My thoughts going into this experiment was that I would have different types of exposure to the material, be able to stay on top of it without falling behind, and be more immersed within the school environment. The alternative to going to class is to watch the recorded podcast video of that same lecture from home (generously uploaded to our iTunes, within 2 hours, as a courtesy from our school- NYUCD).

However, instead of using this method as an alternative, I went to every class without exception, and listened to most of the podcasts to see if there was anything I missed during lecture. The following is my personal experience and account of my perfect attendance at NYU Dental School.

1. Capturing information. While attending class, it is virtually impossible to capture everything a teacher says. Either they spoke too fast, weren’t clear, or you felt tired and spaced out momentarily at which point you missed something significant.

The solution for this is to go to the podcasts, and to re-listen to the lecture. However, lecture time to podcast time is not a 1:1 translation in terms of time spent studying. A 2 hour lecture could easily take 5 hours of podcast study, because you often stop and go back, in order to take notes, look something up, and make sure you do not miss any facts.

Had you skipped class, and listened to the podcast at a time and location of your choice, you would only spend the same 5 hours taking notes from the podcast, and save those 2 hours that you would have sat at lecture. Regardless of the method that you use for capturing the information, you still have to organize it, and repeat it many times in order to retain it.

2. Announcements and Structure. In a way, attending every class has the benefit of giving you a structure. This allows you to get some information for each class every single day, so you are aware of what is being covered, even if you don’t record all the facts.

This structure is good if you cannot motivate yourself to study on your own. If you can sit yourself down daily, and study everything that was assigned to you as per the syllabus, then you are not missing out on the structure at all.

3. Community, Cliques, & Politics. Actually going to class gives you a certain type of experience. However, the type of experience that you have in class is generally up to you. Both the large class size of 240, and the influence of the big city, can play a big role on the way people express their attitudes.

At the same time, there are cliques organized by race and religion, groups that band together based on class politics, and a visible segregation can be observed within the student body. Of course, all the distinctions, whether they be racial, political, or other are just a meaning that someone made up, and we decided to play into, and in my opinion take away from a richer experience that each of us could be taking part in.

4. Energy Management. The biggest negative aspect of going to class, for me, is the ability to manage my energy levels. Without having my energy levels up, my body is in attendance, but my brain is totally drained and not operating at full capacity.

Accordingly to the United States Department of Defense, our brains need at least 3 hours to function. However, that’s not necessarily an optimum amount of sleep for a 10 hour day of classes. It’s important to listen to your body, and to realize that your energy levels will not be the same on any given day.

Some days I have the energy to work deep into the night, with perfect clarity and focus. The amount of work I get done will propel me in my studies. The next day, I might be tired, and need to perform lower level activities. The idea of balance, and routine, can be fine for most activities, and even work out on most days, but when the energy level is not there it becomes counterproductive to pretend you can focus perfectly.

Afterthoughts: 30 day trials are a fun way to really learn about something, and give yourself an opportunity to take on a new routine. After 30 days you can give an honest evaluation as to whether the pros outweigh the cons, or vice versa. This experiment has lead me to decide that having perfect attendance is not worth it for me, and that it’s more important for me to manage my energy and learn the material, than to physically be somewhere.

My 30 day trial for the month of February is going to be daily workout- no matter what. This could mean an hour lifting weights, 40 minutes on the cardio machines, or simply going for a run. Regardless, of what the workout is, my goal is to get my blood flowing, work up a sweat, and closely listen to my body as I compare my energy levels from January, to those of February.

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Setting priorities is very important to having an efficient life, but it doesn’t always have to be difficult. When you take the time to set your priorities, you’re more likely to reach your goals and reach them faster. Who wouldn’t want that?

You can learn how to set priorities by following the steps below. While you might not want to follow all of them exactly as they’re stated here, you should come away with a better idea on how you should personally start to set your priorities.

Try these simple steps:

1. Determine Your Goals. The first thing to consider when you’re learning how to set priorities is to determine what your goals and priorities are. You might have big ones and small ones, and you may have one goal or many goals. You just need to figure out what they are and write them down if that helps you. It’s the first step just because you can’t set your priorities without knowing what you want to achieve in the first place.

2. Get Clear. Once you’ve decided on your goals and priorities, work on their clarity. State them as simply as you can. While you don’t want to leave out details, you also don’t want to be too wordy and confuse yourself in the future.

3. Learn How to Balance. Chances are that you’ve got many different goals and priorities. Learning how to balance them all is just a part of life. If you pay too much attention to one priority, your others may begin to suffer. Strive to be aware of your priorities at all times. At the end of the day or week it’ll help to evaluate how things are going for you. If something is lacking, you can tweak your schedule to make a change.

4. Get Organized. Organization is also key when you’re learning how to set priorities. There are different organizational styles that you can adopt. It doesn’t really matter what you choose as long as you’re not just leaving things up to chance. With organizational skills comes efficiency. You can eventually learn how to do more with less time, which will allow you to get to more of your priorities.

5. Realize that You Can’t Do Everything. After you get organized with your priority lists, you might be tempted to have your attention on too many things at once. You need to realize that there are only 24 hours in a day. There are things you wanted to accomplish that you won’t be able to just yet. Schedule it for another day and don’t sweat it.

6. Keep Your Focus. Strive to remain focused on your priorities. Everyone’s mind begins to stray every now and then, which is okay sometimes. But you don’t want to allow procrastination to creep up on you. Keep your eyes on your priorities.

7. Keep Your Enthusiasm. Enthusiasm is very important to setting priorities. If you’re not jazzed up about your goals, you may end up losing interest. Achieving priorities and goals is very difficult without a decent dose of enthusiasm. You can keep it up by remembering what’s really important to you. If you’re working towards a specific goal, keep in mind how great you’ll feel once you achieve success.

8. Reward Yourself. It’s important to reward yourself for setting priorities and following through. If you’ve made an achievement towards a priority or goal, don’t just cross it off your list and move on to the next thing. Take some time out to reward yourself for a job well done. You deserve it!

Author’s Bio:

Ever wondered how great successful people achieved great success? You can find the answer in The 77 Traits of Highly Successful People. Mark Foo has brought together 48 personal development bloggers and writers to co-author the success eBook that spells out all of the success secrets of the very successful people. This eBook is available to you FREE and you can grab your free copy now at http://www.77SuccessTraits.com.

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I’ve always been a fan of quick wins and quick results, and as I’ll soon cover, so is the rest of society. With that in mind, not that many of us have long term goals, of if we do, we’re not working towards them. Up until about a year ago of my two-decade existence, there wasn’t really anything I was working for.

I was in and out of college, I was working on various websites, I was in a dead-end job and I even did freelance marketing work on the side. Nothing was set in stone, and life wasn’t really going in the direction I wanted it to.

Just over a year ago I started a blog which was to become my first real long-term goal. I had a topic idea in mind, I had coded a unique design, and I was ready to go. Now, 13 months on, the blog has been a huge success and the rest of my life is getting on track as well.

In fact, I recently started a gym regime around my health related goals and I’m already seeing some great results. The reason I’m telling you this is because having long term goals are often underrated, and now I want to share three reasons to have them.

Breakthrough the Lie of Society

Marketers know what we as a society want, and they offer it to us from every angle. The guide on how to make $10,000 online in a fortnight, how to lose 10lbs in one week and how to cure acne in as little as 48 hours. We want a quick fix and we want it now, so that’s what people “offer”.

If these claims are possible, then show me one person who went from nothing to $10k in two weeks by following one of these courses. Or show me someone who popped a tiny pill each morning, without changing their diet or exercise, and healthily shed weight. No matter how hard you look, you won’t find anyone.

Instead, having long term goals helps you break past all these marketing ploys and gimmicks and see that real results and real hard work are what it takes to achieve results that matter. Although the journey won’t be easy, it will actually get you somewhere and won’t leave wondering where your money went.

Learn the Art of Patience

Anyone who knows me will tell you that up until recently, I was probably the most impatient guy on the planet. If I wanted a new laptop, I couldn’t wait until the January sales, I had to have it now. If I wanted a new design for my website, I didn’t want to wait weeks for it to be coded, I wanted it now.

In fact, if I wanted anything in life, I wanted it instantly. Probably a trait those pesky marketers have instilled in me.

Anyways, these days, I’ve changed a lot. Since working on projects that take 6 months or more to blossom, I realise that things worth having are worth waiting (or working) for. I no longer expect instant results and realise things take time. I’m even desperate to purchase a Macbook before I go travelling and instead I’m going to wait until I really need it and will probably save money for doing so.

Have Something to Wake Up For

Dale Carnegie, in his book How to Stop Worrying and Start Living, found that many people were ‘cured’ of their severe depression simply by keeping themselves busy. If they did enough tasks and didn’t allow themselves to dwell on their issues, their health, happiness, and appreciation for life started to improve.

I can relate to this when looking at many of my friends and family members. They simply don’t have anything else going on in their lives apart from survival. That is simply living their lives around their jobs and receiving a pay packet at the end of each month. They rarely love what they do, and their mood levels often show it.

Instead, if you have a long term goal around something you’re passionate about, there’s a reason to get out of bed each day and make the most of this opportunity. There’s a reason to keep going and this enables you to even push your own limits.

Set a Goal, Right Now

Before you close this page or browse to other areas of the site, I want you to set a long term goal if you don’t have one already. It could be:

• Learning a new language
• Building a successful website
• Getting a promotion at work
• Learning a new skill or trade
• Losing weight or building muscle…

…or any other long term goal that you can think of. Find something you care about and would like to work on regularly, and you’ll soon start seeing the benefits in all areas of your life.

Glen Allsopp is the author of PluginID, a blog on Personal Development. Glen covers topics such as Personality Development and How to Make Friends.

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“To begin with the end in mind is to begin with the image of the end of your life as the frame of reference by which everything else is measured.”
~Stephen Covey

Without making things too complicated, who would the elderly you – at the end of a long, happy, and heroic life – be. Who this elderly person will be is going to be a sum of who you have consistently been on each day of your life.

Some questions to wonder about as you decide who you want to be at the end of your life.

1. When you look back at your life, will you be proud of the person that you have become?
2. Will you be proud of the decisions that you have made that have made you into this person?
3. Will you be happy with the wisdom you have gathered, the wealth you have amassed, and the loved ones that are by your side?

Crafting a Mission Statement to Live Consistently With Our Vision

In order to be a specific type of person at the end of our life, we need to effectively create, and recreate, our lives so that our path will lead us to our goal. We won’t be perfectly aligned with our path 100% of the time, in fact, I believe that we’ll have to constantly refocus ourselves to make sure we’re on the path that we have defined for ourselves.

I’m sure you’ve heard the old adage about an airplane that is heading from New York to Los Angeles. Most of the trip, the plane isn’t pointing exactly at Los Angeles, as wind, turbulence, and sometimes geese force the plane to go several degrees off course. The pilot, or autopilot system, has to constantly readjust the direction of the plain in order to get back on track.

In our lives, we also have to consistently readjust our course, so that we can safely arrive at being who we want to be – both right now, and in the future. In order to live a life without regrets, we must be the type of person that upholds our own highest principles for ourselves, and never deviates from them. In order to do this, we must first define what these ‘highest principles’ are for us.

Our principles are what keep us on the path. The path is the way that we are being. The way that we are being is defined within our mission statement. Our mission statement is our way to our path, which is our way to our goals. Our mission statement is who we are committed to being, regardless of the circumstances.

Set your life goals and mission statement together, so that one compliments the other, and they don’t contradict each other. Set your life goals according to what you want, not what others may want for you.

My Personal Mission Statement

1. I am an outstanding human being in every respect
2. I am honest, kind, loving, loyal and true – to my family, friends and everyone who knows me
3. I am a positive, optimistic, confident, warm, friendly person who is admired and respected by everyone
4. I am an excellent parent (in the future), a fine employer and I do my work in an upstanding fashion every time
5. I uplift, encourage and inspire everyone I meet – everywhere I go
6. The possibility that I have created for myself and my life is the possibility of being someone who operates with the greatest good of all in mind, and the possibility of living in the present.

I have full confidence that if I am the person that I describe in this mission statement, every day of my life and in every decision that I make, that I will be very proud of the way my life has gone when I’m looking back at the end of my life.

How would you like to see yourself at the end of your life? What would you like for people to say about you at your funeral?

This post is part of a series on Life Goals. Subscribe to the site, so you don’t miss a thing, and share your experiences with goals in the comments below.

