What is Stopping You

What is stopping you from achieving what you REALLY want to achieve in your life?

Stop whatever you are doing, including reading any further yet, and focus on this totally.  Focus on it as if your life depended on it.  In a way, it does!  If you can identify this properly you will make a massive positive change in your life.

If you are reading this paragraph you should already have identified a number of obstacles that are preventing you from realizing your dream.  No?  Then stop reading, and focus again.  Don't come back until you have listed those obstacles.

The list you have created is, I can almost guarantee, neither accurate nor complete, but it is at least a start.  What you now need to do is work on it to increase the accuracy and to expand the list.  I will give you a few ideas here of ways to do both, but don't limit yourself to what I am saying.  This project is absolutely unique and personal to you.  Nobody else can tell you what should be on your list.  Others, like me, can give you pointers, but only you can produce it.

Once you have a good, accurate list of the obstacles it is far easier to find ways to remove those obstacles, one by one.  You may not remove them all.  And you may only partially remove some, but every step you take is a step closer to realizing your dream, to having an infinitely more fulfilling and more enjoyable life.

One big obstacle that almost everyone faces is an inner blindness.  A failure to recognize when the right door has opened for you.  I am a firm believer in the power of the Law of Attraction.  What you really focus on will come to be.  The way the Universe helps you achieve this is by opening the right doors for you.  It doesn't push you through the doorway though.  It opens the door and now it is totally down to you firstly to see that open door and secondly to take action and walk through it.  Unfortunately all of us miss so many of those open doors.  The Universe does not give up on us.  When we miss one open door it opens another.  Sometimes there will be many open doors and if we step through any one of them we will be that much closer to our dream.

Often, you will find the open door is an offer from someone to provide you with something you need in order to get where you need to be.  Sometimes the offer will be completely without any cost or obligation, and sometimes it will be, perhaps, a business opportunity that does require some investment or commitment.  Be prepared to recognize and take advantage of both.

One difficulty many of us face is being able to distinguish between fake and genuine offers.  We can be held back by the phrase "if it is too good to be true, it probably isn't true".  There are very many cases where that truism most certainly applies.  If someone offers you $1 Million just for providing a means for the money to be spirited out of their country into yours I can guarantee the offer IS too good to be true!  But don't allow the preponderance of so many such fake offers to hide from you those offers that aren't too good to be true.  Usually you can rely on your intuition and common sense to decide which are false and which are true.

For example, you may find someone is offering you free access to some information or help that will take you closer to your goal, and when you review what is on offer you can see it is probably being done in order to attract you to something that you WILL have to pay for if you want to take advantage of it.  There is absolutely nothing wrong with this.  There is a vast pool of really genuine and helpful information out there that you can take advantage of for free if you wish.  Don't hold back, cynically assuming it cannot be worth anything if it is being offered for free.  Recognize that it has real value.  The reason it is being offered free is because the business or person offering it believes the cost of doing so is a worthwhile marketing expense to have the chance to put something else in front of you that is NOT free.  If you have been reading my blogs for sometime, and especially if you are one of my e-mail subscribers, you will know I do this all the time!  Most of what I suggest my subscribers and blog readers look at is completely free.  I have already checked out the people behind the offers and know that they are genuine, and therefore am happy to risk my personal reputation by passing on those offers.  If you have taken advantage of any of them you will know that there is genuine good information and help there that can bring you so much closer to your goals, and that although what is then being offered for sale may get you to them quicker you do not necessarily need to take advantage of it unless you genuinely believe it is the right thing to do.  Very many of my subscribers take advantage of the free offers but never then feel obliged to spend any money.

So drop that cynical "it can't be true" attitude and see any such genuine offers for what they are.  The cynics will avoid them all, congratulating themselves that they have not been caught by some scam or other.  But in doing so they have thrown the baby away with the bath water.  Yes, be vigilant - recognize and avoid scams.  But be ready to take advantage of any genuine free offers that can take you closer to your goals.  I personally do this all the time and do not regret doing so in any instance.

Offers of this kind are, of course, by no means the only open doors.  Take off your blinkers and look for all those other open doors.  Genuine offers of help from friends, for example.  The right person being there for you at exactly the right time.  Don't assume there must be something wrong if there is an open door to help you get you where you need to be.  The Universe has opened that door for you, so step through it!

