The power of creative visualization to create a goal setting plan is undisputed – it is one of the most common characteristics of successful individuals. Read the biographies of some of history’s most successful men and you will find that they had concrete dreams, visions or goals of what they wished to achieve.
Yet studies have shown that only a mere 3% of the general population ever practice goal setting properly.
This is one of the most effective goal setting techniques you can apply to help achieve any goal you desire.
Desire – Belief – Expectancy
Jose Silva teaches that when you set a goal you need to adopt three qualities to help manifest the end result.
Desire
First, you must have a burning desire to achieve the goal.
Belief
Second,you must have a strong belief that the goal is possible and within reach.
Expectancy
Third, you must be in the state of expectancy you must be expecting to see results.
Goal Setting Strategy
Take into consideration the following:
Define Clear, Concrete Goals of What You Want to Accomplish: Motivate yourself by knowing what you want and setting a concrete goal within a time-frame.
Think Big:�We create our own limitations. Most of us are guilty of aiming too low rather than aiming too high. Dream BIG. With each accomplishment confidence grows, and goals became greater and greater. Don’t set limits to yourself.
When youre setting a goal, keep this in mind: A good goal should scare you a little and excite you a lot.
Think of your current goals and test them against this rule. If your goals do not both scare and excite you try targeting something a little more challenging.
The mind is the limit. As long as the mind can envision the fact that you can do something, you can do it as long as you really believe it 100 percent.�~ Arnold Schwarzenegger.
Dont Let Defeat Get You Down: Don’t let other peoples negative ideas influence yours. If you fail the first time, learn how to �overcome this, then move to a new thing and start again. Defeat, when viewed from a greater perspective, is often simply a mechanism of setting us on the right path or teaching us a valuable lesson.
Desire Belief Expectancy: Your goals must meet the criteria of Desire, Belief and Expectancy.
The goal must be something you strongly desire. The greater your desire the stronger your will to pursue the goal. Napoleon Hill said If your desires are strong enough you will appear to possess super-human powers to achieve.
Next, the goal must be something you believe is in the realm of the possible. This depends on your belief system. As you accomplish more in life your self-belief grows. This increases your confidence and fuels you to accomplish even bigger things.
Finally, you must expect the end result to occur.
Sam Walton the founder of Walmart said:
“I expect to win. I go into tough challenges always planning to come out victorious. It never occurred to me that I might lose, it was almost as if I had a right to win. Thinking like that often seems to turn into a self-fulfilling prophecy.”
Expectancy is harder to create. But the tool of creative visualization helps tremendously. Your subconscious mind cannot distinguish between a real experience and an imagined experience. By frequently visualizing the end result you desire you cause your subconscious to accept it to be real. This causes the mind to draw that situation into your life. Perhaps, no one has summarized this point more clearly than Gandhi when he said:
The man I want to become, if I believe myself to be, I will become
The Life Planning Process
Now that you understand the principles behind goal setting, its time to put together everything youve learned so far.
Were going to show you a simple yet powerful technique you can use to create a life plan around your goals.
Step 1 Identify Whats Important to You
Think of the various aspects of your life. Health, Family, Friends, Career, Spirituality, Finances, Charity, Education&etc.
Identify which of these focus areas are the most important to you. Perhaps your main concerns are Family, Spirituality and Career. Come up with a list and rank each area in order of importance.
Step 2 Set Long Term Goals in Each Area
Come up with a vision of where youd like to be five to ten years from today in each of these areas.
Maybe your career vision is to be running your own business. Your family vision may be to take your spouse and children on a trip to Australia. Your financial vision may be to have $250,000 in the bank.
Think of what you want. Remember the rule a good goal should scare you a little and excite you a lot.
By thinking of where you want to be five or ten years down the road, you have created a long term vision.
Step 3 Decide What You Need to Do This Year to Achieve Your Long Term Vision
So you want to have $250,000 in savings in the bank by 2009. What do you need to do this year to hit this goal? Perhaps you would need to take a course on investing, get a better paying job, or start looking for new business opportunities.
Do this with each long-term goal. This exercise helps you focus on both long and short-term planning.
Many people tend to plan for only the short-term and lose sight of their long-term vision.
Others only set long-terms goals but then forget what they need to do right now to achieve these long-terms goals.
To be effective at goal setting you need to have a long-term vision and short-term plans to get to this vision.
Step 4 Put it All Down on Paper
We have provided a simple method called the Life Planning Chart to help you. You can see a copy of such a chart below.
The first horizontal bar represents time. The first vertical bar represents each focus area in the chart below the focus areas are Family, Health, Career, Artistic, and Financial.
Now divide the sheet in half. Use the first half to write down your short term goals goals to accomplish this year. Notice that each goal corresponds to a time frame.
The second half is used to list your longer terms goals what you wish to accomplish next year and then each subsequent year for the next five years.
If you have trouble seeing the image above you can open an enlarged version by going to this page.
You start by first looking at your long-terms goals. Write down your long term vision for each focus area in the appropriate row and column.
Next ask yourself the question:� What do I need to do this year to make sure Im on track for my long term vision?
Write down your short-term goals in the appropriate row and column.
This document should be flexible. Go ahead and add new goals when you think of them. You can also remove older goals if your plans change.
Step 5 Begin the Process of Creative Visualization
You should place Life Planning Chart in a location where youre likely to view it daily. It could be in an office drawer you open daily, as a file on your computer desktop or in a frame on your wall.
When you meditate daily using the Silva System, spend a few minutes visualizing yourself achieving each goal. You could also create an affirmation for each focus area. (Refer to Lesson 4 of this Program).
Step 6 Begin taking Action towards Your Goals
You now have your long-term vision. You have the steps you need to do this year to achieve that vision. Now put your plan in action.
Take a step, even the smallest step towards that goal. When you take your first step you set the wheels in motion for your mind to manifest your dreams into reality.
Make it a point to start your life planning process as soon as you can and to practice goal setting and creative visualization techniques on a daily basis.
Sooner rather than later, you will be able to have it all, health, happiness, wealth and much more.
It’s never too late to begin creating the life of your dreams.