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I would say that most people don’t ask themselves this question, or, they don’t take the time to sit in solitude and wonder about the answer to this question; until it is resolved. The problem with leaving this question open ended — we move forward in life without a compass.

“The unexamined life is not worth living.”
~Socrates

We all have life goals, but, do we really want them, and, how far forward have we looked?

What happens when we don’t really want our life goals? We aren’t full with vitality, we don’t experience total immersion, and we’re generally not very excited about the small action steps that are necessary to bring us closer to our big life goal.

I’m not saying every minute task has to bring us into a state of glee and ecstasy. Some rote tasks will be dull, repetitive, and not challenging enough to peak out interest after we have learned them. They will still be necessary!

Life Goals are a Joke

Life can’t possibly be too serious, not when you consider that Life is a Game. Our only hope of winning – or at least doing very well – is knowing, and playing by the rules.

So we set a life goal. We want to accomplish X by the time we’re 80. Eighty rolls around, and let’s say that for the sake of argument, we reach our life goal. Now what?

Triumph is nothing more than a fleeting moment. In the next moment we can hold our heads up high and say “I have achieved my life goal, in the past.” But, now what?

As any good goal setter, we would set a new life goal, and strive to achieve another triumph. The worthwhile goals are few and far between, but the small action steps that pepper the journey towards our life goals are precisely what our entire life is made of.

Think about it. If you spend 40 years working towards one life goal, you better enjoy those 40 years, and not hold your joy off until mission accomplished.

That’s the punch line. The true fulfillment of life goals is in the journey towards them, not in the goals themselves. That’s the long-tail of life goals.

Look at it like website traffic. After several years, you’re still going to get traffic spikes to your newest posts. This might be Y amount of visitors. However, little by little, the hundreds of articles from your archives, will have a grand total of 50Y visitors. Going through all those years of hard work — the journey — is more important than actually reaching the goal.

In this way, the joy of goal achievement is X, but the joy of working on your goal, day in, day out, is X times a very large number; a number that you can’t put a value on, and a number you wouldn’t trade for the world.

The Problem (and Solution)

The key is to have the best life journey that’s absolutely possible. In order to do this, we have to want to live, and we have to have something to live for. We need to have life goals that we would absolutely love to achieve – both in the short, and long term.

Without setting any life goals for yourself, you’re going to have a goal-void. This void is like a black-hole, so it’s going to get filled. The trouble is that it’s most likely going to be filled by another person, and no other person has your best interest in mind like you do.

No other person knows you, what you like, and what you aspire to become like you do. This makes the solution quite simple.

It’s quite simple, and very hard at the same time. Sit down — alone, with yourself — and take a look at things in your life that have brought a real smile to your face, things that have made you laugh uncontrollably, things that have made you cry tears of joy and touched your soul, things that you could see yourself doing for the rest of your life.

Then, reach for a life goal, in the distant future, and ask yourself: If I were to use all my time and energy to go for this goal, would my day to day be full of the things that make me come alive?

This post is part of a series on Life Goals. Subscribe to the site, so you don’t miss a thing, and share your experiences with goals in the comments below.

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“The first and most important step toward success is the feeling that we can succeed.”
~Nelson Boswell

Choo-choo! Do you hear that? That’s the sound of the success train, leaving your life station as you stand there and wonder why you haven’t gotten on again this year. It’s not that the conductor doesn’t want to let you on, it’s that before now you haven’t learned what it takes to get yourself a ticket.

How many times have you made a series of New Year’s resolutions? Those 10-12 goals that you’ll get done this year – no matter what – be healthier, make more money, write a book,  have more meaningful relationships with your family, etc.

If you’ve been ambitious enough to make goals, been haven’t been able to pull them off in the past, there’s probably something wrong – no, not with you, but with your approach – don’t worry, I’ve taken the a wrong approach for a number of years until I’ve found the one that works.

By following the principles outlined below, you’ll be able to enjoy a trip on the success train this year, and get the most out of your resolution.

Principle 1: Want Your Goal

“There is only one success -to be able to spend your life in your own way.”
~Christopher Morley

This is nearly cheating, but picking a goal that you absolutely love, and are totally passionate about, will make working on that goal an absolute pleasure. This means that when choosing your goal you have to be ruthlessly selfish, ignoring the needs of family, friends, and society, and going for what makes you come alive.

There are many factors involved in failure, but one of the biggest ones is our lack of hunger. When we’re not hungry for the win, and don’t fervently desire to taste success. That’s because whatever we’re going for doesn’t fit with our definition of success.

What if you don’t see the value of money, if you aren’t attracted to the lifestyle, improvement to your well-being, or philanthropy? Then you wouldn’t be too excited about working harder and getting promotions at a boring job. On the other hand, if you have a family to support, a family that you love, then you’ll be willing to do nearly anything to make sure they have enough.

Each of our actions affect the big picture. This is why it’s crucial to know ourselves, as well as the things that are important to us. Not just what’s important right this second, but what’s important in the long-run. When you have a future to live in to, your whole present changes.

Principle 2: Just One Goal

“Only when your consciousness is totally focused on the moment you are in can you receive whatever gift, lesson, or delight that moment has to offer.”
~Barbara De Angelis

Our brains can only entertain a certain number of thoughts at any split second, and that number is one. When we’re flipping through thoughts as if they are bad TV channels, we’re never giving full attention and due diligence to the task at hand.

This is very clear on the micro-level. Our focus is shattered  when we’re answering the phone, while writing an e-mail, and watching a video all at the same time. What you might not have realized is that this problem also occurs on the macro-level.

When you set a large number of goals, especially ones that require daily thought and action, you’re not leaving enough time and attention to give each goal special focus. This leads to one of two potentially detrimental conclusions; we either do a half-decent job at our goal that day, or we neglected them all together.

This year can be different, though. We can totally stop the overwhelm and create a synthetic attention surplus disorder. By creating just one goal, we’ll be able to harness the ‘mystical’ powers of single-tasking, and get the goal done. When, and only when, this happens, we’re ready to move onto the next single-goal.

Principle 3: Define Your Goal

“Clarity of mind means clarity of passion, too; this is why a great and clear mind loves ardently and sees distinctly what he loves.”
~Blaise Pascal

By this point we’ve picked a goal, and decided that this will be the one goal that we want to work on. After all, we’ll stop at nothing to get on the success train this year, because this year is our year.

Knowing what we want isn’t enough, we have to REALLY define, and be very specific about, what it is that we want. Saying ‘I want to be healthier’ is not a specific definition that can be broken down into action steps.

When we’re specific we can say something like, ‘I want to run a 6 minute mile.’ This is great, because you know exactly what this means, and anyone on this planet would be able to replicate your goal without confusion.

Being specific also let’s you take proper action without kidding yourself. If you’re currently running a 10 minute mile, that’s fine, just as long as you understand that you haven’t yet reached your goal.

This is where you can create daily action steps, to determine how much you need to run, and at what speed. You’ll set a date by when you want to run a 6 minute mile, and divide the existing time between that date and the present date. Then you’ll plan out a progression.

Somethings might not have a numerical value. For example, you might want to find love this year. This isn’t very specific. You first have to define love for yourself, which might consist of characteristics of the person you want to be in a relationship with. Once you know what you want, you’ll also know what’s not right for you, and this will be a great step in the right direction.

Principle 4: Measure Your Goal

With the case of the runner it’s easy to understand how to measure our progress. You just create a chart, and write down the speed and distance of each run. This chart will serve as your motivation.

Motivation is important. Left to our own devices our motivation can and will waiver. In a moment we’ll discuss what to do when motivation is depleted, but for now let’s look at how we can keep our personal motivation levels high.

Of course setting a specific goal you’re really passionate about is important. Measuring the goal, and physically looking at your progress over a week, a month, and a year is like putting your motivation on steroids.

Take a moment to visualize what I’m saying. Think about a calendar filling up with red ink, as you write down 1-mile in 10 minutes, 1 mile in 9.9 minutes, 1 mile in 9.7 minutes, all the way down to your 1 mile in 6 minute goal.

The other great thing about measurement is that it proves to you that you can do it. I recently started attending running events. One week I ran a 5k, which is 3.1 miles, and the following week I was scheduled to run an 8k, which is 5 miles. During the 8k race, I was coming up on the second mile, and my legs were fatigued. I knew this was all in my mind, and I just told myself “hey you lazy-butt, you ran more than this JUST LAST WEEK.”

I quickly agreed with myself. I even remembered that after I finished the week before, I told myself that I could have gone more if I had to. Well, now I had to. So I did. That’s the power of measuring your results, and it works for everything in life, not just running.

In the more ambiguous case of looking for love, measurement is also an essential tool. Keep a diary of the interactions you have with people, and the way they behave, as well as what they reveal about themselves. The time of decision making can often be cluttered with emotions, but when you have the facts that you’ve written down in a moment of clarity, you’re much more likely to make the best overall decision for yourself.

Principle 5: Kaizen

“Commit to CANI! – Constant And Never-ending Improvement” ~Anthony Robbins

The readers of this website are some of the most successful people in the world. Free thinking, opening minded, and motivated about getting the most out of life. That’s why you’ve probably read about these concepts before, or you’ve actually done them, without realizing it, and now you’re getting an ‘aha!’ moment.

Learning about CANI (aka Kaizen) is one such time when I had an ‘aha!’ moment myself. I can only imagine that people’s goals have been to have a better day today than yesterday, and an even better day tomorrow, since the beginning of time.

One of the healthiest things for our minds entails doing the best that we can. In fact, it’s easier to measure better than best. You can see that you’ve lifted a bigger weight today, than yesterday, but you have to feel if the smaller weight today consists of more effort than yesterday.

The simple concept of CANI was introduced into industry by the late Dr. Demming, an American who did consulting Japanese companies. As a result, you can see the powerhouse that Japan is today in the industrial world. This was done by concentrating on daily improvement on the employee level, each day, instead of just worrying about big changes or end result.

That’s why it doesn’t really matter what level you’re currently at. It matters that you KNOW the level that you’re currently at, and have a good idea of the direction you want to go in. If it takes you 30 minutes to walk 1 mile today, you can still put that goal of 1 mile in 6 minutes into your future. One step at a time, one mile a day, trying your best each time – that’s constant and never ending improvement – that’s the secret to getting on the success train.

Principle 6: Discipline

“Discipline is the bridge between goals and accomplishments” ~Jim Rohn

When motivation runs dry, discipline makes the differences between boarding the success train, or watching idly as it passes your station. I warned you that your motivation will waiver in part 4, and you can’t really stop that all together. By knowing this, what you can do is forge proper habits, which is like preventative medicine for your goals.

Say you run first thing every morning, and you’ve just woken up to the first cold day of fall. A little voice tells you ‘it’s so warm and bed, and so cold outside, stay here and be comfortable just a bit longer and run some other time’. The first time that happens you’re still motivated, so you quickly get up, lace up your shoes, and go for a run.

As it gets colder and colder, the little voice gets louder and louder. One day you wake up with a stuffy nose, and a bit of a headache, and the little voice tries to guilt you ‘look what you did, you big oaf, running in the cold has made you sick, now you better listen to me and sleep in’. That’s a bit harder to argue with.

You’ll probably feel better after your run, so the little voice doesn’t have a good argument after all, but it sure does sound nice, and it sucks away all your motivation. This is where habits and discipline come in. Discipline is when you don’t even stop to listen to the voice, it’s when you pop out of bed before the voice gets up, and you’re out there chasing your dreams.

Principle 7: Enjoy The Process

“Success is not the key to happiness. Happiness is the key to success. If you love what you are doing, you will be successful.” ~Herman Cain

All-Aboard! You hear that? That’s the sound of you boarding the success train. That’s what happens when you know what it takes to get a ticket. Better still, that’s what happens when you become the conductor of your own success train.

That’s what your future has in store for you. When you’re at the helm of your own personal success train you enjoy the ride. The journey is your life, and you’ll sometimes stop at stations, which are the successful attainments of your goals, and sometimes you won’t.

The key does not lie in the goals. Reaching the goals is but a moment. The rest of your life is in the journey. When you realize this, and begin to enjoy the entirety of the process, you can consider yourself already on the success train.

What’s Your One Resolution?

I’d like to know what your one resolution is. Where do you want the success train to take you this year? How much would it mean to you if you could finally get on? Share in the comments below!

Please vote for this article on StumbleUpon and Digg, I’d appreciate it!

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Stop making them.

