Carl Sandburg wrote, “Nothing happens unless first a dream”.  Now is the time to truly commit to your personal and professional goals for 2012.   We are one third of the way through 2012.  Take inventory of your 2012 goals, what have you achieved and where are you falling short?   Imagine it’s December 31^st 2012, what have you achieved in your six areas on the goals form?

Like Albert Einstein, spend two hours in a comfortable chair to just think, VISUALIZE your future, determine where you want to go….hey if it worked for him…

Once your vision of what you’ll achieve in 2012 is clear, commit it to paper.  Use the goals form to WRITE down all of your one-year goals in the six areas of your life.

Lastly, keep your 2012 goals somewhere where they are VISIBLE.  You need to see them often!   Use a frame and insert your new 2012 goals, place your goals on a nightstand where you’ll see them in the morning and the evening or on your dresser, desk or refrigerator.   Seeing your goals daily will constantly remind you of the direction in which you’re headed….it’s a daily reminder of what it is you’d like to achieve.

Heed the advice of the Roadrunner in Can’t Catch Me Coyote… “Keeping a written goal visible makes it come alive – it breathes life into your goal.”

ACTION:

• Reflect on what you have already achieved in 2012.
• Take time to think, visualize what it is you’d like to achieve by December 31, 2012.
• (if you haven’t already) Write down your 2012 goals on the one-year form, put it in a frame and keep it somewhere so you see it every day!

See Your Goals…Achieve Your Dreams!

V.W.V.!   Neil

Recently, our weekly Rock Report video relayed the story of Colby, a very successful high school distance runner who set some very high goals.  You can check it out here:  Rock Report

After publishing that Rock Report, I got the following email from Colby’s Dad, someone who had attended one of my workshops, years earlier.

After listening to your talk many moons ago, I took the information home and instructed Aubrey and Colby how to include it into the pursuit of their goals. I think some people have the ability to utilize certain info better than others but we obviously hit upon something that was a powerful catalyst for their eventual success.

I don’t thank you often enough for your role in the success they both achieved on the track. Your advice was instrumental in them achieving their goals.

For Colby’s senior outdoor track season, his goal became more time oriented, rather than record oriented. He wanted to run 4:08.00. So he wrote down 4:08 in black magic marker on a big piece of athletic tape. He stuck it on the dashboard of his car. Every time he drove that car, you couldn’t help but see it. He drove it to school every day. He also posted the goal all around the house. Then as you said, the week after he won the Ohio outdoor State mile championship, he travelled to NYC to run the Jim Ryun Dream Mile in NYC against America’s top milers. The top 12 milers in America were invited to participate. Jim Ryun was the starter!

When the time flashed on the huge scoreboard at the Randall Island Stadium, I could not believe my eyes. He had run 4:07.9. As with the indoor season, it looked as if he was going to run out of opportunities to accomplish this goal.  But in the end he wasn’t going to be denied. It surely wasn’t coincidence. His success was attributable to talent, hard work and without a doubt employing the concepts and techniques he learned about from you.

He was also aware of how successful his older sister, Aubrey, was utilizing your techniques. That was a powerful motivator for him seeing how it worked like magic for her.

Running for the University of Oregon was his goal since junior high. He was not aware, however how fast you really needed to be to be recruited by the Ducks. By the end of his Junior year, he was fast but not even close to the Oregon standard. He has a naive confidence that worked well in this situation because he wasn’t concerned. He did know what it was going to take. 1) He would need to not only qualify for indoor nationals in the mile, but he would need to make All-American (top 6 in USA). 2) He would need to run under 4:10 indoors (hence, he needed to break the All-Time Ohio record to do that).   A Tall Order but he wrote it all down, posted it everywhere, wrote it on every page in his school assignment book as he considered these his most important assignments!

Amazingly, he then did make All-American by placing 3rd at the Indoor National Meet. That earned him All-American. He ran under 4:10 and broke the All-Time indoor record a week later. He caught Oregon’s eye and they began the recruiting process. Outdoors he almost won the National Mile Title (lost by a second), earning All-American again and then coupled with the 4:07.9 in NYC and an All-American USATF Jr National 1500 finish in Des Moines, was offered a scholarship to run for his dream school.

All those things I just listed were on signs all around our house. But the cool thing is that a year before this all happened, those goals that were posted in cars, on refrigerators, on bathroom sink mirrors and all around the house were initially such stretch goals that many people upon seeing them, believed them to be unrealistic.

Thanks for being such an integral part in our children’s success.

Please do as Colby did: Visualize your goals, Write them down, and keep them visible.   You will achieve unimaginable results!   Next time we will examine the tremendous results achieved by big sister, Aubrey, by utilizing these same techniques.