Another obstacle you may identify is lack of financial resources.  In other words, money!  We all have this obstacle to achieving at least some of our dreams.  Note it down, but don't allow it to depress you.  Be open to ways the Universe may help you get the financial resources you need.  Also, be aware that sometimes we don't actually need money to get where we want to be even though when we first look at it we think we do need money.  Be open to other ways of achieving the dream.  Again, this comes down to looking for the doors the Universe is opening for us.  Everything comes back to those open doors.

Finally, I promised to remind you how to increase the accuracy of your list of obstacles.  To a degree I have already done this if you follow everything I have said above.  But what you also need to do is meditate on your goals.  I have said this before and make no apology for saying it again.  Meditating on the goal will help you determine whether it is a genuine goal, but it will also help you find ways of achieving it.  Ways that would otherwise never have occurred to you.  Ways to avoid what you thought were obstacles preventing you from getting there but are really just figments of your imagination.

What is stopping you from achieving your goals?  Probably the biggest obstacle is YOU!  Focus on those goals, make sure they are genuine, and then simply be determined to achieve them.  Do this and you WILL get there!

The coldest hour is just before the dawn

Have you ever felt at the end of your tether and decided that you are never going to reach your goal and perhaps you should simply just give up?

Probably this has happened to you on a number of occasions.  You may have had a lot of goals when you were younger but one by one watched them fade into the night.  Don't despair if that is the case.  You are not alone.  It happens to most of us.

But also, don't believe that it is inevitable.  It is not.  It can actually only happen if you allow it to happen.  If you are determined to reach your goal no matter what, then reach it you will.  Eventually.

Sometimes the goal itself is wrong.  As I have said in many other posts we often believe we have one goal but when we dig deep we realize our true goal was something quite different.  Our true goals form deep within us, and as they pass up from those depths they can get distorted.  Sometimes they end up distorted beyond all recognition.  So it is important every so often to sit and meditate, reflecting on your goals, and try to see through any distortions to the true goal deep inside.

Once you know you are focused on the right goals, recognize that there are likely to be many obstacles on the way towards those goals.

If you think about it, you probably wouldn't want it any other way.  If there were no obstacles it wouldn't really be a goal at all, would it?  For example, for most of us eating dinner isn't a goal.  It is just something we do.  Something that is hopefully enjoyable.  But not a goal.  For most of us there are no obstacles to eating that dinner.

Those obstacles are there ready to be challenged and overcome.  The stronger your desire to reach the goal, the greater your power to overcome the obstacles.  If you really want to reach that goal, and if it is the right goal for you, then you have all the power you need within you to overcome the hurdles and even pass through apparent solid walls between you and the goal.

Sometimes we are closest to the goal when it seems further away than it has ever been.  Whenever things seem bleak and whenever it seems that no matter what you try you can never reach your goal, always remember that you are probably the closest you have ever been to reaching it.

Have you ever heard the expression "The darkest hour is just before the dawn"?  It was introduced by Thomas Fuller in 1650.

Scientifically this is not true, but the metaphor here really is true.  Perhaps we should change it to "The coldest hour is just before the dawn", as that conveys a similar meaning and is also factually correct!

It is so often the case that everything seems dark, bleak and cold immediately before a radical change when everything becomes light, colourful and warm.

Only very recently I felt I was near the end of the possibility of reaching an important goal.  I have been struggling for several years to reach it, knowing it is a long term goal that will take many years to reach.  I say "struggling", which sounds negative, but most of the time it has been a positive "struggle" not a negative one, so perhaps I am using the wrong word here.  But only a few days ago it really seemed to me that I had reached a dead end.  The road seemed darker and colder than it had ever been before.  Did I give up?  No!  I prepared for the possibility that I had been trying to reach the wrong goal and that I might have to re-define it.  But then my natural inner positivity made me also accept that perhaps the negatives I saw all around me were illusions rather than the goal being an illusion.  The moment I reached that point I took an action to move forward one more step, a step into the dark and apparently up to a sold blocking wall.  When I did this it was as if a hidden door was opened for me.  I stepped through and found myself the other side of that wall and am now well on the way to achieving this long term goal.