It’s so curious how we spend the last weeks of the year in a sugar-plum-induced family frenzy of parties and holiday sweaters, and expect to walk into our lives on January 1 ready to drill down and get things done.

To get our minds focused back on what the year holds in store for us we make these shoulds-posing-as-resolutions and order all kinds of shiny productivity tools and smile at the future coming toward us. Then February rolls around and we glance sideways at our list and hope nobody’s looking over our shoulders.

Straight out, resolutions are dangerous little dragons because we humans need meaning. We need a resonant, compelling, context for any goal, wish, or dream to have a shot at making into our everyday schedule. We also need serious, expressed accountability (as in be specific and tell people), and a little experimenting with putting the cart before the horse.

Goal Setting from the Inside Out in 2009

Truth? No matter how much we want to get things done, what we really want is a life that matters. We want the chain of endless doings to add up to something meaningful at the end of the day. To find this sweet spot, here’s a little exercise:

Take a look back at your calendar in any given week for 2008 and ask yourself two questions: “What was I committed to?” and “What values did I honor?” The information you gather by doing the exercise will help you percolate what’s next. Declarations.

Create Context and Meaning with Declarations

To give your goals heart and soul, take a look at what you most deeply value in each of the four life areas: Life’s Work, Relationships, Personal Wellbeing and Financial Development. Next to each area, you’ll have words like joy, integrity, leadership, and service, and you’ll use these words to craft your declarations.

Declarations are timeless statements of purpose in the present tense designed to create ongoing quality of life shifts. Much like a mission statement, declarations stem from who you are and what you value, and point to your vision. They may sound bold and completely outrageous, perhaps even a little wild—but not impossible. Here are a few examples created by people in our Craving Balance workshops to get you started:

1. Life’s Work: I am committed to inspired, green leadership in service of a peaceful planet.
2. Relationships: I am boundless joy and generosity in all relationships.
3. Financial Development: I am wildly wealthy through acts of impeccable personal responsibility, creativity and invention.
4. Personal Well being: I am squeaky clean, vibrant vitality in my body, mind and spirit.

You’ll know you’re on track if your declarations make you want to cry or scream or jump up and down. (Go ahead, we’ll wait.) Declarations also act as your truing mechanism when you forget who you are and what you’re up to. Or when your busyness has no connection to what you value. Or when you’ve been saying yes way too much.

Practically speaking, declarations inform your goals, not the other way around. So, once you’ve finished your declarations, listing your top goals in each area should come easily and organically. (Go ahead, we’ll wait.)

Give Your Goals Specificity and Accountability

Alex recently told everyone here on his blog, and all his bazillion subscribers about his intention to lose weight, among other things. Besides taking “massive action” his video had 4 really important, very specific elements:

1. Why: He told us what was important to him about losing weight.
2. How: He told us what he would eat and how he’d exercise to accomplish his weight loss goal.
3. By When: He told us his time frame.
4. Close the Loop: He told us what he achieved.

#1 aligned Alex’s goal with his vision. #2 made his actions specific and repeatable. #3 put his actions on the calendar. And #4 gave Alex’s goal integrity and completion. It doesn’t get any better than that.

Put the Cart Before the Horse

What more do you really need to know, do, or get before you begin? Nothing. You could say that the accomplishment of any goal is nothing more than a series of choices, one foot in front of the other. So put the cart before the horse, and tell everyone you know. If you fall off the cart, get back on. Bruises (and even embarrassment) are nature’s way of telling you you’re alive.

And, if you want to jump into the comment box and experiment with a declaration, I’m game. You might just launch a revolution in your resolutions by never making them again.

Lisa Gates is a life balance coach and writer at Craving Balance. Committed to helping smart working women achieve the everyday extraordinary and the extraordinary every day, Craving Balance offers Goal Setting from the Inside Out teleclasses and workshops for individuals and businesses, as well as fabulously sensible and affordable private coaching.

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You can expect a couple of more excellent posts about resolutions over the next few days – stay tuned – and enjoy the video!

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The time frame in which this course takes place is Friday, Saturday, Sunday and a Tuesday evening. Tuesday evening is our opportunity as the participants to bring guests. I absolutely love this education and I see it as completely transformational. My dilemma is — how many people do I bring with me on Tuesday evening?

How many times in your life do you set a goal, but do not know what, or how much, it will take to achieve it? It is very mediocre to say, for example, I will bake today. It’s fine to say I will bake cup cakes today. It’s powerful to say I will bake 100 cup cakes today by 5pm.

Do you live a mediocre or fine life or do you live life powerfully? The method to achieving your goals is through the declaration of specific and measurable goals. The key is to declare them as if you are the type of person that WILL get these goals done.

I’ve used the terms be-do-have in several articles in the past. Meaning be the type of person that does the necessary things to achieve the desired results. When your desired results are both specific and measurable you have just entered the game, for real. The method by which you get to your goals can vary and shift throughout the process, but if you know where you are going, clearly, you will get there guaranteed.

So getting back to my dilemma. How many people do I bring with me Tuesday night? Good question. I need a specific and measurable goal, which I’m setting as 10 people who will come and join me on Tuesday evening at the Landmark Forum.

How many people do I have to call and talk to in order to get 10 people to come with me? How much is enough?

However much is takes and not a bit less.

What area of your life could you step up your game and live powerfully by setting specific and measurable goals instead of just floating along aimlessly? Share in the comments.

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“So much attention is paid to the aggressive sins, such as violence and cruelty and greed with all their tragic effects, that too little attention is paid to the passive sins, such as apathy and laziness, which in the long run can have a more devastating effect.”
~Eleanor Roosevelt

During the past few months my productivity has been on point. I was consistently waking up at 6am to write, exercise and be productive. I eventually ended up switching my schedule to wake up at 4:30am to be even more productive. By 9am I had accomplished more than most people did in their entire day.

The past couple of days have been the complete opposite of this productive behavior. In fact, yesterday all I recall doing is eating and sleeping. Nearly 16 hours of sleep to be exact. Seems like I have my wires crossed. Thinking back on this I can’t help but feel guilty because I know there are so many extraordinary things I could be doing. None of which involve sleeping more.

The Extra Tiredness

I’m not the type to bask in guilt for too long. I like to get to the bottom of why things happen, and to uncover who I’ve been being in order to have taken the specific actions that I did. Was I overworked? Sick? Malnourished? This covers the physical reasons, but could there also have been psychological ones? Could it be that I was depressed, making my mind think about tiredness, frustrated about something, or around negative people? These could all be reasons for tiredness.

As I’m writing this article I think the issue is a combination of several factors, with one main factor domineering over the rest. I can’t remember the last day I’ve had the right amount of water. When I don’t get the right amount of water my body feels like a car that ran out of oil. Sluggish, clunky, and overheating. I haven’t been eating as many greens or fruits either.

The Impact

The impact of falling off the productivity train has both a positive and negative affect on us. In one sense it caused a breakdown of my body and my routine. In another sense it gave me the opportunity to think about the real issue and have the chance to correct it.

Since life is really a huge collection of habits and routines, whether in our actions or thoughts, it’s always good to see where we stand in our progress and what we’re actually doing. My goal is to build as many health habits as I can so that I can live a longer and healthier life and enjoy the greatest vitality and vigor that I can. With this energy I plan to motivate and inspire the people around me into taking action and being happy.

The impact of not being healthy and productive, for me, is to lose this ability with other people. If I do not have the energy to lead by example and stay productive than I do not consider myself a great role model. Due to these rules and limitations that I put on myself I do not feel awesome unless I am being and acting in this certain way. The divide between being and action is what destroys us.

If I’m being Alex The Sloth and getting nothing done instead of being Alex from AlexShalman.COM then my world is turned upside down. My body says one thing while my brain says the other. Like turning the wheel left and the car going right.

Have The Train And Eat It Too

“Everything in moderation — including moderation.”
~Harvey Steiman

Experiencing every carnal pleasure in excess would not be very satisfying. There just isn’t enough time to have those experiences in such great quantity while doing other things that we need for fulfillment. Besides you oversaturate your pleasure receptors and do not get the same amount of pleasure from repeatedly doing the same thing over and over again.

It’s interesting to note that you can’t be a great humanitarian and change the world if all you do is stay in bed, eat chocolate, have sex and sleep all day long. There is a disconnect between what you are doing and who you want to be.

On the other hand, you can’t work 90 hour weeks, neglect your friends, family, health and spiritual needs and consider yourself a great success. You might have traded in enough of your time for money, but the quality of your life is going to suck.

You can choose your actions but you can’t always choose the consequences of your actions. The law of gravity states that everything that comes up must come down. If you’re jumping off a bridge be prepared for the fall. If you’re going to eat that whole train cake, you’re going to get a stomach ache.

However, in moderation and balance we are capable of so much more. By aligning all the pillars of our life and giving them their due attention we are able to synergize our lives and propel ourselves to the top.

Next Action

One of the biggest take home lessons from this article is to constantly evaluate our progress. Which areas of our lives are lagging behind the rest? What can we do to live the best life possible? Let us know in the comments what’s lagging and how you can improve it. I’ll start.

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I am a procrastinator. There’s no two ways about it. And I don’t mean that I can sometimes put off doing the dishes until the next morning. I mean that I can put anything off, anytime, for any reason.

What strikes me about the self-development movement is all the emphasis on getting up early, implementing the law of attraction, optimizing your time-to-input ratio and just doing it! Yet very little is said about that dirty little secret. Though Alex has written about the extra pain that procrastination causes us hardly anyone seems to address that great divide between the knowing what you should do and the actual doing of it.

Today I can say that I am someone who writes every day, who walks outdoors in nature every day, who gets up early every day and who only eats an organic vegetarian diet. I can say, truthfully, that I live in Europe and that I am in a happy relationship. I can say with all honest that I meditate regularly and that I help people on their own paths of self-discovery.

But I could not say those things in a truthful way just one year ago. Why not? Because I only knew that I should be doing those things, that those things would make me happier. But the trouble is I knew, but I didn’t do. And I had been knowing those things, consciously, for several years.

So what changed? How do I overcome my procrastination, and how can you do it too?

Here are twelve relatively simple tools that you can implement to help overcome even the most stubborn case of procrastination:

1. Do not place so much emphasis on perfection: This one is at the top because it is my own biggest crutch when it comes to not getting things done. It is especially significant in keeping me from achieving personal goals. For everything that I really WANT to do in my life there is the perfect scenario for how it should be done. Yoga should be done in a light, bright, zen-inspired home studio. Books should be penned in a mountaintop cabin overlooking a desolate lake. We all have hang-ups like this. We have all seen too many movies, read too many new-age magazine articles. Oddly enough, you will write the same wonderful book whether or not you have that glow-in-dark pencil sharpener on the corner of your desk. Once you allow yourself and the environment around you the freedom to be fluid and imperfect, for that is the only state that ever gives rise to true creativity and determination, and too just begin working on the project, you will quickly see that it was all just an illusion. You do not need every bit of jogging paraphernalia to get up and run around the block and even doing the smallest bit of your project will get the ball rolling, without the need for your heavenly dream scenario.

2. Do not beat yourself up when you do delay something: Life happens and as a result, try as we might, we cannot always fulfill every commitment on time and as planned. We get the flu. Emergencies occur, even acts of God. But if you begin placing blame on yourself, giving power to the voice that says you are bad, what happens? You get more dejected, more off-track and the result is not a constructive one (ie. You completing the delayed project.) Instead you begin dragging your feet on other projects as well and the whole thing spirals out-of-control. When you delay something simply make a note of it in your mind. Set a new, firm, time to complete the task and make an effort not to delay it again. Take notice of how often you are delaying things and try to lessen the occurrence over time but do not place blame or shame upon yourself for any delays. You are aware of it, that is a positive step.

3. Find the root of the problem: You are not usually choosing to procrastinate on a conscience level but are instead avoiding something that you find unpleasant. The key is not to ignore the problem, but to sit down and ask yourself where the root of this discomfort lies. I recently did this with my procrastination about writing. I sat down and asked myself if I have always procrastinated about writing. Looking back into my youth I could see that the answer was no. I then continued going through my life and pinpointed the time-period in which this changed. After narrowing the possibilities and timeframe, I discovered that it was all due to anxiety about my undergraduate academic writing class. Ever since I have found writing a breeze and the procrastination in that area of my life gets less-and-less. Try the same exercise yourself to see if the root of your procrastination lies in some seemingly-inconsequential past event or irrational fear.

