The 12 Commandments of Goal Setting

People tend to have a basic idea of what they want to achieve in life. They may want a career, own their own business, embrace their inner artist or move to a new location that calls them.

However, a lot of times the success one desires isn’t achieved because there is a lack in clarity of their goal.

I certainly have been there (specifically in the last 5 years). I want to help people, be of service and like many had a general idea of what I wanted to accomplish. But the challenge is that the mind does not work effectively with generalities. And it wasn’t until I became really clear and specific of what I wanted that I was able to see a shift and become more successful.

If you want to earn a higher income and you earn one more dollar, have you achieved your goal? Not really. Because you were not specific about what you wanted to accomplish, your creative mind could not assist you in reaching your true objective.

A dream without a plan is just a wish

Katherine Paterson

Goals become most effective when they are written down in the present tense using clear, specific, vivid words. Let’s keep going with the higher income example, if your goal were to earn a salary of $50,000 per year, you would write:

I now earn $50,000. per year in a job that is fulfilling and allows me to express myself creatively.

This can feel weird, out of sort and maybe even unrealistic but I know from personal experience that by following these 12 steps you will see positive results in achieving your goals – no matter what your goal is.

• Decide what you want to accomplish. This should be very specific. If you want to lose weight sales, how many pounds do you want to lose?

• Determine a deadline for because if you do not have a date on it, odds are that you will not be able to achieve it. It holds you personally accountable to yourself – and give you the opportunity to share your deadline with someone for additional accountability.

• Ask yourself: Do I believe that I can achieve this goal? You must feel that the goal can be realized. If you believe it is impossible to achieve, you will never take the action necessary to make the goal a reality.

• Where are you now? Take a current inventory. You will never know how far you have to go if you don’t know where you already are.

• What obstacles do you need to overcome? Is there something that may make it difficult to achieve your goal? Be aware of the obstacle so you can make plans to overcome it. In the workshops I teach, we often talk about a confidence level on our ability to achieve our goal. From a scale of 1-10, what is your confidence in doing the work to achieve your goal? The aim is to be at a 7 and if it’s less than that – what is the barrier and how can you move the barrier out of the way.

• What knowledge will you need to acquire? Will you need to earn a professional designation or take certain courses? Will you need to research new markets? Do you need to hire a coach?

• What organizations and groups should you associate with? Are there certain groups of people that can make it easier for you to accomplish your goal? How can you become affiliated with them?

• What are the benefits to you? Write down as many benefits as possible. The more benefits you can come up with, the more likely you will be to stick to the goal until it is achieved.

• Develop an action plan. Determine the specific steps that will be necessary to achieve the goal. Start at the accomplishment of the goal and work backward. Break it down into as many small steps as possible. I believe the smaller the step, the easier to take action and the sooner you’re on your way to success.

• Visualize yourself accomplishing the goal. See yourself in clear detail as if you have already achieved the goal. If you want to close more sales, see yourself closing more sales easily. Do this over and over again until it becomes part of your subconscious mind. I love writing out my vision so I can really tune into the end result I want to achieve, what it looks like and feels like. And then I read it as often as possible. This helps me stay the course.

• Take action towards the goal. Dreams and goals require action. The best goal in the world will never materialize unless consistent action is taken. I am not going to say that you should do this every day because I believe in taking a small break (a day perhaps) and step back a little. It would be a terrible waste if you burn out before you even got proper momentum towards your goal.

• Resolve to never quit. Decide that you will never give up, even when times get tough until your goal is reached. I’ve been on my path of figuring out how to help and be of service to people for 5 years. It would have been so easy to quit and get a job instead. But I can’t see myself in that space anymore for so many many reasons. Become determined to figure it out and to keep going.

I will soon be opening The Gathering for The Rebels Den.

It will be filled with courses, trainings, and videos to help you achieve your dreams and goals. Some of the courses you will find on the inside are related to life, goal setting, writing i.e. how to write a book and publish it and business. I have also decided to add creative courses such as learning how to wood-burn and macrame.

This will be evolving with more and more courses and trainings that will hopefully give you what you want and need to go to the next step. And much more that I am not ready to share with you just yet.

Want to know when the doors open? Be sure to sign up for The Rebels Den Newsletter so you can be part of the founder’s group and gain access at the lowest price possible.