So when you feel all is conspiring against you and that you can never reach your goals do not give up.  Yes, re-evaluate your goals and make sure they really are the right goals - but this is something you should always be doing anyway.  Once you have reassured yourself that you are headed in the right direction, relax in the knowledge that there is an all-powerful, beneficent force out there that will provide the ways and means for you to reach your goals as long as you keep on working towards them.

How to win the game of life

If you are reading this article soon after it is published you may well be following the World Cup of football (which is soccer, for my American friends, not the adaptation of rugby that a Yale rugby player turned into what is now called American Football).  Personally I am not the slightest bit interested in football, but I accept I am in a distinct minority in that regard.

I believe the aim in football is to score as many goals as possible (although perhaps in the case of my team, England, it is to try to avoid as many penalty kicks as possible!)  Achieve lots of goals and you win the game.

It is the same in life.  Winning the game of life is all about achieving as many goals as you can.  Or, rather, as many "right" goals as you can.  Just as in football you can have a wrong goal (please refer to the "offside rule"), so you can in life too.  Although unlike the case in football there is a wide gradation of "right" and "wrong" goals.  You cannot win the game of football by scoring lots of "wrong" goals, and nor can you win the game of life this way either.

Achieving lots of the right goals should not be regarded as putting on lots of pressure and creating lots of stress - which is the way probably most people see it.

Perhaps one good way of looking at this is by comparing it with what you might do on holiday.  What, for you, is the purpose of a holiday, and what constitutes a really good holiday?  Think about this carefully for a few minutes and answer both of those questions as honestly as you can.  Do this before reading any further if possible, as it is best if you complete this exercise before seeing what I say next.

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Many people will have answered that the purpose of a holiday is to rest, to recover so you have lots of energy to carry on with your daily life on your return.  Certainly that would be my answer to the first question.

Many of those same people will then anwer that a really good holiday allows them to see lots of new things and take part in lots of exciting activities.  If you go on a package holiday you will find that the resort is usually designed in such a way as to achieve this.  Typically on the morning after your arrival you will meet with someone whose role is to convince you to go on lots of trips, some of which will probably involve waking up really early in the morning, perhaps earlier than you would normally get up in order to go to work!  Even if you don't book many, or any, of these "exciting" tours, you will probably find the resort will organize lots of sporting and other activities and encourage you to join in them rather than laze by the pool or on the beach.

Or perhaps your idea of a good holiday is the same as the American tourists in the 1969 film "If It's Tuesday, This Must Be Belgium".  Get to see as many countries as possible, without spending enough time to "see" any of them at all!

Now for some people perhaps having a frantically active holiday really does give them rest and recovery.  If so, they are making the right decision by signing up for all those activities that appeal.  But for many others, including me, indulging in so many activities means I don't get the rest and recovery I need.  So I try to ensure I budget plenty of time for just lying back on the beach or beside the pool, and reading some nice (and not particularly sophisticated) novels.

My main goals on holiday are to relax and rest.  If I do plenty of relaxing and resting I have achieved those goals.  As I am married, my goals are also to ensure my wife has a really good time.  Her aims are very different from mine.  She really enjoys lots of activity, seeing new things, having new experiences.  So we DO book a number of the activities the resort tries to sell us.  If we get to see lots of new and interesting things, and have lots of new and interesting experiences, she is happy - and I have then achieved the other goals of the holiday.

This can apply to daily life too.  Perhaps you suffer a lot of stress in your life.  Maybe, if so, a goal could be identifying what causes stress and eliminating as much of this as possible.  It could be removing stress-creating clutter from your life.  It could be simply taking more time out to rest and "smell the roses".  These goals are just as valid as, and perhaps more so than, the goals of people you see zipping around achieving lots of concrete, tangible goals.

Or it may be that you feel you need to earn more money so that you can plan for a future which allows you to do what you want and have less stress.  If so, perhaps starting your own business, and then achieving targets you have set yourself for that business will be the right goals.  But never lose sight of the fact that it is not the money or the business itself that is the goal, but what it will allow you to achieve once you have it.  Be aware that sometimes you can find ways of achieving those "end goals" without having to get more money.  And also be aware that none of us knows how many more years, months, weeks, days, hours of life remain for us.  If you spend your remaining years, months, weeks, days and hours just trying to get the money you need in order to achieve your end goals, then you really haven't achieved any of your goals at all!  Keep under review at all times what your goals are, whether they are real goals, and whether there might be better ways of achieving them than the ways you are currently pursuing.