4. Allow enough time to go at a leisurely pace: Feeling rushed is a very common cause of procrastination. When you don’t think that you have enough time to bring a thing to a successful completion, you are less likely to even begin it. By blocking off a space of time in which you can actually achieve a thing, you will feel more confident when sitting down to begin doing it. If you do not plan your time, at least somewhat, and instead wait until the whole thing reaches a critical moment, you will not feel confident in doing it all. I, myself, do not find strict scheduling to work well for me. I instead like to guesstimate how much time a thing will take if I do it to the best of my abilities and then choose an appropriate-length block of time that I can dedicate to it when I feel ready to tackle to head-on.

5. Admit your weaknesses ie. procrastination: When agreeing, either with yourself or with another person, that you will do a thing, be honest about your tendency to procrastinate. This doesn’t mean marching up to your boss and saying that you cannot do that promotional mailing that you already agreed to do. But it does mean being honest about your own abilities. Tell him: “Of course I can do that for you. Would you mind checking in with me occasionally to make sure that I am staying on schedule?” Or better yet, when working on something with or for others, ask them to request portions of the finished product from you to keep you on track. Let them know that you do want to help them but that you have a tendency to become distracted and to bite off more than you can chew, so a little help and understanding from them will go a long way. Having this out in the open does not free you to use it as an excuse for not completing things, but it does give you the opportunity to begin working on fixing it, one person and one commitment at a time.

6. Realize that you are doing it for you: Whether you consciously know it or not, everything that you are hoping to do or have promised to do is something that you are doing for yourself. It may not seem that way on the surface. “How is my Saturday chore of mowing the neighbor’s lawn something that I do for myself?” Well there can be several answers. You offered to do it because you wanted to seem like a nice guy. You are doing it to earn some extra money. You don’t realize it, but is the only 15 minutes that you get to yourself all week long. Any task is essentially for you and therefore the only person that you cheat by shirking your intention to act is yourself. Go ahead: start that knitting club that you told yourself you wanted to start LAST spring. The longer that you think about something and do not actually do it, the more energy you waste on it, all the while missing out on the energy that you thought you would get from it.

7. Do not expect a specific outcome or reward: As I mentioned above, you are undertaking certain actions, no matter what they are, for yourself and not for anyone else. That being said, once you begin a thing you must immediately find away to put aside all thoughts on the “reason” that you are doing it. Dwelling on the fruits of your labor, and worrying about whether or not they will pay off, is another really big barrier to continuation and completion. “Will that guy really even publish this article?” “Can I even keep this garden alive?” Each of us is constantly questioning the final outcome of or intentions. But, once you begin, your focus must shift, what you are doing must become about the actual doing. “I am doing this because I love writing from my experience.” “I am doing this because I have always wanted to design a garden.” When you make the reason the actual doing of the thing, it releases you from all anxiety about outcome or expectations, leaving you with a lot of extra energy to put into your actions.

8. Do not over-commit yourself: You want to help everyone. You want to achieve everything. But trying to do it all at once virtually guarantees that you will not succeed. Sometimes we do this to ourselves on purpose, something inside of us desires to reinforce our belief that we cannot attain success. But if you find yourself being consistently overwhelmed with commitments and intentions then you need to address the problem head-on. You must learn, for your own mental health and well-being, to say “No.” You are not obliged to solve the world’s problems. And you certainly shouldn’t attempt to solve the problems of others by creating problems for yourself. When you are kind enough to say “no” to someone else’s kind request (or even to the torrent of ideas flowing from your own mind) you save them potential disappointment when you don’t come through and you save yourself the stress of feeling pressured and beating yourself up. In time people will come to appreciate your honesty and the fact that when you do contribute you always give it your all.

9. Enlist help, ie. delegate: The hardest thing for us very independent, modern people to admit is that we cannot do it all, that we sometimes need help. But ask any successful businessperson and they will tell you that the most effective thing that you can do is to delegate to qualified people. If you are skilled at building engineering and you get paid $150 an hour to do that, the most senseless thing is for you to waste 4 hours of your time, and deplete your energies through stressful struggle, trying to research which is the best water cooler delivery company to go with. It’s simple, delegate it . If the task that you are procrastinating on is something that consistently plagues you, or one for which you already know the person who would excel at it, just simply enlist their help and move on to a pursuit that is a much more positive use of your time and energy. Paying someone $20 to do something that would have wasted $200 worth of your personal effort, is a very good trade-off indeed.

10. Allow yourself to fail: If, when thinking of a task or a goal, you immediately think, “I can’t do that,” then the diagnosis would clearly be fear of failure. And why not? We have been taught all of our lives that a failure of any kind is an estimate of a our overall value as a human being. However, having the gumption to try is the true measure of our inner world. When you want to learn something, the only way to succeed is to try. Count your failures as lessons and as tangible things which are evidence to your own initiative, your own bravery and your determination to achieve your goals. To never attempt to manifest anything, simply out of fear that you will not succeed, is the true definition of ultimate failure. Allow yourself to fail with kindness and acceptance toward yourself. When you want to go out on a limb, just go, and let the going be the learning experience…refer back to #7 for a refresher.

11. Turn off the television: I cannot count how many times in my life I have had the energy, the intention and the plan to do something only to become distracted by some interesting thing on the Discovery Channel, undoubtedly followed by some other, equally interesting, thing and so-on and so-forth. Television, whether you think I am a conspiracy theorist or not, is designed to distract you. They want you to sit and watch it for hours-and-hours and they run fantastic scientific tests and studies to make sure that you do just that. So, turn it off. (I actually gave all of my T.Vs away.) Once it is off for a while, you will notice what those ancestors of ours felt back in the 18^th and 19^th centuries, there is a whole world of stuff out there to be done, to be discovered and to be created. (Unfortunately if your replace the T.V. with the P.C. you encounter a similar problem.)

12. Stop looking at the clock: When we feel like something is not fun or like our energy for a specific task is not flowing as freely as we would like, we tend to still attempt to hold ourselves to our regular high standards. (And let’s face it no one puts pressure on you quite the way that you do.) But with any task, and especially with those that we find difficult, it is important to take it slowly if we must. Put a piece of tape or paper over the nearest clock. Don’t keep looking at it thinking that you should be done by now or that you haven’t done enough in the time that you have spent. Putting forth your efforts should always be about quality versus quantity. Take your time writing those sentences, three exceptionally poignant ones will always outweigh forty-three exceptionally fluffy ones. Let your creativity flow at its own pace without pressure and without shame, for therein lies the high-quality outcome that you so desire.

Author Bio: Vera Nadine

Vera Nadine is a spirit channel and inspirational writer who blogs about spiritual development at veranadine.com.

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“The virtue of achievement is victory over oneself. Those who know this can never know defeat.”
~A.J. Cronin

This article is for those of us that know exactly what we need to do, why we need to do it, yet still fail to follow through on our good intentions.

Every person on the planet has been a victim of this phenomenon at one point or another.

I call it a phenomenon because it seems counter intuitive to me how a perfectly intelligent person could know which direction is right for them and then walk the other way.

1. Define What you Really Want. Many of us say what we want, but can’t actually define it. Go to wikipedia if you’re not sure, but make sure you have a clear mental image of what you really want to accomplish.

I told her, “you say that you love him, but I’m just curious, could you define love?”

“The greatest reward is to know that one can speak and emit articulate sounds and utter words that describe things, events and emotions.”
~Camilo Jose Cela

2. Write Your Reasons. Once you’ve clearly defined what you want, and written it down, write down the reasons of why you want to accomplish this. Just having a definition does not provide the ambition to obtain what you want.

Getting in shape may be for obvious reasons to you, but it must be a specific written reason. It could be to get in shape, to protect yourself from obesity, or to fit into an awesome dress. Get personal and vivid.

3. Check Your Position. Where are you now, in comparison to where you want to be? If you can answer this question, than you can also answer the question of how much further your destination is.

Being able to identify the distance between you and your destination allows you to see your goal as more realistic, achievable, and not as intimidating as it was before.

4. Create An Emotional Steroid. Put together a beautiful set of words to express how amazing you will feel once you accomplish this goal.

Imagine the feelings within your body, the praises that you will get from your family and friends, and most importantly the benefit this accomplishment will have to your self-image.

5. Create An Emotional Shocker. Write down all the negative things that will happen to you as a consequence of not getting your goal complete.

Be severely brutal in this analysis and take into consideration all the worst case scenarios. If the positive boost of the emotional steroid won’t send you rocketing towards your goal, then perhaps a nice tug from the emotional shocker will get you past the finish line.

“Happy people plan actions, they don’t plan results.”
~Dennis Wholey

6. Detailed Plan of Action. One thing that keeps people procrastinating and stands between them and a result is a project that seems too big to handle.

The simple solution is to plan in such a way that this big project is broken down into several smaller workable action items. Couple this with exact time frames for completetion and you’ll notice yourself achieving in no time.

7. Want For Yourself. Stop the “I’ll do it for them”. In reality we are all selfish beings. Even the saints among us, they receive great pleasure for giving of themselves and being god-like. Since they consistently do good deeds and receive pleasure, they are selfish in this way.

Create a self-serving benefit out of whatever it is you’re working on and do it for that reason.

“Feeling and longing are the motive forces behind all human endeavor and human creations.”
~Albert Einstein

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“Whatever your mind can conceive and believe it can achieve.”
~Napoleon Hill

Last week I had the opportunity to listen to a presentation by Charley Harary. It was entitled 5 Steps To Maximize Your Mind To Achieve Your Goals. I was completely blown away by his performance- so I had to share it with you.

I took notes throughout the whole presentation, but the 45 minute video is available for your viewing pleasure here (it has a very homemade feel). The presentation is part of a 10 week program I’m doing at RAJE (Russian-American-Jewish-Experience) USA in Brooklyn, NY. It involves learning about Judaism, learning Hebrew, and listening to millionaires and several billionaires speak about their roads to success.

The cool part about the video, even though it has such a homemade feel, is that I’m in the audience. You can experience what I experienced as well as hear me interact with Charley. It’s a nice alternative to hearing my interpretation of Charley’s presentation by hearing it directly.

5 Steps To Maximize Your Mind To Achieve Your Goals

Prerequisites:

1. Whatever you have is enough. You don’t need more brains, more strength, or more anything. Whatever resources you have are enough to accomplish what you want.
2. No excuses about deficiency. No handicaps can hold you back from achieving your goals.
3. Desire and decision to work. If you have the desire, and you make this decision, and you do all the necessary work. You will accomplish what you want.

The 5 Steps

1. Define What You Want. Instead of letting things happen to us in our lives and instead of letting our emotions guide our decision making process we should define what we want and use logic and reason to get to our destination. Often times, if left off the leash, our emotions can hinder our progress and serve us as a disadvantage.

The truth is that a lot of times we do not have a firm grasp of what we want. We may say we want love, happiness and success, yet not know their true definitions. This is the step in which we define it, because by defining it, we gain a new appreciation of how to reach it.

2. Figure Out Where You Are. During this presentation, Charley gives us a very interesting example that I haven’t heard before. A king travels through the forest and sees dozens of trees with arrows perfectly fitted inside of bull’s eyes. Upon further investigation it seems that a young boy has shot these arrows into the tree. However, he first shot the arrow and then drew the bull’s eyes around them as part of his game.

This seems a little too similar to how we do things in our lives. We do something, and then change our whole definition to reflect our actions. Yes, the relationship I’m in is abusive, but I’m happy and in love. No, if we clearly defined what happiness and love were, we would be able to remove ourselves from the relationship and start fresh elsewhere.

3. Involve Your Emotions. I’ve previously mentioned that our emotions can serve as great boundaries and distractions between us and our destinations as opposed to following logic and reason. That was only partially correct. Once we’ve uncovered the true meaning of what we want, and have done a constant update of where we are in relation to our definition we can now bring in the secret weapons.

If used correctly our emotions and our passions will keep us on track. They’ll push us even when we’re tired and want to give up, they’ll get us there. Emotions are like the rocket jets in the back of a space shuttle. They’ll be able to propel us millions of miles. The key to remember is to keep our emotions in the back pushing, and our logic and reason in the front steering.

4. Use Your Mind To Plan Your Life. This is the fun part, I’m a big fan of planning. I sit down daily and plan my next day. I plan out my next week and month with a break down of tasks and important goals. I get this from my 5 and 20 year plan that I have for my life.

