At the end of 2015 I posted a blog regarding goal setting which I have included in the post.

As we come upon the end of the first quarter of 2016 how are you doing with your dreams and goals?  This is the time of the year that people start to fall off on their new year’s plans.  So take a minute to check to see if your goals are still relevant for you.  Using two of my 9 steps of goal setting.  Write down your goal and under that on one side write the word rewards and on the other side write the word consequences.  Under rewards write all the reasons why you want to achieve that goal.  List all the things you will get by reaching your goal.  Under the word consequences write all the things you will lose or not get if you do not reach the goal.  The rewards and consequences are your “WHY” for setting the goal.  Now, if your rewards are not powerful enough to keep you motivated and moving towards your goal, or if the consequences of what you will not get if you do not reach your goal don’t keep you moving towards your goal, then the goal needs to be updated or changed all together.

Goal Setting

In three weeks it will be 2016, the question I am asking my clients, family and friends.  Where will you be a year from now?  The answer is simple, you will be moving closer to your dreams and goals or your dreams and goals will be moving further away from you.

I have talked a lot about the importance and power of setting goals.  I believe GOAL setting is the most important of all personal improvement ideas.  Goals give you a sense of purpose and direction, a process to keep score, and a confidence that only comes from knowing where you are going.  Many people dream of becoming, of succeeding, but very few will ever realize their dreams because they never do anything about it.

To start on your path, you need to spend some time creating a vision for what you want.  The vision is based on your dreams and what you want for yourself.  It is similar to driving from your home to a place you have never been and you either get in the car and start driving aimlessly hoping to arrive at your destination.  Or you go to Google maps or Siri and you put in the address, get your point by point list or map before you head out to your destination.

This is similar to the difference between dreaming and goal setting, versus not planning at all.  Many of you know that I am an avid reader, usually reading two or three books at a time seeking more knowledge and information.  In the newest book I started reading this week The Compound Effect by Darren Hardy he writes about success and what it really takes to earn it.  Darren Hardy is an American author, keynote speaker, advisor, and publisher of SUCCESS magazine. Hardy is a New York Times best-selling author, who wrote The Entrepreneur Roller Coaster and The Compound Effect.  In the book he makes several key points that are so plain, but so true for people who want to be successful and change the direction of their life.  Hardy is a multi-millionaire who at 18 was making a six-figure income in his own business and by twenty-four had made his first million dollars.

The first thing he said, quoting one of his mentors, Jim Rohn is that “There are no new fundamentals.  Truth is not new; it’s old”.  In other words, once you have a plan, it takes hard work.  The overnight success stories are fabricated.  Darren goes on to write that “becoming wealthy, influential, and world-class” is slow and arduous.  New or more information is not what we need, a new plan of action is.  He states that the biggest difference between successful people and unsuccessful people is that successful people are willing to do what unsuccessful people are not.

That is the question.  Are you willing to do what you need to do in 2016 to live the life that you imagine?  Are you willing to set some SMART goals, create and action plan, make a vision board and create a vision for yourself for 2016?

Paul J. Myer founder of Success Motivation Institute, who pioneered the personal development and self-improvement industry, said “that if you are not making progress that you would like to make and are capable of making, it is simply because your goals are not clearly defined”.  He goes on to say that whatever you vividly imagine, ardently desire, sincerely believe, and enthusiastically act upon… must inevitably come to pass.  It is the law of attraction principle before the book and movie ever came out.  It has been around since the beginning of time. 

So how important is goal setting, Darren Hardy writes that the one skill most responsible for his abundance in his life is learning how to effectively set and achieve goals.  Will you do it?  Doing it is simple, but not doing it is also simple.  Getting on the path of doing what you want and achieving your dreams and goals comes down to doing what may be the single biggest practice for a great 2016, Proper Goal Setting.

I will conclude with this from Darren Hardy. “I want you to know in your bones that your only path to success is through a continuum of mundane, unsexy, unexciting, and sometimes difficult daily disciplines compounded over time.”

DREAM Big, Set SMART GOALS, create a VISION for 2016 and live the LIFE you Imagine!