Forget everything you know about traditional goal-setting

It gives you something to strive for. It helps you to focus… if ever you fall off track, you can get right back on by reminding yourself why you’re doing what you’re doing.

Jazz Advice teachers Forrest Wernick and Eric O’Donnell share, that having a goal is not enough.

Most of us need a plan but we all know how that pans out. We conjure an elaborate plan that we promise we will follow diligently day after day until we reach our goal.

“You can wake up now,” they jest.

“We’ve all tried it and it doesn’t work. It sounds great in theory and your mind can see how you can logically get there, but getting your body to follow through with the work is the real struggle.” I’m sure you can identify.

It’s easy to think things through in our head. That’s the easy part.

The next step…bringing our ideas to life which author Dr Maria Nemeth calls trouble at the border, is where we’re faced with our Saboteurs voice: resistance to change. Ideas pop up about risk, and danger. We go into survival and protection mode. Anything new or different that we’re pursuing is seen as dangerous.

It helps at this point to redefine our goal and focus on a very minute aspect of that larger goal.

If your goal is to write a book, and particularly if you’re not in the habit of writing at all, then you should redefine that large goal into a vastly smaller piece, say write for five minutes daily. You might spend more than five minutes a day if you choose to but it’s a choice.

The hardest part is starting and that’s what you’re doing -making it small enough so that you’re not overwhelmed by your goal.

Jason Leister, author of the popular daily newsletter, The Incomparable Expert says that he was lazy about marketing. So instead of committing to several marketing tactics, he chose to send out a daily email to all his clients.

He calls it a newsletter but it’s just an email (nothing fancy) sharing what’s going on with him, and the things he’s interested in helping his clients with.

Most times we bite off more than we can chew. We fill our to-do list to the gills and then get depressed at the end of the day when we don’t accomplish what we set out to.

How much should you focus on? It’s really up to you, but I will suggest that you chop that list to a tenth if you want to get some real traction.

There is always a huge disparity about what you want to do, what you think you should do and what you actually get around to doing.

The goal is to steadily improve in what you do and how you do it.

And finally, please take yourself into consideration. We tend to borrow the processes from others, the “accepted” paths as it were. We focus on successful people we feel we should follow. We do things in a way we think we should do them.

I’m not talking about the foundation steps, those general tactics that work and work well but you have to figure out what you’re doing and how it will apply/impact your life.

Is getting up early in the morning best suited to you? Does journaling make sense for you right now? Do you want to meditate? Can you achieve the same thing just colouring in your favourite adult colouring book? What way of truly being speaks to you? Whatever that is - Be that! And finally beware of trying to be perfect. Rich Schefren describes perfection best. He says, “Perfectionism is trying to get the world to believe something about you that you don’t believe yourself.” In other words, your lack of belief in your own ability will prevent you from achieving the goal. It may have nothing to do with your plan, your daily to-dos or your lack of focus.

If you find yourself wanting to get every detail right ask yourself the following: What are you trying to prove by your pursuit of perfection? What do you think you need to prove it? What kind of proof do you need? Where is your belief in yourself lacking? Why? If your goal is something that really lights a fire under you, something that you want, then step back from everything you “know” about goal setting. Focus instead on your plan and what you are committed to doing daily. Make sure that those to-dos align with who you are and are not rubbing you the wrong way and finally check in with yourself to see if attempting to be a perfectionist is the real culprit in preventing you from hitting your target.

For a free copy of the report How to Operate in your Zone of Genius and Prosper Financially – leveraging your Hidden Marketing and Personal Assets send an email to possibility2profit@gmail.com