This is a crucial step to getting what we want. We can have a firm definition (steering) of what we want, a good idea of where we are (compass), and a great emotional support (jet pack), and now we need is the planning (map) to get us exactly where we want to go.

5. Use Your Mind To Find God. Charley and I both have a massive collection of self-help books and are the guys that run to the self-help section as soon as we enter Barnes N’ Noble. Charley mentioned that steps 1 through 4 were all within the self help books, but to reach step 5 he had to visit his collection of Torah books. These are the books that brought the world the 10 commandments and the same books the Christian bible are based on.

Using our minds to find God gives us a new sense of purpose and direction in life. It’s a new level of fulfillment and connection that cannot be found from any other aspects of our existence. I’m sure you’ve read about it in the 55 Monumental Ways to Enjoy Life’s Greatest Pleasures, it was the last point. It’s every human beings desire to discover and connect with that higher being, or source, or creator. For Charley the way to get there is the Torah, for you it might be another religion, or meditation, or whatever it is that you do. Regardless, that is the final step.

Happiness: Charley’s Definition

Happiness is taking pleasure in what you have.

This certainly is an interesting definition. I think it’s inline with what many other people think about happiness from the Happiness Project.

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In my effort to make Life Design an ongoing experiment, I actively tweak and optimize my thoughts, behaviors, and ultimately my life by forging new habits. The beauty of this system is that it is extremely simple, yet it delivers results that are life transforming.

Life Design Experiment (LDE) is a system for being the type of person, that takes the required actions, to obtain the desired results. LDE will either automate the execution of necessary, yet undesired task, or take on a belief system in which this task becomes pleasant and unobtrusive.

I. Evaluation Phase

This is the phase of LDE where you get to be totally creative and come up with anything you want for your life. Dream without inhibitions, without limits, and without regard for what may or may not be possible; dream like a child.

1. Brain storm possibilities. Which areas of your life are you interested in improving upon or transforming. This could be your health, wealth, intelligence, communication skills, talents, and just about anything you can conceive of.
2. Identify bad habits. Consider any habitual patterns that are causing, or will cause, negative results in your life. This could be something like smoking, complaining, yelling, alcohol, watching TV, and anything else you can identify within yourself.

II. Paradigm Phase

This is the phase of LDE in which you can transform your belief system to facilitate the acquisition of desired results. By associating enough pleasure or pain to something, you can completely alter the way you perceive it, or at least the way you feel about it.

1. Pleasure. Determine the positive out come of the possibility created in the Evaluation Phase. What will it look like if that possibility became a permanent habit for you? What type of person would you be?
2. Pain. Determine the negative out come of continuing the inadequacy or bad habit that was identified in the evaluation phase. What would it look like if that habit stayed with you for the rest of your life? What type of person would you be?
3. Attachment. Based on points 1&2 above it is time to attach strong emotions to these habits. Let’s say you wanted to master the habit of jogging daily. You would associate strong euphoric feelings to jogging, tell yourself all the great benefits of jogging, think about how great you feel when you jog, and how awesome it’s going to be being in shape. You will repeat this process to eliminate bad habits, by attaching painful feelings to the thought of continuing these habits. This will create a paradigm shift that will make it easy to replace bad habits with good ones.

III. Execution Phase

A. Tools

1. Journal log. If you look ahead for a moment into the re-evaluation phase, you will notice that it calls for looking at the results. In order to have detailed results we need to keep detailed logs of our progress.

One way of keeping a log is to just number 1-30 on a sheet of paper, and check off each day that you’ve successfully completed your task. The same can be achieved by checking off days on a calender. The concept behind this is that success is addicting, and you won’t want to break the chain of check-marks that you have created for yourself.

Another way of keeping a log is the method that I use, and it requires a bit more effort, but provides a huge payoff. While checking off your completed tasks daily, take note of your different emotional, physical, and mental states as the experiment progresses. This feedback is very useful during re-evaluation.
2. Post it. Your new habit might require you to do something at a time where you are unlikely to remember. Morning time for example. Put a post it note next to your bed, so when the alarm scares you out of your sleep, you will know exactly what your next order of business will be.

3. Rubber band. If your new habit is not an action than a post it note won’t help, because it won’t be able to follow you around all day. Wearing a rubber band on your wrist can serve as the reminder you need in order to keep consistent with your new thought habit. (Ex. 30 day zero-complaint experiment would be a great candidate for this.)

B. Process

1. 30 Days to Habit. This is an ideal number of days to turn an spontaneous action into a ritualized action (aka habit). This short deadline gives you the incentive to keep the action going, just long enough to turn it into a habit, and to re-evaluate if it’s worth keeping at the end.

2. Start. The only time we really have is right now. If we don’t start a process right away, we are not guaranteed that there will be a tomorrow. Now is the time to start.

3. Temporary. If you have successfully completed phase II of LDE, and you still hold some sort of limiting belief about what you are about to undergo, you can think of the experiment as something temporary. Do not think of it as a life long change, rather than a simple 30 days of your life, after which you can re-evaluate, and make a decision as to whether you want to keep going or stop.

IV. Re-Evaluation Phase

1. Results. If you have been keeping a detailed journal of your 30 day LDE trial, than you will have a good idea of the benefits available in your ongoing participation in this action. You will also have a good idea of the progress made, and the energy expended.
2. Choose. With the results at hand, you are capable of drawing a conclusion as to the efficacy of your new habit. Is it one which is life changing and should be kept, or one that was a waste of time and energy and should be dropped?

Either way you choose, you now know a few things about yourself. You know that you are capable of doing something you didn’t think you could, for a whole 30 days. You know you can apply this method to anything in life. If you kept your habit, your on your way to gaining tremendous benefits from it. If you dropped the habit you can go on living without regret that you tried it, but didn’t like it.

You have now built up your habit muscle, and can choose your next habit to pursue. You are now living the Life Design Experiment!

Summary
I. Evaluation
1. Brain Storm Possibilities
2. Identify Bad Habits
II. Paradigm Shift
1. Pleasure
2. Pain
3. Attachment
III. Execution Phase
A.Tools
1. Journal/Log
2. Post it
3. Rubberband
B. Process
1. 30 days to habit
2. Start
3. Temporary
IV. Re-Evaluation Phase
1. Results
2. Choose

If you liked this article, please share it on del.icio.us or on Digg. I’d appreciate it.

Attention: Don’t forget to download my free ebook, How to Get a Girlfriend!!

Editor’s Note: This post was written by Charlie. You can visit his personal development blog here.

We all have desires. We enjoy thinking about the future and coming up with new ideas about how things are going to play out. However, a surprising amount of people I’ve talked to contemplate the success they want in their future, but they don’t do anything about it!

If we want to make positive change in our lives, we must put thought AND action into doing so. An effective goal setting plan is healthy, smart, and can also be very enjoyable. Here are 12 tips you can mix, match and order to create a superb goal setting plan:

1. Organize

The first step to any successful goal setting plan is to have your life sorted out. By organizing, I mean a few different things:

• Your mind and body: Eating healthy, resting, engaging in enjoyable activities in your spare time and staying well exercised.
• Your working area: The common thought when you hear ‘organization’. Archive papers, be on top of things, and have awareness of where you are putting what.

By organizing these 2 important parts of you, you allow yourself to focus on working towards achieving your goals more efficiently and effectively.

2. Visualize

This method is very enjoyable. It consists of a few very simple steps. Take a seat, breathe, and envision your goal as if you are living life with it complete. Whatever your goal is; if you’ve seen, felt it, and breathed it you’re that much closer to achieving. There are plenty of resources out there to help you learn about this technique.

One thing I learned from various resources is to keep a vision board. Not only is this fun, it’s also effective. It involves cutting and pasting pictures of things (material or symbolic) that you want to have, and goals you want to accomplish on a board. This helps to embed your goals in your mind both consciously and subconsciously. If you decide to create a vision board, place it somewhere you will see it often so you don’t forget your goals. Once you get used to visualizing, it becomes an exciting and realistic experience.

3. Write

What do you want from your goal? This step is easy to do, and extremely effective. Simply keep a log of what your goals are, and how you plan on achieving them. If you want to combine this with the visualization idea, a great thing to do is to write in detail what you see being the outcome of accomplishing this goal. The more mindfulness you put into writing your goals, the better the experience will be in the end.

4. Think

Spend some time thinking about your goals. You can do this while going about your day, and you can also put aside some time to meditate and focus on them.

5. Optimize

Make achieving easier for yourself by optimizing your time and efforts. Don’t put in too much or too little; find what works for you from experience and use that knowledge to grow.

6. Discuss

Have a nice conversation about your goal setting plan with a friend or family-member. The people you love will be happy and proud to hear about your aspirations.

7. Implement

Take all of these steps, and implement them into your daily life. Use them for accomplishing the little goals as you get through your day, as well as your big goals.

8. Create

Be creative with your goal setting! If you enjoy art, draw a picture of yourself at the scene of your accomplished goal. If you’re into computer graphics, try making a virtual vision board. The more you use your great imaginative mind in goal-setting, the better the outcome will be.

9. Rationalize

Be sure your goals are realistic. You don’t want to be getting into more you can handle. However, if you have the bold personality to dream big, go right ahead! There’s nothing stopping you from accomplishing whatever it is that you desire in life.

10. Develop

Learn from your experiences as you set goals. The best achievement of all is a gain of knowledge.

11. Grow

This is similar to the development step, but as your life moves on and you continue to grow, change your goals accordingly. I personally enjoy making a goal, and then redesigning the same goal after I have achieved it once. For example; if you have a business goal to bring in X amount this quarter, make it another achievement to bring in 150% of X in the next quarter.

12. Enjoy

Have fun doing all of these things. Goals are not worth pursuing if you make yourself a wreck while doing so. Make sure you don’t obsess over your goals but still put enough time into them to help you succeed.

All of these steps are important in setting and achieving goals. Try them out and see how they work for you. It’s important to remember to combine multiple steps into making an effective goal setting plan. Create your own and see how they work. The most important part of goal-setting is to try.

Remember:

“Without goals, and plans to reach them, you are like a ship that has set sail with no destination.

Fitzhugh Dodson

About Charlie

Charlie is a student who blogs personal development related articles. He focuses on positive thinking, productivity and zen related subjects in his posts and also adds in helpful tips on how to integrate technology into developing a positive living experience. Two of his posts that I know you’ll like are 30 qualities of productive people and 25 little things to appreciate.

Attention: Don’t forget to download my free ebook, How to Get a Girlfriend!!

Editor’s Note: This article was written by Marina Tsipenyuk

Ever wonder why athletes are generally more healthy than non athletes? Seems like a very obvious answer! Exercising the body is essential for a healthy heart, strong muscles, good coordination…etc…and a healthy mind?

Our culture tends to dichotomize mind and body by their own respective features. The body has its functions and ways to improve through, for example, eating wholesome food and exercising, and the mind improves by understanding greater concepts, reading, and learning.

But isn’t the mind a part of the body? How can we distinguish between one and the other when they work together to produce a whole person? Have you ever seen a mind walking and a body standing still, literally?

If we are to take a holistic approach to health, maybe we can optimize our lives by creating a balance that dismisses this dichotomy in favor of synergy. When we exercise our bodies, we can look at it as though we are exercising our minds as well. Overcoming the belief that we are incapable physically can prepare us for much more difficult challenges.

Our bodies are built to do a lot more, physically, than most people have used them for, much less, imagined. Much of this physicality, however, manifests in the mind. When we are running and our body tells us that it is tired, it is our mind that pushes us forward, unfolding our greatest potential. Endurance is a product of the mind, and the more we are capable of enduring, physically, the greater the mental challenges we are able to face. Think of endurance as empowerment! Pushing ourselves at the gym can allow us to cope with difficult real-life situations, which can range from a bad day at work to an illness or tragedy.

I believe that by changing the way we think about the constitution of the mind and body, we can opt to take care of ourselves better so as to preserve both. So the next time you are exercising, see how much you can push yourself, feel empowered by your abilities, and know that if you can handle that, you can handle anything.

What recommendations do you have for bridging the gap between physical endurance and mental strength?

About Marina Tsipenyuk

Marina Tsipenyuk is a student at Rutgers University studying political science and finance. She is currently involved in a historical research project, co-founded a breast cancer support organization called Bead the Cure, and mentors a women’s studies course. She hopes to go to law school and, eventually, become a lawyer.

Attention: Don’t forget to download my free ebook, How to Get a Girlfriend!!