Please do not take this as a diatribe against acquiring more money.  If you have read many of my articles you will know I am very much in favour of taking actions (the right actions, of course) to acquire more money.  But I am also aware that too many of us, myself included, are in danger of confusing "means" and "ends".  Acquiring more money is always only a means to an end.  If you don't achieve that end, then you haven't really achieved anything at all.

Finally, for anyone reading this who views what I am saying as coming from a very selfish position, achieving goals is not simply about achieving pleasure, gaining things and experiences for yourself without any concern for the happiness or well-being of others.  A good, rounded life plan should have both "self-centred" and "other-centred" goals.  What exactly is meant by "other-centred" is very individual.  In fact, I would go so far as to say it is completely unique to you.  It may include making your family and friends happy in various ways.  In fact it should.  It may also go beyond just making friends and family happy, but making others, including complete strangers, happy as well.  Again, in fact it should.  You may achieve those "non-centred" goals by spending more of your time, more of your money, or perhaps both.

So, to win the game of life you need to score the right goals.  And to score those goals you need to find our where the goal posts are.  Get going now by checking you have the right goals and finding the right ways to achieve them!

Exciting Goals

Have you identified your true goals?  Your real goals?  The goals that excite you because you know your life and the lives of those you touch can be very different when you achieve them?

I wrote a few months ago about identifying goals.  This is such an important topic I make no apology for addressing it again now.

Unfortunately many of us seem to have lost the excitement we once had when we formulated our goals.  Many more never had that excitement right from the start.  And without excitement it is very unlikely you will achieve your goals.  Why?  Because day to day life will "get in your way".  There are too many distractions competing for your attention.  Without excitement driving you forward you will be sidetracked by those distractions.  In fact, hijacked by them.

If you don't believe this, look back to the last day you didn't have to go to work or study.  If you don't work or study, look back to yesterday.  If you do, then perhaps look back to last Sunday or Saturday.  What did you achieve?  Did you achieve anything at all?  If you did, congratulations - you are in a pretty small minority.  But if you achieved something, how much closer did it take you towards any of your goals?  Be really honest here.

I tried this exercise just before writing this blog, so let me give you my results.  I didn't actually achieve anything significant at all.  I have a good excuse for this.  I have been working hard, so my last weekend (actually, a long weekend as there were a couple of public holidays too) was simply a chance to relax, do nothing, and feel good about it.  A chance to rest before going back to the grind of day to day work.

There is nothing wrong in this per se.  In fact for many of us it can be an essential exercise.  And if you go back to work refreshed and energized then you have achieved something.  But if you are in a similar position to me and find that your last rest day was simply that, a day of rest, then how about going back a week before?  What did you achieve then on a rest day?  And how about the week before that?  Surely you made great progress towards one of your major, exciting goals then?  No?

Unfortunately this is a common story for most of us.  We spend all day working hard, in order to have enough money to pay for the house in which we spend so little time because we are away working hard.  To pay for the car that we mostly use to get to our place of work rather than to take us to somewhere we can enjoy life.  So, what are we actually working for?  What do we really want to achieve in life, and is what we are doing right now getting us any closer to it?

For most of us these are very uncomfortable questions.  So uncomfortable we may try to brush them aside as being silly or irrelevant.  But they are not silly, and they are not irrelevant.  They are very uncomforable, but they are also very important.

Take some time right now to look again at your goals.  If they don't excite you they are the wrong goals.  And if you are aiming for the wrong goals you will either never achieve them anyway because they do not excite you, or you will achieve them and then wonder why you bothered in the first place.

Are your goals exciting?  If so, great!  Keep pushing forwards and achieve those goals.  If not, be ruthless and change them!  Replace them with goals that truly excite you and then make sure that every day you take at least one step to get you closer to those exciting goals.

Daydreams

Is there a place in your life for daydreaming?  Should there be?

I believe the answer is a very firm "yes"!

