Given how we become what we think the most about, Prof. VGT elucidates the importance of goal setting as the “master skill of success”.
Success is goals and all else is commentary. All successful people are intensely goal oriented. They know what they want, and are focused single-mindedly on achieving it, every single day.
Your ability to set goals is the master skill of success. Goals unlock your positive mind and release ideas and energy for attainment. Without goals, you simply drift and flow on the current of life. With goals, you fly like an arrow, straight and true to your target.
The truth is that you probably have more natural potential than you could use if you lived one hundred times. Whatever you have accomplished up until now is only a small fraction of what is truly possible for you. One of the rules for success is this, it doesn’t matter where you’re coming from; all that matters is where you’re going. And where you are going is solely determined by yourself and your own thoughts. Clear goal increases your confidence, develops your competence, and boosts your levels of motivation. Goals are the fuel in the furnace of achievement.
You Create Your Own World.
Perhaps the greatest discovery in human history is the power of your mind to create the aspects of your life. Everything you see around you in the man-made world began as a thought or an idea in the mind of a single person before it was translated into reality. Everything in your life started as a wish, a hope, or a dream, either in your mind, or in the mind of someone else. Your thoughts form and shape your world and everything that happens to you.
The great summary statement of all religions, philosophies, metaphysics, psychology and success is this: “You become what you think about – most of the time.” Your outer world ultimately becomes a reflection of your inner world, and mirrors back to you what you think about. Whatever you think about continuously emerges in your reality.
Many thousands of successful people have been asked what it is that they think about most of the time. The most common answer given by successful people is that they think about what they want; and how to get it most of the time. Unsuccessful, unhappy people think and talk about what they don’t want most of the time. They talk about their problems and worries, and who is to blame, most of the time. But successful people keep their thoughts and conversation on the topics of their most intensely desired goals. They think and talk about what they want most of the time.
Living without clear goals is like driving in a thick fog. No matter how powerful or well engineered you car, you drive slowly, hesitantly, making little progress on even the smoothest road. Deciding upon your goals clears the fog immediately and allows you to focus and channel your energies and abilities. Clear goals enable you to step on the accelerator of your own life and leap ahead rapidly towards achieving more of the things you really want.
Your Automatic Goal-Seeking Function
Imagine this exercise; you take a homing pigeon out of its roost, put it in a cage, cover the cage with a blanket, and put the cage in a box and then place the box into a closed truck. You can then drive a thousand miles in any direction. If you then open the truck, take out the box, take off the blanket and let the homing pigeon out of the cage, the homing pigeon will fly up into air, circle three times and then fly unerringly back to its home roost a thousand miles away.
You have the same goal achieving ability as the homing pigeon, but with one marvelous addition. When you are absolutely clear about your goal, you do not even have to know where it is or how it is to be achieved. By simply deciding exactly what it is you want, you will begin to move unerringly toward your goal, and your goal will start to move unerringly toward you. At exactly the right time, and in exactly the right place, you and the goal will meet.
Because of this incredible cybernetic mechanism located deep within your mind, you always achieve your goals, whatever they are. You move toward them and they move toward you. If your goal is to get home at night and watch television, you will almost certainly.
Nature doesn’t care about the size or scope of your goals. If you set little goals, your automatic goal achieving mechanism will enable you to achieve little goals. If you set large goals, this natural capability will enable you to achieve large goals.The size, scope and detail of the goals you choose to think about most of the time is completely up to you.
Why People Don’t Set Goals
Here is a good question: If goal setting is automatic, why is it that so few people have clear, written, measurable, time-bounded goals that they work toward each day? This is one of the great mysteries of life. I believe there are four reasons why people don’t set goals.
1. They don’t know the significance of goals.
First, most people don’t realize the importance of goals. If you grow up in a home where no one has goals, or you socialize with a group where goals are neither discussed nor valued, you can very easily reach adulthood without knowing that your ability to set and achieve goals will have more of an effect on your life than any other skill. Look around you. How many of your friends or family members are clear and committed to their goals?
2. They don’t know how to set goals.
The second reason that people don’t have goals is because they don’t know how to set them in the first place. Even worse, many people think that they already have goals, when in reality, what they actually have are a series of wishes or dreams like “Be happy,” or “Make a lot of money,” or “Have a nice family life.”
But these are not goals at all. They are fantasies that are common to everyone. A goal is something distinctly different from a wish. It is clear, written, and specific. It can be quickly and easily described to another person. You can measure it, and you know when you have achieved it or not.
3. They suffer from a fear of failure.
The third reason that people don’t set goals is because of the fear of failure. Failure hurts. It is emotionally and often financially painful and distressing. Everyone has had failure experience from time to time.Each time, they resolve to be more careful next time and avoid failure in the future. They then make the mistake of unconsciously sabotaging themselves by not setting any goal at which they might fail. Thus they end up going through life functioning at far lower levels than are truly possible for them.
4. They suffer from a fear of rejection.
The fourth reason that people don’t set goals is the fear of rejection. People are afraid that if they set a goal and are not successful, others will criticize or ridicule them. This is one of the reasons why, when you begin to set goals, you should keep your goals confidential. Don’t tell anyone. Let them see by your results and achievements what you have accomplished, but don’t tell them in advance. What they don’t know can’t hurt you.
Goals give you a sense of meaning and purpose. Goals give you a sense of direction. As you move toward your goals you feel happier and stronger.
You feel more energized and effective. You feel more confident and competent in yourself and your abilities. Every step you take toward your goals increases your belief that you can set and achieve even bigger goals in the future.
More people today fear change, and worry about the future, than at any other time in our history. One of the great benefits of goal setting is that goals enable you to control the direction of change in your life. Goals enable you assure that the change in your life are largely self-determined and self-directed. Goals enable you to instill meaning and purpose into everything you do. Further clear goals enable you to release your full potential for personal and professional success. Goals enable you to overcome any obstacle and to make your future unlimited.
