Elite athletes and successful entrepreneurs dedicate their achievement to setting goals. Successful sports persons/team managers/coaches have integrated goals in their coaching strategies. They tell us goal setting is a must; it works, full stop. So where do we go wrong?

Let’s explore this together in four simple but crucial steps. We are not going to go through the goal setting techniques per se, we are just going to identify and fill in those missing links.

Step one: Identify the Goal/s

Ask yourself; what do you want? We, as human beings are naturally goal seeking. We move towards what preoccupies our minds, what we think of. As the famous aphorism goes; Energy follows thought.

If you don’t establish a conscious direction you desire to move to, you may be moving in a direction you don’t want. This might appear to be easy, but the fact is, very few people are clear about exactly what it is they want to achieve, and hence have got no conscious direction. They bump from wall to wall.

Set yourself apart from the majority of aimlessly drifting masses by knowing exactly what you want to achieve.

Step two: Find the relationship between your goals and your values

Now, for the most powerful question, ask yourself why you want to achieve those particular goals.

Do you want a BMW? Why? You are saying it is because you have always loved big powerful luxurious car? No, that is not the answer you are looking for. Is it status you are looking for, or make yourself attractive? No. all these are by-products of an underlying reason, I call them ‘conscious justifications’.

Now, ask yourself these essential questions: How will it feel for you to own a big powerful luxurious brand new BMW? What will your emotional state being be like? Describe the feeling. Feel the feelings of achieving your goals. What is it that you are really after? Is it self-esteem, self-confidence or are you looking for approval from society pressures?

Take enough time to relate your goals with your deep seated emotions so as to find congruence between your goals and your values as an individual, as this is the cornerstone of achieving your goals.

Your goals MUST match your individual values and they must start a ripple of desire to actualise them. If this won’t happen then you will end up ‘sabotaging’ them.

So, next time you want to keep those eyes on the prize, don’t just see yourself (visualise) ‘with your BMW’ getting excited, go deeper and feel the underlying emotions, the deep-seated reason, the sense of accomplishing a goal, the heightened self-esteem/self-confidence/self-efficacy; the reinforcement of your core individual values.

Step three: Enhance the passion

Your goals must ignite the passion within you, the desire to reach them, and most importantly this passion, the yearning, must be constant. There are two basic ways to keep the hunger to reach your goals alive.

The first one is daily creative visualisations; the second is writing your goals and read them at least twice a day. Once after you wake up and again before you go to bed. When you read or visualise your goals, incorporate the emotions that go with achieving your goals. Use anchoring to augment the effects.

Step four: Experience your goals as being a reality

Every time you read or visualise your goals live the experience of your goals as if you have achieved them. This helps the mind to accept that what you tell it is true, and it will go to work to help you achieve your goals by programming the goals into your subconscious mind.

By following these four steps, you will condition your mind into accepting that your wishes are a reality and need to be actualised. Your subconscious mind will then go to work to pave the way for you. I highly recommend you visit www.acceleratedearning.com and look for the celebrated weekly success plan; it is one of the most complete, all round self-development course I have seen online.

Sal Al-Rawahi

www.acceleratedearning.com