The idea of the bucket list, which is like the gotta get goals list that so many of us participated in writing months ago, is not a new one at all. In fact, I just got back from watching The Bucket List, a movie staring Jack Nicholson and Morgan Freeman, in which the pair team up to complete their very own bucket list.

I’m hoping that unlike the movie, most of the people here are not quite ready to kick the bucket and aren’t reading this on their death bed. I still think it’s important to have a bucket list that is time sensitive, except I suggest using this year as the deadline, and not the end of your life.

Having a partner to do the bucket list with you is an absolutely amazing way to strengthen a bond, forging what could be a life long friendship. Not only will you share the experience of persevering and meeting your goals, but you’ll gain some great memories in the process.

The number one most important thing about having an accomplice join you on your bucket list adventures is that you’ll have something to look forward to together. In fact, looking forward to something is a unique human ability that is also known as hope.

The reason why having a mutual bucket list, aside from your own personal bucket list is important is quite fundamental. When you share a mutual goal, your daily conversations will be geared toward the future goal, and toward the current steps necessary to accomplish this goal. Gossip, complaining, and other futile conversation will take a back seat, as you plan and work toward achieving your goals.

What a bucket list can do for your relationship is make you a team in the game of life. On the same team, your synergy will fuel and strengthen not only your efforts, but your friendship as well. This works doubly for romantic relationships.

Creating A Bucket List

1. Remember that you’re a team. You will have equal input on what will go into the bucket list in order to make it fair and enjoyable for both parties involved. Either pick all items that are mutually enjoyable, or divide individually enjoyable items equally. This way you can do things for the sake of your partner, but have them do the same in return.
2. Brain storm categories. Sit down with your pen and paper, or laptop as we did, and make a list of categories to fill your bucket list with. For example, some of the categories we started to think of today were travel, fun, dining, and personal development.
3. Brain storm specifics. After making up our first four initial categories we started to populate them. Just to give you a quick scenario, here is an abridged version of some of the things we want to accomplish for 2008 together.
   1. Travel
      1. Kiev/Israel/Riga and (Italy or France)
   2. Fun
      1. Carriage ride in central park
      2. Sky diving
   3. Dining
      1. French Restaurant (Brooklyn Heights)
      2. Max Brenner (Triple Date)
      3. Sawa (Pier Village)
      4. Moracan Food (NYC)
   4. Personal Development
      1. Do 13 week Benjamin Franklin challenge together.
      2. Make personal development videos
      3. Start a personal development club at school.
4. Let it sit for awhile. It’s important that after creating a bucket list, you walk away from it and let it sit for awhile. This will give your mind a chance to get excited about it, and come back to it with a fresh head.
5. Get a realistic game plan. On one hand, you want to think in practical terms as far as scheduling and budget. On the other hand, you want to pretend that this is your last chance to accomplish your dreams. In fact, this pretending isn’t all that impractical, because if you don’t do it now (it’s always now), than you’ll likely never do it.

Keep in mind that a bucket list can be done alone, with a significant other, and with a friend. You can have multiple bucket lists running at the same time, so don’t limit yourself. Each item on your bucket list could be:

• something you’ve always wanted to do
• a fun adventure
• something you want to say you did before you died
• something that adds to the depth of your character and makes you a more interesting person
• or anything else you want to do.

A bucket list is not something you want to limit yourself in, so shoot for the stars. You want to completely go out of your comfort zone with this exercise, but still set goals that are attainable for you. If you truly believe that the moon is attainable for you this year, than put it on your list and start dialing NASA.

Don’t put off things you can do this year until the next. Next year you’ll think of adventures that are different and even more fun.

Who is going to be your bucket list partner? What’s on your bucket list?

Attention: Don’t forget to download my free ebook, How to Get a Girlfriend!!

There are limitless benefits to starting and sticking to a solid morning routine. My favorite benefit is that once the routine is a habit, it can be executed in such a robotic way as to not exert much effort on your part. To start this new year off right I’ve devised a new morning routine that I will be following strictly for the next 30 days.

1. Rise at 8am.

When choosing a good time to rise, it is important to consider your own unique situation. Basically, you want to wake up early enough to fit in your morning routine before your normally schedule day begins.

For me, at least for January, 8am is ideal. I’m on winter break until the 22nd, and even then I will have night classes. I like to stay up late reading, or doing things with friends, so for me this is practical.

Practical for you might mean waking up at 5:00am to get things done before your kids wake up. This is good reason why you should tweak your rising time, and your routine in general in order to be the best fit for you.

2. Drink 1 cup of lemon water.

“The lemon is a wonderful stimulant to the liver and is a dissolvent of uric acid and other poisons, liquefies the bile, and is very good in cases of malaria. Sufferers of chronic rheumatism and gout will benefit by taking lemon juice, also those who have a tendency to bleed, uterine hemorrhages, etc.; rickets and tuberculosis. In pregnancy, it will help to build bone in the child. We find that the lemon contains certain elements which will go to build up a healthy system and keep that system healthy and well. As a food, we find, owing to its potassium content, it will nourish the brain and nerve cells. Its calcium builds up the bony structure and makes healthy teeth.” (via Idaho Observer)

Those all sound like good benefits to me. I personally like the fact that it gives your metabolism a wake up call and aids in digestion.

3. The morning walk.

The benefits of a 30 minute walk, 5 times a week are basically priceless, but only if you value your health. I do. Some of the benefits include:

• Managing your weight.
• Controlling your blood pressure.
• Decreasing risk of heart attack.
• Boosting “good” cholesterol.
• Lowering your risk of stroke.
• Prevent depression, colon cancer, constipation, osteoporosis, and impotence
• Lengthen lifespan
• Lower stress levels and much more (via AARP)

My morning exercise will also include a combination of several calisthenic exercises that use my own bodyweight to promote strength and flexibility. They’re quick and don’t require any special equipment other than the pull up bar I have in my room.

Neither the morning walk, nor the calisthenics are meant to be used instead of more vigorous exercise, but they provide a really good baseline if there is no time for anything else.

4. Shower

The morning exercise is followed up by a morning shower. Even if I have no plans to leave the house that day, I always feel so refreshed and awake after I shower, that it just has to be a staple in my morning routine.

5. Breakfast.

Getting food into your system early in the morning will give you a head start on being healthy and feeling energized and focused throughout the day. I’m committing myself to having a large fruit smoothie for breakfast all month long. The base of this smoothie will be water, bananas and mango, and the occasional other fruits that I want to add in for variety.

6. Read for 30 minutes.

Reading and learning happen to be the center of all of my life goals. Even if my days are hectic, and I can’t find leisure time to read, I will always have those 30 minutes in my morning routine to chip away at some potentially life changing books. From my own experience, I know that whenever I do have leisure time, I read for hours at a time, but I know this isn’t possible with most of our schedules.

I think the benefits of reading are quite clear. You get to expand your mind, while absorbing decades of other peoples experience in hours. Apart from the usual personal development books that I read, I have decided to greatly expand my reading to encompass the great thinkers of the world, history, poetry, and classics of literature. The goal is to read 1 book a week until the ball drops for 2009.

7. Meditate.

I am committing to ending my morning routine with 5 minutes of meditation. Perhaps five minutes doesn’t sound like much, but Neil tells me that it’s not about how long you meditate, but more so about the routine of meditating daily.

Some of the benefits of meditation might come as a surprise to you. Let’s take a look:

• Lowers oxygen consumption and decreases respiratory rate.
• Increases blood flow and slows the heart rate.
• Leads to deeper levels of relaxation.
• Builds self confidence
• Increases the immune system
• Reduces stress and many other benefits (via Health and Yoga)

____

Sticking to your morning routine for at least 30 days is vital. You’ll eventually be so good at it, that you’ll be able to zone out (if you so wish), and just get things done that benefit you without exerting much effort. If you could use each day to inch towards your life goals, which goals would you pick and how would you go about it?

____
Photo by Clairity

Attention: Don’t forget to download my free ebook, How to Get a Girlfriend!!

Decision making could be a complicated process, and for certain situations it should take extensive research and planning before acting upon a certain choice. On the other hand, decisions can be made swiftly and concretely once the satisfactory amount of knowledge has been obtained.

What can you do when you can’t decide?

1. Flip a coin and let chance decide.
2. Meditate and let it come to you.
3. Ask a mentor and let them decide.

Even though it’s always better to make a decision by using heart, brain and gut, it’s not always easy. Sometimes it’s better to use any means necessary to make your decision, and then be a stickler to your choice. People could quite frankly spend their whole life indecisively. They find themselves living in a state of fear, guilt, and regret, without ever achieving their potential satisfaction in life.

See if your decision is a reflection of you. Ask yourself some questions.

1. Can you picture yourself in the future, living with the choice you are considering?
2. If you could move forward with no regrets, will you be happy living that decision?
3. Is your decision aligned with your personal mission statement?

Once you have projected yourself into a life where your decision is a reality, and have seen yourself happy, then you are set to make your decision. Choose, and proceed with no regrets. This process has helped me in everything from choosing between coffee flavors and a career path.

It works for me. What have you found that works for you?

Attention: Don’t forget to download my free ebook, How to Get a Girlfriend!!

It’s been slightly over 6 months now and it looks like the Gotta’ Get Goals interactive research project has finally come to a close.

The 80 Go Getters’ That Participated

• Aaron Potts – Today is that day!
• Jonathan Phillips – Smart Wealthy Rich
• Dave Olson – Live the GREAT life you desire
• Char – Casual Keystrokes
• K.L. Masina – Be conscious now
• Bradley Woods – Conceive, Believe, Achieve
• Liz Strauss – Successful Blog
• Nneka – Balanced Life Center
• Wendy Piersall – Entrepreneur Moms At Home
• Rick Cockrum – Shards of consciousness
• Ponn Sabra – Empower Women Now
• Wade – The Brain of Wade
• Donald Latumahina – Life Optimizer
• Jen – All kinds of reviews
• Dawud Miracle – Healthy web design
• Sherri Caldwell – Rebel house wife
• Tony Clark – Success from the nest
• Andrew Wee – Blogging and Marketing
• Grigor Coric – Behind the glasses
• Brian Kim – Invest in yourself and make it happen
• Dylan Emrys – What your baby knows
• Edward Mills – Evolving times
• Thea Westra - Life Wealth
• Michelle MacPhearson – Social Marketing
• Leo Babauta – Zen Habits
• Dwayne Melancon – Genuine Curiousity
• Greg Balanco-Dickson – Business Coach
• Phil Gerbyshack – Make it great!
• Lyman Reed – Creating a better life!
• Gaurav Mishra – Gauravnomics
• Wanda Grindstaff – Creating abundant lifestyles
• Stephanie West Allen – idealawg
• Jason Stein – Working Awareness
• M.T. – Mind Tweaks
• Adam Donkus – Pixel Head
• One of many me’s
• Lizzie – Fat Lady Singz
• Anastasia Pryanikova – Lawsagna
• Dr Sharna – Prattling in Postdoc Purgatory
• Dreams of Solo
• Sheryl Sisk Schelin – The Inspired Solo
• Sandy Slaga
• Hilda Carol – Living Out Loud
• Incredible Shrinking Ladies
• Brian – Lose weight with me
• Mike Miller – Be a good dad
• Freak Parade
• Kuippercliff
• Kbaggott – Babylune
• Waist loss
• Jerry – Cooking by the seat of my pants
• Robin – Limenade and Watermelon
• Crimson Girl
• Rosevibe
• Over Educated Nympho
• Narrowband
• Jennifer – Life of school bus driver
• Yenjai
• CK – Some go softly
• Snippy
• Pelf
• Velvetsaje
• CalEmploymentLaw
• Debambam – No regrets
• Life at the edge – growing old gracefully
• Daily piglet
• Lillie Ammann – A writer’s words, and editor’s eye
• Gan - Transitory in life
• Felicia – Simplyfelicious
• Sya – Daily Ramblings, With Love
• Kelly – Educational Discourse
• Eduardo Peirano – Onlinesapiens blog
• Jennifer Macaulay – Life as I know it
• Susan – What counts!
• Vera Nadine – Jar of Spiders
• Gabriela Grosseck
• Nathalie – One life among the many
• Jen – Domestic Goddess
• Sue Waters – Mobile Technology
• Cypress Nemeton

Most Unanimous Goals

It seems that some goals were more desired than others, so here are the top 10 most unanimous goals, from most to least desired.