"Daydream" time is your opportunity to explore what it is you really want in life.  Most of us are so busy trying to get somewhere that we have never stopped and thought whether or not that is where we really want to be!  We also often "borrow" other people's ideas about what we should want.  Perhaps we have goals that were originally set by our parents.  Or that we have read about or heard friends discuss and think they should be our goals too.  Perhaps they should!  But also, perhaps not!  Or maybe we should retain those goals but there are other goals out there that really should have our name on, but that we have simply never considered.  So one reason to daydream is to allow new possible goals to arise and then to try them out and test them, see whether they fit.

You may already believe strongly in the power of visualization and practise this whenever you can.  Certainly this is a very good thing, and in a few days' time you may be reading an e-mail from me about visualization and distinguishing it from daydreaming.  I certainly encourage you to visualize and to do so powerfully.  But visualization is a very clear and directed process.  It is not the same as daydreaming.  When you visualize you already know very clearly what it is you want to achieve and that is what you focus on.  But when you daydream you are in a much freer state than when you visualize, and the purpose is quite different.  It is a time when you should completely let go and stop trying to control everything.  Allow the daydream to take over.  Just relax and let it flow.

After the daydream is over you can then analyze it.  How did it make you feel?  Did it introduce anything that you haven't previously considered?  Should you now consider that element or those elements?  I suggest you keep a daydream diary.  Record the results in that diary.  Then, from time to time get a bigger overall picture by reflecting on a number of different daydream sessions.

Try to create a habit of daydreaming.  This is easiest done if you try to do it at a similar time on a regular basis.

How often should you daydream?

This is a big question.  I suggest the answer will vary depending on where you are in your life right now.  If you have a lot you need to do and are under a lot of pressure then perhaps a daily practice would be too much.  But even if you are under pressure try to have a daydream session at least once a week.

How open should you be about spending time daydreaming?

Unless you are very lucky you will probably find even your closest loved ones may not understand why you need to daydream and may try to convince you not to "waste time" doing it.  It is probably easier simply to daydream when you can be by yourself and when nobody else will know that is what you are doing.  Maybe just say you are going to take a brief nap.  That is not really a lie, as it is more or less a kind of nap.  Your loved ones will probably believe you are tired and are having a nap to recover, but you haven't told them this, they have simply assumed it, so there are no untruths here.

Go on!  Try it!  Spend some time daydreaming.  You will find you should emerge from these sessions feeling more refreshed and energized, as well as quite possibly discovering something new and important about yourself and some of your hidden desires.

Identifying Your Goals

In a recent blog post I wrote about stalled goals and how to regenerate them.

Many people have stalled goals, so I am sure this was very helpful to many of my readers.  But also many people don't really have "proper" goals at all.

How about you?  What are your main goals?  Not goals for your business (whether it belongs to you or you are simply an employee).  Not goals you have for others (your partner or your children for example).  Yes, you need business and family goals, but you also need real personal goals.  So what are your personal goals?

At this point I know I will have lost some of my readers, as when they look at their stated goals they realize they don't have any personal goals, just goals for others.  If you are in that group, bear with me.

Now let's have a look at those personal goals and see how real they are.

Firstly, hands up those who gave a monetary goal.  Perhaps an amount of money in the bank (maybe $1 Million?).  Or a regular amount you want to receive every month or every year?  If your hand is up, let me be a bit controversial.  What you have isn't a real goal at all!  It may be a way you can achieve the goal, but it isn't a goal in itself.  Unfortunately, though, many people try to turn this means to an end into the end itself.  Wanting to gain a certain amount of money in order to achieve an end goal is not a bad thing.  But wanting to gain that money with no other aim other than simply to have the money is not a good thing.  Not a good thing at all!

If you felt your goal was a certain amount of money, I would like you to start digging deeper.  Why do you want that money?  What will you use it for?  What will it change in your life?  Whatever answers you get to those questions, as long as those answers inspire you, then those are your real goals, not the money.  Some people will probably feel I am splitting hairs here, and that it doesn't matter what you want the money for, that first you want to get the money and then you can decide how to use it.  You could not get further from the truth!  Your goal has to inspire you.  It has to be a real goal.  Money is NOT a real goal.  It doesn't hurt to include it as one of your goals, but only as a minor goal and not your main target.

