Step 3: Now, think about what
you would like to have happen in the next year.Make a "resolutions" list
and for each item, develop a list of reasons why achieving this "goal" will be
important to you. Select 2-3 three that you want to focus on.
What will it mean to you in your life and to those around you if you met these goals?
Stretch to come up with reasons that are compelling and stimulate your desire for the
result. The more intensity in the desire you create the greater probability of success. If
your list is purely intellectual reasons why you should, it won’t have an impact on
your actions.
List all the costs to you if you don’t achieve what you wish. Stretch to go beyond
"pat" answers. When you write the words, you should make yourself feel the
discomfort of what the words really mean, so that you are linked into the full cost of not
achieving what you set out to achieve in the next year.
List out the key obstacles that you will create for yourself because you fear that you
can not achieve the goal. (This is really the reason so many of our goals are unmet,
rather than external obstacles getting in the way).
Decide in advance how you will reward yourself for achieving each goal.
If you don't know the answers to the questions above, or you don't have good reasons
for moving forward you have three options if you want to achieve your goals in 1999.
- Pick new goals that have more meaning to you if you were to achieve them.
- Spend more time thinking through the goals you have set and why you want to achieve them
(and it can't just be because your mother wants you to).
- You may achieve your goals by sheer force of will, but once you achieve them you may ask
yourself, what is the joy and glory for all the work I have done?
Assuming that you were able to come up with some great goals and some great reasons to
"accomplish" them, close your eyes and play a movie of you achieving what you
wish to achieve. During the experience, remind yourself feel how it will feel when you
have reached your goal. Picture your first step and the reward you will have for achieving
that step, no matter how small the first step is!
Review all the reasons why you believe this goal is important to you. When you come to
the first "obstacle" in your movie, play the movie in fast forward to the end
where the goal is accomplished adding the light, sound and color from your 1998-success
movie. Throw in a big celebration at the end. Play the tape forward and reverse, faster
and faster, celebrating your success and knowing you have the internal resources to do
whatever you choose.