You’re an entrepreneur.  You run the ship.   You make the decisions (most of them).   Your office is your car and your business is your territory.  You don’t work in a cubicle and you don’t have to beat the VP of sales into the office in the morning or stay until they leave…this is YOUR business!   Your success solely depends on how you lead the ship to its destination.

So why do you feel overwhelmed, always behind, like there’s never enough time in the day? Growing your business can take its toll and leave you little time for you and your life, rarely getting to enjoy the subtle little things that pass before you every day.

Is your life in balance?   Are you as focused on other areas of life as you are with business?  Of course we have goals for our business but what about other important areas of our life?   Our business/career is only one of six critical areas for us to have established goals.

When’s the last time you coached your child’s sports team or volunteered at a school?   Are you saving for retirement or funding your children’s 529s for college?   What about your spiritual beliefs, are you working towards a better understanding?   Are you eating well and exercising for energy all day? Are you taking time to work on your own personal goals?  Are you planning a date night with your spouse or significant other?

“Life is like riding a bicycle. To keep your balance, you must keep moving,” said Albert Einstein.    To keep your balance you must keep moving ahead in life, not just work.   Living a balanced life virtually eliminates that feeling of being suffocated; it helps you rest easy at night knowing that every day you’re working toward your life’s goals and not just business goals.   You’ll be energized when you wake in the morning knowing that the day ahead is aligned with your priorities in life and not just work.   And guess what?   You’ll be more productive with your business because life is in balance and your bike is moving straight ahead without a wobble.

Agree?  Great, the good news is balance is very simple…so simple that all you have to do is visualize what it is you want to accomplish, write it down and keep it visible to you every day.   You read it right; Visualize your goals, Write them down and keep them Visible - V.W.V.

Take time for yourself, really shutdown and be alone in a quiet place for a few hours.   Visualize what your life will look like in the critical six areas (Family, Financial, Career/School, Health & Fitness, Personal, and Spiritual) one year from today.  Once you have a clear vision, then simply write it down and keep it somewhere so that you see it every day.  When you see your goals every day you instinctively work towards achieving them.  You’re constantly reminded of what it is you’d like to achieve; where it is your going.  Visible goals eliminate the need for complicated actions steps, processes and procedures involving your written goal.

Now get on your bike and ride!  And don’t forget, enjoy the view!

V.W.V.   Neil

There are three quotes on my website describing life, goals and balance and I’m dedicating my first few blogs to explaining why these quotes exemplify these three simple principles. Maybe these insights will help you work toward what it is you want to achieve in your life.

The first quote supports my principle for life, “Victorious warriors win first then go to war, while defeated warriors go to war then seek to win.” This quote is from the book The Art of War by Sun Tzu and was written two and a half thousand years ago. Sun Tzu’s thirteen chapters, specifically written about success on the battlefield, caught the eye of Ho Lu, King of Wu, who successfully used these strategies to win in war. Since then, Tzu’s work has become required reading for militaries worldwide. Granted, this quote is from a different time period and was used by the military, so the question becomes, “How can this 25,000 year old quote help me in my life today, in 2009?”

Let me translate: Win first then go to war = imagine your success, then go get it. See what it is you want first and then proceed to accomplish it. Plan your success and then succeed. Visualize what it is you want to accomplish and then go accomplish it. By “winning first” you’ve set the table for success by creating a blueprint in your mind that will lead you to your goal and see your success materialize. The “defeated warriors” didn’t have a plan, map or direction–they just went to war. In life we need to live by the same principle that was taught 25,000 years ago: Successful people win first then go to work, while unsuccessful people go to work then seek to win (the word “work” referring to working towards any goal and not specifically “work”, meaning your job).

We too must plan our success just as warriors were taught centuries ago. In our jobs, at home with our families, in our finances, etc. it’s necessary to have a plan for what it is you want to accomplish in the critical six areas of life; family, finances, personal, health & fitness, career/school, and spiritual. Know where you’re going and what it is you’re working toward. Make sure you have plenty of good reasons for accomplishing your goals so when you hit obstacles, you continue toward the target without hesitation. Without a will to succeed, you become unfocused, lazy and have a lack direction which could lead to challenges that become hard to overcome. Having goals and a direction builds discipline every day as you become more aware that everything you do is critical to your chosen goal.

Sun Tzu was a brilliant war strategist that wrote about how to be successful on the battlefield. He knew every situation that an army could be in and how to prepare for success. Use his brilliance as a guide for your life. Have a life you’ve always imagined, but first, imagine it!