1. Travel for pleasure
2. Financial freedom/independence
3. Make a difference to humanity
4. Commit to philanthropy
5. Be close with family
6. Have a successful business
7. Master spirituality/religion
8. Develop and teach a philosophy on life (via writing or other)
9. Be good at public speaking
10. Complete a great physical challenge

Other Gotta Get Goals

While these goals didn’t make it into the top 10, they are still very important, and unique to certain individuals. So, without further ado, here are some of the other top gotta get goals:

• Great health
• Unconditional love
• Master communication
• New York Times Bestseller
• Spend time at the beach
• Own a mountain home
• Expression through music
• Get a pilots license
• Restore a muscle car
• Learn a foreign language (spanish, arabic, chinese, italian, french)
• Become a gymnastics judge
• Work towards world peace
• Sailing
• Own a house
• Write to inspire
• Develop consciousness
• Be in control of emotions
• Entertain people
• Be environmentally conscious
• Learn to cook
• Go back to school
• Meet-role models
• Work oversees
• Become more tolerant and accepting
• Get a tattoo

Attention: Don’t forget to download my free ebook, How to Get a Girlfriend!!

Since goal achievement is an addiction, it only gets more potent the more you use it (you’ll become a fiend!) You’ll find yourself requiring bigger and bigger doses, as you move from small goals into the experience of great adventures and the accomplishment of your life mission.

I’m sure you can relate to looking at some goals and thinking just how much will-power and motivation they may require. Being a goal addict is about surrendering to the euphoria of getting things done. By completing every consecutive goal that you set for yourself, you become the kind of person that only knows completion. You become a person of your word; a person with unshakable integrity.

Your inner voice will constantly speak in terms of positive self-talk. You’ll find yourself saying things like, “I can do it!”, “This tiny little task? No problem!”, “I’ll get this done, with pleasure!” and my all time favorite, “I’m a juggernaut, nothing can stop me!”

Where to start? Keep it simple.

1. Most Important Thing First. The morning is a perfect time to give yourself an emotional boost. Wake up early, do an exercise routine, go for a walk and just think, make a journal entry, cook someone breakfast, or clean one room in the house.

2. Make a smart substitution. One of your goals is being healthy, right? So next time you sit down to eat a meal switch soda for water, potatoes for salad, and desert for a breath of fresh air.

3. Connect with people. Use 15 minutes to call one relative, friend or acquaintance that you don’t talk to on a regular basis to check up on them. They’ll be happy that you care, and you’ll be happy that they’re happy.

4. Use the 30 second rule. Make this a habit for each time you talk to anyone. Pay them a compliment or word of encouragement within the first 30 seconds of talking to them. Just be that person (it’s important to pay people genuine compliments that you mean, otherwise you may be seen as insincere and this will work against you).

5. Don’t cram life goals. Everyone has life goals, right? These are probably huge, monumental goals that could take years to achieve. Don’t put them off for later, spend 15-30 minutes each day taking action towards these huge goals – these minutes will add up pretty quickly and you’ll achieve them quicker than you thought.

6. Take good notes. When completing goals that are part of your daily routine, it is very important to keep meticulous notes of your progress. At the start of the month, print out a fresh blank calender (you can use sciral to do this free and quick). You’ll get addicted to recording your progress and have extra incentive to not let a day go by without completing your goals.

There are plenty of other things you can do to get yourself started on a road to goal addiction. The important thing is to start with relatively simple and beneficial goals. Make a gradual increase in the type of goals that you take on. Whenever you have a huge task, always think about which small tasks you can complete to get yourself going.

Journal homework for you

To be done by the end of this day. Label a fresh section “Goals I have been putting off” and free-write 5-10 things. As you write, you may experience some kind of negative emotions or feelings about yourself, right? Perhaps shame, embarrassment, laziness or even hypocrisy. Now, image how much lighter and happier you will feel once you’re constantly checking off tasks on your list.

Attention: Don’t forget to download my free ebook, How to Get a Girlfriend!!

The quality of what you produce is directly related to the quality of the thoughts you allow into your mind.

Now I’m sorry to do this, but I’m only doing it to make a point.

I took a screen shot of a local news website tonight – many nights it’s much worse:

Why do I need to know this stuff? So I can stand in the cul-de-sac discussing murder with my neighbors? What is the reason to allow this negativity into my mind? None of these things are actionable, so they serve no purpose other than to anger, shock, or depress me. News gives people a distorted negative world view.

No wonder the traditional media is losing its market share. Why does news need to be violent and negative? Why not a PNN, a positive news network? Please, one of you ambitious entrepreneurs in this audience… start one!

For every one of these violent tragedies, there are a hundred stories about a people creating value and joy in other people’s lives.

Those are the stories I want to read. I want to read about people that overcame seemingly insurmountable odds to do tremendous things. I want to read about the guy who decided he wanted to golf every day, and made a business out of it. I want to hear about the woman who faced down the government regulators and opened a holistic wellness center. I want to hear about bloggers like you that are changing the world.

I don’t believe in avoiding everything that is negative, but if you can’t change something, it is better not to think about it.

For example, if you look in the mirror and see yourself as overweight, you could think about being thinner, imagine what it would feel like to be thinner, and then actively make a plan to exercise and eat healthy. You have the power to change you. If someone across the street is sick and needs you to watch their children, you can help. But watching negative news stories on television filling your mind with negative events which you have no power to change is dangerous and can lead to a sense of powerlessness and depression. Also the sensational feelings of fear these stories produce becomes addictive.

I was addicted to cable news for over ten years. I gave up news in September of 2006, when I began blogging. Occasionally I slip back (mostly reading Reditt or Stumble Upon), but mostly I learn about big news events through conversations with other people.

Scaling back consumption of news resulted in these positive things:

• More time listening to my kids
• More time listening to my wife
• Positive conversations
• Optimistic outlook
• More time to communicate with you
• Building a blog
• Building a deck
• Reading
• Writing
• Forming relationships
• Cleaning up my immediate environment – clearing the buckthorn from my property, which is an invasive non-indigenous plant

These are just a few of the results of giving up news. I don’t miss the news. It added nothing to my life or the lives of those around me.

I challenge you to give up the news for 30 days and then link back here telling us about the results. If it doesn’t create positive results, you can always go back to it if you wish, but I doubt you will.

By Guest Blogger Steve Olson – For People Pursuing Freedom

Most of us have heard this famous quote before. Confucius states that you can’t achieve a goal, unless you start a goal. However, a single breach in commitment starts the downward spiral of your success.

Your integrity, the promise you make to yourself, is the only thing of value that you really have. The reasoning is that money, health, and friends can all come and go, but your promises and decisions are things you’ll have to live with for the rest of your life.

The only thing that stands in between you and achieving your goal is your commitment to yourself. Having high integrity with your goals means that you’ll find a way to accomplish them, no matter what it takes.

I’ve mentioned that it only takes one breach of integrity to break a commitment. That means, having just one scoop of ice cream, missing one workout, or stealing one kiss is enough to break the contract that you’ve made to yourself, your diet, your fitness, or your relationship. How many times have we let our integrity down?

They say once a cheater, always a cheater, and this applies to anything in which you give your word and put your integrity on the line. Once you’ve taken the first step, you are likely to repeat it again, so your goal should be not to make any exceptions. Your goal should be to have a character of unshakable integrity.

Have you messed up already? The worst thing that you can do is pretend that it didn’t happen! Promising someone that you will “stick to it this time” or that you “won’t do it again” is a waste of time; it just doesn’t work. You always end up making more exceptions.

The trick is to admit to yourself that you’ve broken this promise. Once you do that, start fresh by creating a new commitment. Track your progress by keeping a daily journal. You won’t want to mess up your shiny new commitment to yourself.

Same as with Aaron’s experiment, this will benefit all of the bloggers that participate and all the readers of those blogs.

I’m calling this one “Gotta’ Get Goals” to stay with our theme, and here are the official rules:

1) In a new blog post, list and write about the top 5 to 10 goals that you gotta’ get so that you can truly say you have achieved your wildest dreams in life. These have to be your best, most exclusive, and over-the-top goals that you can pick off your goals list. (I know I’ve previously said Do Not Share Your Goals, but we’re making an exception!)

2) In the introduction of your post, explain what you’re doing with the Gotta’ Get Goals project and “put a link and/or a trackback to this post”, for the purpose of giving them the full rules and for me to compile the master list of all participants that I’ll link to in a future post.

3) As with Simply Success Secrets, don’t forget to put a link or trackback to the blogger who tagged you for Gotta’ Get Goals in order to let your readers follow the conversation around.

4) Sharing your Gotta’ Get Goals with your own audience, will also share them with the blogger who tagged you and the bloggers you tagged, as well as their whole audience!

5) There is no limit to how many bloggers you are allowed to “tag”, so go crazy. It will help their exposure as well as your own when they tag back to your Gotta Get Goals post. That’s how meme‘s work.

6) Sit back and enjoy the show. As Aaron would say, “watch the [gotta get goals] and the crossover audiences start rolling in!

My Gotta’ Get Goals

1) Financial Freedom – I want to have income that comes to me from my investments, without me having to put in any more work. Instead of having more free time, I think this will allow me to concentrate even more on helping people and spreading the love.

2) Own 15 Dental Offices – I wanted this for awhile now, since I decided (with my mother’s help) that I want to become a Dentist. It’s really a fun field, where you get to help people and interact with them constantly.

3) Travel to 10 Largest Cities – I really enjoy traveling, but I haven’t taken advantage of it very much throughout my life. I live outside of New York City, so I’ve been there, but I really want to experience other cultures. Plus, I love rural areas.

4) Contribute – I want to donate millions of dollars to charity, and give my time to helping people in need. With all the opportunities I have in my life, I really just want to be there for people, I love people.

5) Master Martial Arts – I want to achieve black belt status in five martial arts. I’ve got one in Taekwondo, and I’m taking other martial arts as well, so it’s just a matter of time.

6) Write NYTimes Bestseller – With my new found love for writing (who would have thought), I want to get to the top of people’s reading lists. From there I can uplift, encourage and motivate millions of people with personal development books, and perhaps an autobiography.

7) Spread the seed – I want to have at least 4 children and 8 grandchildren, and to top it off I want to see my grandchildren married and have children. This is going to take being healthy and living to an old age!

Medium – As with my writing goal, I want this blog to become a very successful medium for me to uplift, encourage, motivate and educate millions of people. I have a lot to say, so I’m going to need people here to listen =)

9) Happy Family – I want to have a family that is strong, healthy, smart, stress free and well taken care of, for as long as I live and generations to come. Actually, I want this for everybody, no reason the world can’t join in.

10) Wisdom – I have an obsession with wisdom. Can you tell by my addiction to personal development? Always trying to get smarter, wiser and better. When will it ever end!

That’s my ten, out of the hundreds of entries in my goals list. Maybe they aren’t the best, or most exciting, but they’re mine! I won’t get too possessive, you can join in on the fun too. If you don’t own a blog, feel free to post your goals in the comments section below.

I Tag

This is my huge list. Don’t forget to link or trackback this post so that I can tally up the results and combine data with Aaron. If I missed you, I apologize, but you are more than welcome to get in on the experiment, the fun, and the master lists that me and Aaron will be putting together.

• Aaron Potts – Today is That Day
• Alec Gullon – Effective Life and Growth Strategies
• Gleb Reys – rsonal Development Ideas
• Lyman Reed – Creating a Better Life
• Travis Wright – Cultivate Greatness
• Bradley Woods – Conceive, Believe, Achieve
• Ravi Sraman – Setting Higher Standards
• Chris Marshall – Martial Development
• Dan & Jennifer – Dating and Relationships
• Mark McManus – Build Your Life To Order
• Leo – Zen Habits
• John TP – Make money online
• John Wesley – Pick the Brain
• Henrik Edberg – The Positivity Blog
• Steven Aitchison – Change Your Thoughts
• Brian Kim – Invest in Yourself and Make It Happen
• Wendy Piersall – eMoms at Home
• Nneka – Balanced Life Center
• Sania Wyatt – Inspiring and Helping Others Achieve Happiness…
• Karen Lynch – Live the Power
• Rick Cockrum – Shards of Consciousness
• Brad Isaac – Achieve IT!
• Kara-Leah – Be conscious now.
• Edward Mills – Evolving Times
• Steve Johnson – The fast lane
• Donald Latumahina – Life Optimizer
• Char – Casual Key Strokes
• Brian Baker – Motivation for the Entrepreneur
• Jonathan Philips – Smart Wealthy Rich
• Kivi Leroux Miller – Writing for non-profits
• Pam – Make the most of you
• Patricia – A better you blog
• John Chow – Make Money Online

Special thanks to Aaron Potts of Today is That Day for letting me join him on our join effort to get the best of you. Another special thanks to everyone who is participating!

