November 2007
Only 2 Months ‘till the New Year!
Are you tired of never getting ahead?
Have you tried for years and years to set those New Years resolutions, but keep failing by February?
Attend the GOAL ACHIEVER seminar and learn how to finally and forever ACHIEVE 100% of your goals before the New Year.
$229.00 won’t change your standard of living… but it can change your life!
Register for the Goal Achiever seminar now available in Grande Prairie.
Only $229.00 /person in advance Or $275.00 /person at the door |
When:Saturday, November 24, 2007 Where: 105, 10126–120 Avenue, Grande Prairie Time: 9:00am – 5:00pm (Registration at 8:30) |
To Register, call: 866-901-0773, email Alan@AchievingGoalsInc.com or online at www.AchievingGoalsInc.com
What to Expect:During this life changing event, you will see and hear about the “missing piece” between where you are now and where you want to be. You will finally know how to:
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The Goal Setting Gap by: Alan W. Goff
I believe that the biggest gap in life is the gap between what we know and what we do. I also believe that everybody knows some things that they can be doing right now that would produce a better result for them in their life and would definitely change the way that they live. If I were to ask you to take out a piece of paper and a pen...and I offered you a hundred dollars cash to write down three things that you know you could do, you know you should do and you know that if you would do them, it would dramatically change any results that you are currently getting in any area of your life; could you do it?
Of course you could do that, we could all do that. Isn't it amazing that we can get so enthusiastic and so creative when I offer you a hundred dollars for such a simple exercise? But if you were doing what you already know to do and if you just did those three things you wrote down, you'd be making a hundred times a hundred bucks and you wouldn't need my lousy cash… but if you really want it, I’ll fax you out the hundred bucks.
So, the biggest gap in life really is between what we know and what we do. Unfortunately, there is also such a gap a between goal setting and goal achieving. Goal setting is an intellectual process. It’s a skill that can be learned. Goal achieving is a lawful process based on being in harmony with what we think and the way that we behave. Often when we take a look at goal setting, we find key mistakes that people make when they are setting goals.
One of the first mistakes people make when they set goals is that they set their goals way too low. They end up literally thinking in reverse. They look at their current results and they allow those current results to control the way they think and rather than basing a goal on what they want, they set a goal on what they “think” they are capable of doing. They “allow” their present results to be a reflection of their potential, when really; the results that you and I get in life are not a reflection of our potential..... “It’s truly a result of our AWARENESS of our potential.” So in reality, we end up setting our goals based on what we know we can do.
If a person is making $50,000/yr, they will probably set a goal to make $55,000 the next year. If a person is making $100,000/yr, they may set a goal to make $125,000/yr. That is ridiculously low. The problem is that the goal does not really inspire you to go through the process of change that is necessary. When you are starting to set goals, you are literally in a comfort zone. I don’t care if you are making a million dollars per year, or if you are making $10,000/year. Wherever you currently are, you are comfortable there. When you step outside the comfort zone to grow, you have to face things that you have not faced before. You’re going to have to face circumstances you have not faced before, meet people you are not in the habit of talking to, and do things you have not done before.
Once you make the decision, swallow hard and step outside your comfort zone to do the things you need to do to grow and achieve a big goal, you so often get a proverbial punch in the nose from life. It’s at that time and place that you meet with resistance, failure or challenges and if the goal you set is not big enough… if the “pay-off” on the other side is not big enough, you will go right back to your comfort zone. It is Abraham Maslow that said, “We will either step forward into growth or we will go back into safety.”
The second mistake people make when they set goals is very similar to the first. Again, the thinking is reversed. We allow our current results to control the way we think and rather than basing a goal on what we want, we set a goal on what we think we are capable of achieving… on what we know we can do.
This is where we begin to create all these elaborate plans for success that actually hinder our success. For example, you may say, “Right now our company is making a million dollars a year in gross sales and if we can take our current customers and increase the numbers by 10%, we can grow this much”, and “If gas prices go down over here and there is peace in the Middle East, then “that” will happen.” Or, if the housing bubble or the stock market bubble doesn’t burst, well then maybe we can do “this”. The whole elaborate plan is based on what we think is a justified or proven situation.
The problem with that is.... as I said earlier, goal achieving happens by law. The first law of creation is order and movement. Nothing in our universe stays the same, so by the time you finish creating this elaborate plan or scheme in order to get what it is you “think you are capable of doing”; the circumstances of which you have based that plan on have changed. The stock market may go up or down. Gas prices may go up or down. There may or may not be peace in the Middle East. There may or may not be a confused person with a weapon of mass destruction somewhere in the world.
The thing is we don’t really know, so again, when we step outside the comfort zone and begin our action plan and we meet with circumstances and conditions we had not prepared for....Uh Oh... what happens if that pay- off on the other side is not big enough, if we had not planned for this, that or the other thing… chances are we will either become very confused and quit or drag our sorry butt back to the drawing board hoping to luck out and get the big break next time.
