Polish the Language of Your Goals
When my friend Stephane Morin was 14 years old, his father asked him one night what he wanted for dinner and Stephane casually replied, “A steak.” That response angered his father because as a piano player, he never made much money. He had expected his son to request something inexpensive, such as a hot dog.
“We’re not lawyers or doctors,” Stephane’s father yelled. “We’ll never be able to afford expensive meals.”
Stephane listened, but he refused to believe what his father was saying. It was as if from that moment forward Stephane began inoculating himself against negativity. As Stephane told me, “I vowed right then that when I left home, I would be able to eat steak or lobster whenever I wanted. The philosophy that was to guide my life became clear. How I was going to be in life was going to decide how much money I had.”
Part of the philosophy Stephane adopted in pursuing success in his life involves visualizing the completion of his goals after making all those goals very specific: “I was using visualization before I knew what it was and what I was doing. I would get very specific with what I wanted; I chose not to worry about how I would get there. If I wanted a nicer house, I knew that was just an aspect of something bigger. It’s really about wanting a defined quality of life. So I defined the quality of life I wanted. How I get to the goal doesn’t matter because that comes on its own. The plan changes, but not the goal.”
Stephane turned himself into a serial entrepreneur and a self-made man by buying and selling companies. When last I spoke with him, he owned and was president of four companies: a firm in the steel industry, a window and door business, an asbestos decontamination company, and a demolition tool business.
A lot of people get blown way off course by what happens in life. But I put myself in situations where I won’t allow myself to fail. I stay sole owner for three or four years of each company that I buy, then I give away up to 30 percent of each company to managers based on how long they stay. That’s one way to ensure commitment. People that work in my companies are giving me half of their waking lives in exchange for money each hour. What I do as a manager is teach a way of thinking to my employees—the company is a tool to produce income for everyone contributing inside the company so they can feed their own financial goals.
By having clearly defined and decisive goals, I started seeing opportunities and potential opportunities rather than the obstacles. If I know that banking will be an obstacle to obtaining a company, I throw multiple lines out to eight to twelve bankers. Timing is of the essence. I jump on the opportunities quickly. I do a lot of acquisitions. How do I choose which businesses I buy? It’s not by focusing on a specific one. I find the companies by dropping a lot of lines into the water. I always have multiple opportunities that I explore simultaneously. When I buy a business, I feel gratitude but not excitement because the emotional drive belongs in the realization of the goals.
Stephane is someone who embodies the principles for success. He has truly grown the mental foundation of his success by using positive thinking and clarity in defining his goals.
Write down your goals in the present tense and think of them in the present tense. Consider your words as energy in motion. Act and feel as if you were already experiencing the achievement of the goals.
Don’t Forget to Have Fun
Inspirational speakers Jerry and Esther Hicks used to travel around the country in a big motor home to all their special events. On the back of their customized motor home was a giant bumper sticker that read “Life is meant to be fun.”
Brian and I endorse that sentiment and live it wholeheartedly.
Life is meant to be fun. Making it fun and rendering life easy is a choice you make. Remember that. Repeat it every day. Life is meant to be fun. It’s a matter of choice.
Fun is the overlay to commitment. What is it you want? What is it you’d love to experience in your life?
When you’re writing down your goal, don’t write “I want . . .” because the universe will respond and say indeed you do, meaning that you have the feeling of want. You have to own your goal. Claim it. Integrate it into your thoughts.
What is it that you’d love? If you don’t know specifically what you want, don’t write anything down because you need to be emotionally excited about the goal you set. We do that through the words that we choose to use and through the message to ourselves and others that we create with confidence.
You can have as many goals as you want. Mark Victor Hansen has described how he would host a New Year’s dinner party, but he wouldn’t let the guests eat until they wrote out their goals for the next year. You couldn’t eat dinner until after you’d written down 101 goals.
It doesn’t have to be 101 goals. It can be three goals. Whatever number of goals you set, write them down. Put them on a goal card. Carry it with you. Having fun is really important to me, and so I have that on my goal card. Gratitude is on it as well.
Compose everything in the present tense so that you can truly feel it in your mind and body. Use the present tense as if you were living it right now. It leads you where you want to go in a positive way, not a scary way. Remember that any word that sounds negative will also feel negative.
You’ve heard the expression “Be careful what you wish for.” If you’re wishing to eliminate debt, you’re focused on a negative, which is what debt is. Turn your language and your thinking around. Commit to emphasizing the positive. Commit to prosperity. Commit to generating new sources of income. If you do that and focus on it, your debt will dissolve.
We talk a lot about your future self and who that person might be—who you might become—if you take our advice to heart and integrate it into your life today to shape your tomorrow.
Imagine the goals you have set for yourself as if they were already accomplished and you are feeling the elation of your success. Now write a letter to yourself describing what you are feeling with the goals having been achieved. This is a letter you will read again in one year, so write everything in the past tense. Take your time. Put some thought into it.
Now put your letter into an envelope, seal it, stamp it, and address it to yourself, including your full address. Give the letter to someone you trust, a friend or relative, with instructions that it be mailed to you on this date one year hence. Mark that date on a calendar.
What you are doing is subconsciously implanting the thought that you have goals to achieve and a deadline within which to fulfill them. You are also establishing a witness—the person you handed the letter to—who will hold you accountable in the future.
You will be pleasantly surprised by the new energy this little technique can create to keep you motivated and focused on your goal.
Denis and I have an extraordinary life, but I always know it’s only going to get better. It’s going to get better because I’m taking action. I’m following the principles in this book. This has become a habit and a way of life. Make the practice of feeling your goals as normal as breathing. Have this be a way of life.
Part of nurturing our spirits, our lives, and our goals is taking action every single day toward the achievement of those goals. That means making a commitment. Feel as if all these goals that you’ve set for yourself are already reality. Walk around with a smile on your face. Drive down the highway of life with a smile of achievement on your face.
This is a fun assignment. It involves evaluating your goals. Take a look at the goals you’ve written down. If you haven’t done that yet, do so. Write them in your own hand.
There is a really interesting connection that occurs when you take a pen to paper or to your goal card and simply write your goals down. It amplifies the vibration of the energy of the goals.
You can type them out, too. Keep the goal cards in view. Give thanks for them as well, as if they have already been accomplished, because gratitude is such an important ingredient for success.
This Week I Am Committed To:
On a scale of 1 to 5, how would you rate yourself on completing these goal-achieving activities each day?
5: outstanding
4: as expected
3: average
2: could have used more effort