The certain

It’s great that you are certain about what you want and how you are going to achieve it. The key for you now is to remain focused on your goals so that those goals are realised in the shortest time and with the least effort.

The easiest step in the goal-setting process is deciding on the goal; the hardest thing is to remain focused on it. There are so many distractions in the digitally connected, 24/7 world in which we work, live and play. Here are three actions you can take to remain focused on what matters to you:

1. Develop a mindset that means you always focus on the things that count.
2. Ask yourself the question ‘What’s important now?’
3. Write down your goals on a card or create a list of your goals on all your digital devices, then read those goals every day to keep them in the front of your mind.

I recently listened to a speaker colleague of mine, Nic Stewart, sharing an experience he’d had in Los Angeles during a dinner with Sir Richard Branson. When Nic had an opportunity to ask him a question about goal setting and how often he read his goals, Sir Richard said he believed millionaires read their goals 1 to 17 times a day and billionaires read their goals 19 to 29 times a day. For himself, Sir Richard reads his goals on average 21 times each day.

I know from the feedback we receive from people who have attended our Passionate People Program that if people read their goals once a week they achieve four to six goals out of ten in the course of the year, but if they read them each day they achieve seven to nine goals out of ten during the course of the year. I also took this away from this story: reading my goals so often stops me thinking about all the reasons I cannot achieve them.

As a side note, Sir Richard then showed the small group of people dining with him his goal journal in which he had listed 645 goals. I believe Sir Richard Branson is a living example of someone who has created, and lives with, certainty.

The lost

The solution is simple: make a decision, then make another one. Start to take small steps, make small improvements, then decide to be better and take greater action.

Why don’t people make decisions?

Fear!

Here are the three great fears that stop people from making decisions, along with some of the most common rationales behind why people give way to these fears:

• Fear of failure. What if I make a decision and it does not work out for me? What if I get labelled by people? What if people make fun of me? What if I’m wrong?
• Fear of success. What if making the right decision means people have a higher expectation of me from now on? What if I can’t live up to that success in the future? What if I was just lucky the first time?
• Fear of change. If I make that decision, what would I have to change to be able to make it work for me? What if doing things differently from now on was uncomfortable and inconvenient?

What is holding you back from tapping into your potential and realising your possibilities? What is one decision you need to make today that will move you from lost to certain?

The frustrated

If you are frustrated, your solution is to decide what you don’t want. Sometimes it is easier to decide what you don’t want first. So write down everything you don’t want in your life — all the things that do not serve you well, that annoy or frustrate you, everything that needs to change. Once you have done that, define what the opposite of each item is for you. If you don’t like the role you have at work, identify what you don’t like about it. It may be working with numbers, when you really want to work on creative concepts or design. If you have a business that requires that you deal directly with lots of people, and you don’t actually like working with people, then maybe you should consider an internet-based business that involves much less face time. If you don’t like managing a big team of people, maybe you should be outsourcing your needs or hiring a manager so you can focus on the work you love to do.

I have consulted to many businesses where we have given the business owner or CEO permission to go off and do the work that matters and is important to them, only to see their business flourish while they too are happier, which may help explain why it grows and prospers!

What do you need to let go of or reverse in your life? What do you not want and what is the opposite of that for you? Knowing there is an alternative gives you hope for the future.

The confused

Confusion exists when you don’t know how to get from point A to point B. You know what you want but you are unsure of how to achieve it. The solution for you is to design a plan with a coach or mentor or someone you trust.

Collaborate with someone else as you work out what you need to do to achieve your goal. They will be able to ask some of those tougher, more clarifying questions:

• Why do you want to achieve that goal?
• What do you think the first step is?
• Have you thought about this approach?
• What roadblocks are stopping you at the moment?
• If you took this action, what do you think the consequences would be for you?
• Who else do you need to gain assistance from to achieve your goals?

—A.S.K.—
ASK; SEEK; KNOW. ASK QUESTIONS, SEEK
A RESPONSE, KNOW HOW TO APPLY THE
INFORMATION.

Many more questions could be asked — that is the power of having someone else work with you. They will look at your situation with fresh eyes and from a different perspective. You know the answers, but you need someone to ask you the right questions to create greater clarity for you, and with clarity comes certainty.

Who do you know that you could work with to assist you in creating your plan to reach your goals?

The unclear

Recognising that you have so many opportunities, the key is not picking the right one but connecting with your heart. The solution, if you are unclear, is to follow your heart. Forget about what you think is the ‘right’ goal; focus on the goal that is screaming out at you to pursue it. When you follow your heart, success, money, love and joy will follow you. Take the money out of the equation. What does your heart tell you to do or to pursue?

Do you understand, they can never pay you enough money to do the stuff you hate to do? The money is great but you are still miserable. Someone once said (and it has always stuck with me): ‘What causes an ulcer is not what you have eaten, but what’s eating you!’

How do you follow your heart? First write down all the opportunities you currently have. Ask yourself, if each opportunity involved making the same amount of money, which one would give you the greatest joy? Which one would you love to do most? Rank them from the greatest joy to the least joy. Then stop and meditate on the list by being still and listening to your intuition. Finally, note down the opportunity you connect with the most.

We all make mistakes but for me, rather than focusing on what could have been or should have been, I ask myself what I learned from it and what I would do differently next time. I also carry one thought in my mind when I reflect: everything is perfect! Even if it was not the perfect outcome, what could I learn that will better equip me for the future? When I look at it that way, everything is perfect!

The unsatisfied

You have achieved so much, but at this point you are thinking to yourself, What else do I need to do to feel fulfilled in my life? What is my next challenge? You may find that what you have been doing doesn’t engage you as it once did. You may find the challenge has gone out of your personal or professional life and feel like you have been cruising of late.

You need to find a better reason why — a goal that is bigger than you, that is outside of you and that will live on after you. And you need to create a manifesto. A manifesto is a public declaration of what you intend to do, a document that identifies your vision for your life, that defines what is important to you, what matters to you and how you are to make a difference.

Austin Kleon includes a great manifesto in his book Steal Like an Artist:

Draw the art you want to see, start the business you want to run, play the music you want to hear, write the books you want to read, build the products you want to use — do the work you want to see done.

My life’s work manifesto is to …

• do work that matters and makes a difference
• write, create and speak about how people can be better, do better and have better results for themselves and their family
• have meaningful conversations with people about what is important to them
• show anyone who is interested how to discover their passion, pursue their passion and live with passion.

What is your manifesto? If doing what you are doing is not floating your boat or motivating you or energising you to become a better you, then you need a bigger reason why!