I love the way Voltaire said that we invented the words: ‘luck’, ‘chance’, and ‘miracle’. They express the known effects of unknown causes. One has to understand or at least be aware that everything happens by very, very precise laws. As we come to understand these laws and then attempt, and I say attempt because there isn’t anyone who does it perfectly, when we attempt to incorporate them into our lives, things start to happen.
The biggest mistake we make when we set goals is we tend to limit that which we want, really because we don’t know or have any idea of how to get it. That sounds absolutely ridiculous, doesn’t it? Because if we knew how to get it, we would already have it… wouldn’t we? I think the lesson being missed here is that “how to do something” has never mattered.
It has always been the “why” that has driven successful people. Back in 1963 Mary Kay Ash had absolutely no idea that she was going to own ‘Mary Kay Cosmetics’. She took her life savings, had to get a man to sign an agreement to lease 500 square feet of retail space because in 1963, in Texas, you had to have a man sign on the dotted line for you if you were a woman. Her definiteness of purpose was to ‘Enrich Women’s Lives’. She didn’t even know it was going to be accomplished through the vehicle of cosmetics, she just knew she wanted to change to world and empower women. She didn’t know how that was going to happen but she had a “why” behind her desire. Therefore nothing was allowed to stand in her way.
Edison didn’t know how he was going to illuminate the world. Maybe his “why” was he was tired of kerosene or paraffin wax. The Wright brothers did not roll out some plans on the table and say, “we are going to build this %@^* thing one time and one time only and if we don’t get it right we are going to scrap it”. No. They didn’t know how they were going to build it. They had a ‘why’ and that’s all they had… and quite simply, that is the key.
What is it that you want…? I mean really, really want? Take at least a minute and think about what do “I WANT”. If I was to make a list of the things I knew about goal setting back when I first started to study this, you could probably reduce it down to the size of a postage stamp. When I started to study this material, I knew that I had to set goals. I knew that there were long-term and short-term goals. I knew I should have a start date and I knew that it should be specific.
I remember reading one of Earl Nightingale’s works. He said, “Ideas and goals are like slippery fish… If you don’t gaff them with the point of a pencil, they will slip away, never to return.” So I knew I had to write them down. But that is really all I knew and I think that is what most people know and that really prohibits people from closing the gap between goal setting and goal achieving.
I said earlier that goal achieving is really a lawful process. For now we will proceed into what I know is the most important thing to grasp in closing the gap and that is to come up with or discover your own personal Purpose. Purpose is like the sun it never moves. Everything else uses the sun as its center. This Purpose of why you are here does exactly that if we let it. Having a definite purpose removes the confusion that is experienced when attempting to choose a goal. You are able to uncap a huge fountain of inspiration that will help keep you persistent and resilient at times when those qualities are required to deal with some of the trying situations you will face when perusing what it is you want. More importantly just as our children have to learn the basics in school of addition in order to excel into mathematics, the basics in working with these orderly laws is that we need a solid foundation to build on in order to move efficiently through the goal setting process. You can look back to your purpose to see if the vision you have is in harmony with your purpose. Then you make decisions based on a question of: ‘Is this vision, goal or opportunity going to move me closer towards my desire?’ Is it in harmony with your purpose? You and only you will know the answer if it fits and if it does… you must act.
Your Achievement Quotes - by some of ‘The Greats’
GETTING STARTED
"Better to do something imperfectly than to do nothing flawlessly." -- Robert Schuller
"Do not wait for leaders. Do it alone, person to person." -- Mother Theresa
"You don't have to be great to get started, but you have to get started to be great." -- Les Brown
"Don't wait. The time will never be just right." -- Napoleon Hill
GIVING/ABUNDANCE
"You are not here merely to make a living. You are here in order to enable the world to live more amply, with greater vision, with a finer spirit of hope and achievement. You are here to enrich the world, and you impoverish yourself if you forget the errand." -- Woodrow Wilson
"From what we get, we can make a living; what we give, however, makes a life." -- Arthur Ashe
"We make a living by what we get, but we make a life by what we give." -- Norman MacEwan
"The charity that is a trifle to us can be precious to others." -- Homer
GOALS
"In the long run, men hit only what they aim at. Therefore, they had better aim at something high." -- Henry David Thoreau
"A winner concentrates on that which is goal achieving rather than tension relieving." -- Denis Waitley
"Make every goal clear, specific, measurable, and time bounded." -- Brian Tracy
"Setting a goal is not the main thing. It is deciding how you will go about achieving it and staying with that plan." -- Tom Landry
Yes the book is coming. I recently received the publisher’s layout copy of ‘P.A.T.C.H’ and flagged 27 changes that needed to be made prior to printing. I know… I’m as anxious as you are, trust me. This of course will cause another delay, but if you know me… everything needs to be perfect. I’ll keep you posted on the progress as it happens. Thank you again for your patience and for the continued excitement and support you have all shown in this project.
Hang in there… and I’ll get you your copies ASAP.
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