Update: You can now view the tallied results for this project at Gotta Get Goals Roundup.

Additionally, I have a new project called Caring * Compassion * Charity that you can participate in!

Self reflection should be more than a minor consideration if you’re serious about personal growth. I can testify that it’s worked wonders for me, for grounding myself and evaluating my life’s progress. How else am I supposed to make improvements, if I don’t know where I’ve gone wrong in the past? Many people try to ignore past errors, but then history repeats itself, as we all know.

Here are some questions that I find useful to use for self reflection. The format that I use is that of a weekly self assessment and reflection journal. Try it yourself, ask yourself the following questions Sunday night, when your week is complete.

1. What will I try to improve on next week?

2. What was I most proud of this week?

3. What was my biggest accomplishment this week?

4. What have I done to get closer to my life goals this week?

5. What was hard for me this week, and why?

6. What was my biggest waste of time this week?

7. What did I do this week that made me ashamed?

By answering these questions for myself in my writing journal, or journal diary as it is sometimes called, I force myself to take a hard look at myself. I may spend months or years treading water, not getting anywhere, if I didn’t take this time to analyze myself.

For me a week is enough time to pull myself back if I’ve gotten too far off-course. If I’ve stopped exercising for a week, I would be ashamed of myself, and my weekly review would get me to the gym first thing Monday morning.

By recording things that made me proud and that I consider my biggest accomplishments, I can emulate them in the future. The benefit for me is that these are the things that make me feel good and are likely taking me towards my life goals.

I record the activities that I’ve found to be hard during the week. Maybe it was a test, or a work out at the gym. I can then analyze where I went wrong, or right. A test being hard could mean that I wasn’t prepared enough, or it was meant to be a challenging critical thinking exam. A hard day at the gym could mean that I’ve let myself get out of shape, or I’m over working myself. I can make adjustments for the following week and plan accordingly.

What things will you discover yourself if you stare these seven hard questions dead in the eyes?

Stumble it if you liked it.

Another post that StumbleUpon users love is How To Become an Outstanding Person In Twelve Weeks.

While I believe that anyone and everyone could accomplish “outstanding” status, I also believe that it takes dedication and elbow grease. I present you with a step-by-step guide to accomplishing this goal, just dig in and start now.

The way the excel journals function is that I work on one virtue per week, concentrating all my efforts on the task as hand, while recording the slip ups in the other virtues as they progress naturally. I won’t comment on the slip ups until that specific virtue gets its week.

Resolution (Week 4 of 12)

My Progress With Resolution

Resolve to perform what you ought; perform without fail what you resolve. This virtue took a lot of motivation on my part, but now I can say that I get it! In order to succeed at this virtue, you need to plan ahead, and be equipped with tools for getting things done.

What works for me is writing things down, but you may have a different approach from what I’ve read in self help and personal growth books. The formats that I use are: To-do lists, goals lists, and most important things of the day.

Today’s MIT list looks as follows (I limit it to three tasks):

1. Final edit for take-home exam
2. Study pharmacology – 2 hours
3. Write one blog article

And my to-do list looks as follows (just a brief excerpt):

1. Pay electric bill
2. Buy cell phone charger
3. Go grocery shopping

One thing that I do not account for in these lists are my daily habits. I may have a routine-building list when I am trying to implement a new habit, but in general I want to keep my lists small so they look and feel more manageable.

If you don’t make a resolution – you do not need to keep a resolution. Before you make a commitment to perform a certain task or get something done, ask yourself whether this commitment will take you towards or away from your goals and if you have enough time to complete it without giving up something of more importance. It’s okay to turn things down and delegate tasks that are not a wise use of your time.

From my on going progress with this project I can clearly see that my weekend habits are whats stopping me from running on all throttles when it comes to being outstanding. So the thing to think about here is:

1. Is it okay to take the weekends off to let yourself go?
2. Should you do away with weekends and treat them like weekdays?

I’d like to open these questions for discussion.

Becoming Outstanding Series

• How To Become An Outstanding Person In Twelve Weeks

• Week 01 – Temperance

• Week 02 – Silence

• Week 03 – Order

• Week 04 – Resolution

• Week 05 – Frugality

• Week 06 – Industry

• Week 07 – Sincerity

• Week 08 – Justice

• Week 09 – Moderation

• Week 10 – Cleanliness

• Week 11 – Tranquility

• Week 12 – Chastity

While I believe that anyone and everyone could accomplish “outstanding” status, I also believe that it takes dedication and elbow grease. I present you with a step-by-step guide to accomplishing this goal, just dig in and start now.

You may notice that the excel charts display all the virtues that I mark with only one being in the spotlight . In the interest of saving time and being direct I will not discuss the outcomes of the other virtues, although you can see asterisk by where I slip up. I will go into more detail only when a virtue is being featured and in the recap at the end.

Order (Week 3 of 12)

My progress with Order.

Let all your things have their places; let each part of your business have its time. Benjamin Franklin had his own business, was involved in many facets of the Pennsylvania government, was postmaster and the go to guy for the affairs of many friends and associates. Now I know that Order was a big part of assisting his time management. This virtue is all about getting things done.

I’m going to be honest, Order was not an easy virtue to keep up with this past week. I am a bit OCD when it comes to certain cleaning and organizing tasks, so for me to consider something in perfect order means that it’s been scrubbed to a shine. I don’t mean to sound like the old cliche you use at a medical school interview, when they ask you to name one of your faults you say “i’m a perfectionist”.

In order to complete my goal for this week I actually had to slightly let go of being a perfectionist. No more spending too much time doing dishes or anything for that matter. I quickly put things back after I use them and left the house clean before leaving for a couple of days.

What I noticed from my participating in this virtue is that my house feels like it has a lot more energy, free space and life. My home actually makes me happy, because everything is where it should be. How does this affect my productivity? Well, if everything is back in it’s place, I obviously know exactly where it is and can practically get it in the dark.

Letting each part of your business have it’s time isn’t that difficult. I’m not doing any traveling, so I don’t have to miss work, classes or blogging. Even if I was, with current technology I would be able to do it all from anywhere in the world. I guess I got an advantage here over good ol’ Ben Franklin.

Becoming Outstanding Series

• How To Become An Outstanding Person In Twelve Weeks

• Week 01 – Temperance

• Week 02 – Silence

• Week 03 – Order

• Week 04 – Resolution

• Week 05 – Frugality

• Week 06 – Industry

• Week 07 – Sincerity

• Week 08 – Justice

• Week 09 – Moderation

• Week 10 – Cleanliness

• Week 11 – Tranquility

• Week 12 – Chastity

While I believe that anyone and everyone could accomplish “outstanding” status, I also believe that it takes dedication and elbow grease. I present you with a step-by-step guide to accomplishing this goal, just dig in and start now.

The way the excel journals function is that I work on one virtue per week, concentrating all my efforts on the task as hand, while recording the slip ups in the other virtues as they progress naturally. I won’t comment on the slip ups until that specific virtue gets its week.

Silence (Week 2 of 12)

My progress with Silence.

Speak not but what may benefit others or yourself; avoid trifling conversation. This virtue is particularly important because it eliminates hours of wasted time, in the form of gossip and pointless conversation.

In order to stay away from gossip I found myself asking myself “what is my intention”. This is something I picked up from a friend. In order to stay focused he put signs on most of the walls in his house that read “what is my intention”. While I did not make signs, I used this technique before contacting or responding to a person and often while in the middle of conversations.

This virtue enabled me to be more direct and get to the point of a conversation, without being side tracked. It wasn’t too hard to implement when you focused your attention on it for a week. The payoff is truly great. I feel like that by not participating in such negative conversations I was able to, in a way, rid my world of these things. Out of sight, out of mind.

What silence does not mean is avoiding all leisurely conversations, that could serve as entertainment or support for someone. If it benefits others or yourself, it’s still worth talking about.

Becoming Outstanding Series

• How To Become An Outstanding Person In Twelve Weeks

• Week 01 – Temperance

• Week 02 – Silence

• Week 03 – Order

• Week 04 – Resolution

• Week 05 – Frugality

• Week 06 – Industry

• Week 07 – Sincerity

• Week 08 – Justice

• Week 09 – Moderation

• Week 10 – Cleanliness

• Week 11 – Tranquility

• Week 12 – Chastity

Achieving your dreams is merely the process of taking your intentions and transforming that energy, through action, into the physical realm. Action being the intermediary step, the one that requires much work, is what is usually the cause of man’s inability to follow through – from intention to acquisition.

The Painted Picture

Looking at the big picture (before taking an action), makes it difficult to start and easy to procrastinate; what follows is a look at the little picture.

When you consider the act of achieving a superb figure and astounding fitness level, you may experience opposing emotions. You feel happy and excited for the potential that your body is capable of and the marvelous benefits of acquiring such a physique. Alternatively, you may experience depression, because you are unsure if you are capable of achieving such greatness. This stems from not believing that you can follow through with such admirable goals.

You may have a desire to save money for a house, a car, an investment, but when faced with the actual amount that you may have to put away, your enthusiasm shrinks.

You may have a desire to be in a wonderful relationship, but when struck with the actualization that you may have to participate in dozens of courtships and possible rejections, you feel discouraged.

Baby Steps and Smiles

Before you give up on your body, your savings, and mankind, I would like to offer you my paradigm. Taking baby steps, and enjoying every moment, challenge, and laugh that comes your way is the key to not only overcoming great obstacles, but also to enjoying the journey.

If you can relish in the heat, sweat and exhaustion of just one single exercise and when you can feel the endorphins pumping through your veins, you can achieve that body. Time, your only true possession, gives you the ability to multiply your efforts, by time itself. Given that time does go by quickly, you’ll see your payoff sooner than you think.

If you can save on something small everyday, over the course of one, five, ten years; you save a lot. Multiply that by the amount of small things you waste your money on each day and the savings really add up. For example, instead of buying a bagel at the deli for breakfast every morning for $1 for a total of $5 per week, you buy 5 bagels and butter at the supermarket for a total of $2.50. You save $2.50 a week, ~$10 a month, ~$125 a year, ~$1250 in ten years, based on this one habit. How many daily savings can you think of?

Dating, relationships, rejections. If you think of it from the point of view of how hard it’s going to be and how much pain you’ll experience, you won’t have the right mindset to achieve success. If you treat each single date, person, and day as a wonderful and unique experience, you get so many moments and lessons out of it. The rest hasn’t happened yet and won’t matter until it does.

So smile, never stop taking baby steps, with time you will achieve great things.

While I believe that anyone and everyone could accomplish “outstanding” status, I also believe that it takes dedication and elbow grease. I present you with a step-by-step guide to accomplishing this goal, just dig in and start now.

The way the excel journals function is that I work on one virtue per week, concentrating all my efforts on the task as hand, while recording the slip ups in the other virtues as they progress naturally. I won’t comment on the slip ups until that specific virtue gets its week.

Temperance (Week 1 of 12)

My progress with Temperance.

Eat not to dullness; drink not to elevation. This means to practice self-control when consuming food and alcoholic beverages. The feeling of dullness is what you get when you eat a big/greasy meal and basically fall into a food coma, aka fog of brain. Throwing back a few drinks at lunch, as well as having a large meal will hinder your focus and concentration; ultimately, your productivity will suffer.

I found this to be an easy virtue to successfully complete for the duration of one week. Don’t overeat, don’t get drunk – simple. If you pay attention and make a commitment to do this, you will notice yourself ordering smaller portions and saving portions of your meals for later. Here’s a free tip – don’t super size.

The side effect is that you remain frugal, at least on meals, and lose weight, if that’s what you’re after. You also appreciate food much more when you eat in moderation. The key is too eat until you are satisfied, not until you feel full. Try it.

Becoming Outstanding Series

• How To Become An Outstanding Person In Twelve Weeks

• Week 01 – Temperance

• Week 02 – Silence

• Week 03 – Order

• Week 04 – Resolution

• Week 05 – Frugality

• Week 06 – Industry

• Week 07 – Sincerity

• Week 08 – Justice

• Week 09 – Moderation

• Week 10 – Cleanliness

• Week 11 – Tranquility

• Week 12 – Chastity