How to set and achieve goals in 3 EASY steps

I want to talk with now about goals. Goals are such an important part of your success and with them you will achieve new heights!

It wasn’t until I read Napoleon Hill’s book Think and Grow Rich that I really understood the importance of goal setting. Before reading that book, the goals I had set for myself were much too vague and frankly, they weren’t any good. When I read Think and Grow Rich for the first time I was amazed at the detail that went into the goal that was described.

However, I was still unclear on what I wanted my goal to be. Sure I had a great template to use, but how was I supposed to think of an “appropriate goal.” Here’s the thing, there is no such thing as an “appropriate goal.” For those of you who have read Think and Grow Rich, what did Napoleon Hill say? “Whatever the mind can conceive and believe it can achieve.” So what did I do? I set a small goal for myself to test if what Napoleon Hill said would really work. At the time I worked at Sears in their mattress department as a sales associate. I was still fairly new to the job and in honesty I was bored every single day I was there. I think I spent more time sleeping on the mattresses than I actually did selling them. But anyway, I decided to set a small goal for myself to see if 1) the law of attraction works and 2) if I followed the exact steps Napoleon Hill recommended would actually work. I wrote down on a card “by the end of the week I will have in possession one free cup of coffee. In return for this cup of coffee I will give the most efficient service of which I am capable in the capacity of a mattress salesman. I believe I will have a free cup of coffee, my faith is so strong that I can see the coffee with my eyes I can even taste it!” One day went by and no coffee the fourth and fifth day went by and still no coffee. On the very last day at the very end of my shift one of my co-workers walks into work and hands me a coffee.

I couldn’t believe it! It worked! I had attracted to myself a free cup of coffee! I know this may not seem like much, but it proved a very important thing to me. That if I want something bad enough and I set a goal to achieve it that I can actually achieve it! And so can you.

Here are a few simple steps on how to set a goal and achieve it

1. Think about what you really want – it can be anything from a cup of coffee to owning a yacht if that’s what you really want

2. Write down what you want in vivid detail – the more clearly you hold the picture of what you want, the easier it will be for you to attract that thing.

3. Create a new habit to read and write what you want a minimum of three times a day and become emotionally involved with the idea of having it. This imprints it on your subconscious mind and further creates the picture of what you want. Remember, the subconscious mind cannot differentiate between what’s real and what’s imagined. If you can create a strong enough picture in your mind of what you want, you will achieve it.

I remember one time I was having a talk with a woman on the phone about my goals, and at the time I was very indecisive and honestly, I was scared of what would happen if I bet on myself. The woman was offering me a coaching program for $6,000 and I had to pay $1,000 of it up front. I didn’t have that kind of money and there was no way I could see of getting it. When I declined the program she told me that if I ever want to proceed in life I need to do things differently, I can’t keep doing the same thing over and over again. She asked me if I knew the definition of insanity. I said no. she said the definition of Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different outcome. Whoa. I was not expecting that at the time let me tell you. But at the time I brushed it off, but that definition has stuck in my brain since that moment. Since then I have been progressively working toward my goals and doing things differently than I had in the past.

A lot of people are stuck in this definition; they are stuck doing the same thing over and over and over again and then they expect a different result. I know I’ve been there! But sometimes when things start to get really bad, you don’t know what else to do, so you hope and pray for a change, but nothing happens. It’s hard.

This reminds me of the Law of seasons which says - if it’s bad now it will come to pass; it always does. It’s like the 4 seasons, it’s really cold during the winter, but in about 4 weeks it becomes spring and it gets warmer, it comes to pass and so will your problems.