There are many indicators that goal setting helps you to achieve success. Makes sense. When you want to get somewhere in life – reach your goals; realise your dreams; manifest your desires – it certainly helps if you know where you’re going! When you have a life purpose – no matter if you want to be a successful entrepreneur or a great artist; an opulent billionaire or an extraordinary musician – you have a set direction; a clear destination; a predetermined destiny. It means that you have something to focus on; to dream about; to live for!
How to set goals (and how to achieve goals) has been the subject of several studies, such as Edwin A. Locke’s Goal-Setting Theory, which says that more specific and more ambitious targets lead to higher performances than generic and modest goals. Provided that you accept the challenge, that you can achieve your target, and that you do not have any conflicting goals going on simultaneously, there seems to be a ‘positive linear relationship between goal difficulty and task performance’. In other words, a good challenge can be a great motivation.
Goal-setting helps you focus on what’s important. The more you’re thinking about your goal; the more you are obsessed by your target, the sooner you will hit it. “We become what we think about“, Earl Nightingale reveals in The Strangest Secret, inspired by Napoleon Hill who wrote that successful people have a ‘definite chief aim’ and focus on it. Define your dream and get a ‘burning desire’ for its achievement as ‘thoughts are things’ – what you think about will manifest. It’s all true, but there are many nuances that make it work (or not). Here’s why.
The more detailed you get, the more tension you (possibly) cause
Many motivation speakers push you to think big; seeing your big goal in front of you, as if you have already achieved it (e.g. ‘I am a millionaire’). While this technique can work, it only does so when you really believe that you can achieve your goal. You can easily tell whether you believe it — I’ll share that in a minute. Apart from that: someone who is $100,000 in debt will probably not believe to soon have $1,000,000 capital. Even if you’re making 50 grand a year, and have no debt, $1,000,000 in the bank seems far from where you stand right now.
Many abundance gurus tell you to be specific instead of general when you set goals, suggesting that you rather want to think or say or write: ‘I have $1,000,000 on my bank account’ instead of just ‘I am rich’. While that sounds more concrete, it only is effective when you feel comfortable when you state your goal. The more specific you become, the more stress you (potentially) have. Sooner or later you might think about whether you will get (exactly) what you want, and start to believe you won’t get it (‘how can I ever make $1,000,000?’).
Many success books teach you to be exact instead of vague regarding your achievement deadline, stating that ‘I have $1,000,000 on my bank account on January 1st, 2017’ is a good way to describe your goal. While that seems very focused, it only works out when you feel good when mention your timeline. Once again, the more detailed you get, the more tension you (possibly) cause, especially as you get closer and closer to your deadline. Turning your motivation into deprivation is the opposite of what you want. I’ll now explain in detail.
What seems like a small step can be very significant
You might already be familiar with the basics of manifesting your desires through the Law of Attraction principles as described by Abraham-Hicks in Ask And It Is Given. You know that your thoughts (by which you’re creating your entire life experience) are reflected by your emotions, therefore you already monitor your feelings to control your future, knowing that how you feel right now indicates what you’re vibrating into the universe (therefore attracting into your life) right now. Your focus should be on thinking positive thoughts, thus feeling positive emotions.
When you’re already highly successful in deliberate creation, you’ll find it much easier to think big (‘I’m owning a private jet’), be specific (‘I’m owning a Dassault Falcon 7X’), and attach timelines (‘I’m owning it before January 1st, 2017’) than if you’re a Law of Attraction newbie. As a beginner, don’t focus on your current end goal right away, like (getting back to our first example) having $1,000,000 in the bank. Because when you’re making $50,000 a year (let alone being $100,000 in debt), you’ll probably doubt you’ll ever get to a million.
Doubt is a negative feeling, and negative feelings are always caused by thinking of what you don’t want to happen (‘I’ll never get it’) instead of what you do want to happen (‘I’ll eventually get it’). Even ‘I hope I’m getting it’ is a much better-feeling thought. So what you want to do, is to focus on a goal that you feel good about because you know you can achieve it, such as increasing your income from $50,000 last year to $75,000 this year. What seems like a small step in relation to your big dream can be very significant. You might already guess why.
As long as you feel good, you’re on the right track
When you achieve your $75,000 goal — and even if you’ve ‘only’ made $70k — a powerful thing happens. You can now increase your belief level, and feel that this works! You feel proud of yourself and your achievement. Your expanded faith helps you set a new goal that is (again) in your sweet spot — a target that feels challenging (so it excites you; gives you positive emotion), but still feels realistic. The cool thing is that your new sweet spot will probably be a bigger jump compared to the previous one, e.g. increasing your income from $75k to $125k.
As your self-confidence grows, your positivity expands. You’ll be less negative (e.g. ‘It’s unlikely I’ll ever make $1,000,000’) and think & feel more positive: ‘I’m happy with what I’ve achieved so far. Who knows? Maybe, one day, I’ll get to a million. Several people in my city are living in a million-dollar home, so it can be done! It would be nice to have $1,000,000. Then I can stop working full-time, and devote more time to building my own business and enjoying my beloved family. I’m already well on my way.’ Thoughts like these make a HUGE difference.
Your beliefs are (repetitive thoughts by which you are) creating your reality. Think about that for a second. It means you can change your life destiny by changing your thought habits. Even slightly more positive thoughts result in much more positive vibrations, thus in much more positive attractions (of people, situations and things). So your actual goal here is to feel good (or feel better), and to tweak your goal-setting until it feels good because you believe that you’ll achieve your goals! As long as you feel good, you’re on the right track.
But what if you, for whatever reason, do not feel good? Or if you need guidance to maintain your good-feeling state? For you, I have written a practical e-book with 20 Easy Ways to Feel Good (or Better) in Minutes, and you can now enjoy the first 3 chapters completely free. You’ll receive it as a ‘thank you’ gift when you sign up for the free newsletter, going out twice a month. I promise you, it will be of great value. I’m excited to be part of your success journey, and I’m looking forward to welcoming you as a new reader of the free newsletter.
Image: a goal on a football field (credit: Flickr / humbletree)
