin to fathom its wonderful powers, but in spite of this we know enough about its manner of working to enable us to control it, and by controlling it, we control our actions, and by controlling our actions we shape our life, and overcome what is called fate.
The subconscious mind, although so wonderfully intelligent and possessed of such extraordinary powers, acts entirely upon suggestion. That is to say, it follows blindly and faithfully the thoughts that are sent down into it. Therefore upon our thoughts depends what sort of actions are brought forth. If evil thoughts are sent down into the subconscious mind, then evil, destructive action will be the natural result. If thoughts of weakness and failure are entertained, then weak actions leading to failure will inevitably follow. On the other hand, if good thoughts are entertained, then constructive good action will result, and if strong, successful thoughts are entertained, they bring forth robust, constructive action, which leads to success and achievement. It is impossible to think evil thoughts and bring forth good actions. Many have tried it. They have said, I will be outwardly respectable and blameless in life, but in secret I will think this thought, I will hug it to my bosom because it is pleasant, but I will let it go no further, because I know that evil action leads to shipwreck and disaster. Therefore I will deceive even my best friends. Outwardly I will be all that I ought to be, but in my thoughts I will be evil. Mine will be a double life, to outsiders I shall be one thing, and in my thought-world something different. Thus I shall be able to enjoy evil in thought, and escape its penalties!
Such an one does not reckon with the power and faithfulness of the subconscious mind. Every evil thought which is entertained and gloated over, acts as a powerful suggestion to this patient giant, until at last it can stand it no longer, and bursts out into the life in the form of a course of evil action, which is an exact replica of the thoughts which have been entertained. This explains why so often people who have always been so exemplary in their conduct all at once go wrong, and come crashing down to ruin; they are simply reaping the harvest of their thoughts.
While this is true of the majority of those who indulge in secret evil thinking, there are yet those who, either through lack of courage or opportunity, do not, or cannot, "break out" into a course of evil action. By their evil thoughts they arouse certain emotions which cannot be satisfied and which therefore have to be repressed. The effect of repression is either chronic ill-health which no medical skill can ever cure, or organic disease that is beyond the art of man to heal. The reader must not imagine, however, that everyone who suffers in this way has been guilty of evil thinking, but the practice is certainly one of the ways by which some people can, and do, literally destroy themselves.
This example is merely given as an illustration of the effect of evil thinking, and most people have seen evidences of it amongst their friends and relations. Most of my readers will doubtless be above this kind of thinking, but the same law acts with every kind of thought that is sent down into the subconscious mind. There are two kinds of thought, viz., constructive and destructive, sometimes called positive and negative. It depends upon which class of thought we persistently dwell upon and pass to the subconscious mind, what our actions in life are to be. If we allow our mind to dwell on destructive, negative thoughts, and this, unfortunately, is often the case as it requires no effort, then destructive and negative action will be the inevitable result. On the other hand, if we think positive or constructive thoughts--and, to do this, effort is required, just as effort is required in climbing a hill--constructive action takes place as a natural result.
Thus a man who gives way to hate and broods over his wrongs, will be led to think of murder, and if he gloats upon thoughts of murder a time will come when he may attempt murder. On the other hand, if the same man will keep his mind off his wrongs and think thoughts of forgiveness, or, better still, if he will love, or hold in thoughts of good-will the one who has wronged him, then his life will become happy and peaceful, and in its highest sense, successful.
Again, a man who gives way to weak, fearful thoughts, who fears that his business will fail, who fears that his luck may give out, who fears that competition will arise with which he will be unable to cope, such a man will probably fail, because all his actions will be weak and hesitating and lacking in that strength and decision which are necessary for the achievement of success. On the other hand, if he will banish every weak negative thought, every thought of possible failure, and constantly brace his mind by affirmations of success--in other words, send down strong suggestions of success to his subconscious mind--such a man will succeed in life, because his actions will be strong and decisive. When faced by great difficulty he will find that his subconscious mind will supply him with wonderful energy and staying power, great courage and determination, simply because it has been trained by right thinking to do so.
It would be possible to fill a book with illustrations of the operation of this law, but in a little work of this kind these two must suffice. The law is immutable: it cannot be tricked or evaded. Whatever we think becomes sooner or later translated into action; and as upon our actions our life depends, it will be seen that it is possible by thought-control to govern our life. For by controlling our thoughts we govern our actions; by governing our actions we mould our life and circumstances, thus shaping our fate.
Life is not a matter of chance or luck; it is not something out of our control; it is largely the result or effect of our thoughts. Therefore, by controlling our thoughts--and this, thank God, can be done--we can govern and direct our life to an almost unbelievable extent. As conscious thinking beings, created, the Bible says, in God's likeness and image, or in other words, a microcosm of the macrocosm, we possess one of the greatest powers in the universe. and this power is thought. It depends upon how we use this wonderful power what our life shall be. The engine driver sends his engine either backward or forward, but it is the same power that is used in each case. In the same way, thinking man can either build up or destroy himself by the use or misuse of the potent power of thought. It depends upon how he uses this power, either for good or ill, as to whether his life shall be successful, healthy, happy or harmonious, or lacking in definite achievement, true success and happiness. "Whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap." Meet me next time on this blog for the release of the next chapter. Remember that "The Power of Your Thought Controls You"

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