The reality is that although money can be used to get whatever it is you want to have, it is not usually the only possible way to get it.  Maybe it is the most likely way - it probably is.  But it is not the ONLY way.  And on the basis of that well-known quote "the love of money is the root of all kinds of evil" (1 Timothy 6:10) I urge you not to put your main emphasis on simply acquiring wealth without knowing why you want to acquire it and exactly how you plan to use it.

Many people, when they first realize the mistake they have made in confusing wealth and their real goals, suddenly find they have true goals that they didn't really recognize before.  Goals that really excite them.  And even in some cases goals that don't need any greater wealth for them to be achievable.

Secondly, hands up those who gave what, frankly, they would consider an unrealistic goal.  Often this mistake is compounded by being a monetary goal too.  Back to our $1 Million in the bank account when, perhaps, you have a minimum wage job and no more money in your account than is needed for this month's expenses.  Whether the unrealistic goal is a monetary goal or not, if you see it as unrealistic you should modify it.

Notice I have said "if you see it as unrealistic".  Not "if it is unrealistic".  The key factor here is what you truly believe is possible, not what IS possible.  I happen to believe that everything is possible.  But that doesn't mean I will try working towards goals that I know make me flinch when I state them, with an inner belief that this is not achievable for me yet.  Everything is possible, but many of those possibilities are an end goal that seems too far away to excite us into trying to achieve it now.

Identify your personal goals, examine them, ensure they excite you, and ensure they don't elicit from you an immediate reaction that they are not possible.  As a result of this examination, don't be afraid to change those goals.  Your goals should always be evolving anyway.  The goals you have today are most unlikely to be the same goals you had five years ago, and are just as unlikely to be the same goals you will have in five years' time.  If you didn't immediately come up with any goals, then now is the time to try finding some.  Identify real personal goals and, trust me, you will find your life is more meaningful - and the meaning will make you happier.

Work towards real, personal goals, and as you move closer to them and achieve some of them, replace them with other, perhaps more ambitious goals.

Stalled Goals

Do you have any goals you have not yet reached?  I am sure you do, even if you haven't paid much thought to them recently.  Humour me a moment and write down some of those goals, perhaps the most important ones.

Against each of the goals, write down why you have not yet reached it.

If you have written that you simply haven't got there yet, but are on the way, and if this is completely honest, then congratulations!  That is exactly the way things should be!  You should always have goals you have achieved, hopefully many such goals, and also goals you are on the way to reaching.  It would certainly not be a good thing simply to have a whole series of goals you have already reached, and no further goals you want to reach.

I suspect, though, that if you are honest you will not have written "on the way" against every single unachieved goal.  Let us have a look at those goals and see what the problem is.

Sometimes we think we want to achieve something, but as we start working towards it our desires change.  This is no longer something we really want to achieve.  If that is the case, cross that goal out.  It doesn't belong on the list.  Every one of us will have changed some of our goals during our life, not because we think they are unattainable but because we realize we have evolved and those goals no longer inspire us.  There is no problem here - you just need to tidy up your list a little - there is no point pretending to yourself that you want something when really you don't.

But sometimes we also have goals we still want to achieve but we are not making any progress towards them.  These are the goals we need to look at very carefully.

As a first step, make sure none of those goals belong in the "cross out" list.  For each goal, think deeply about this question - do you really want to achieve this?  I know you initially left it on the "want to achieve" list, but does it truly still inspire you?  When thinking about this, don't confuse the issue by trying to decide whether or not it is achievable - just think about whether or not it is something that really inspires you when you think about it.

You may find a few goals do need to be transferred to the "cross out" list.  If so, cross them out.  Don't leave them on the list.  They don't belong there.

So now look through the remaining goals.  The ones you know you would still like to achieve but against which you are not making any progress.  These are what I refer to as "Stalled Goals".

For each of your "stalled goals" you now need to try to work out why they are stalled.

There can be many reasons for this, but I tend to divide those reasons into just three:

1.  I don't believe it is achievable.
2.  There is something inside me that seems to stop me from making any progress even though I believe it should be achievable.
3.  There is nothing blocking me, and I am certain it is achievable, but I simply cannot be bothered.

The division between each of these reasons may be a bit murky.  Perhaps there is a combination of reasons.  But usually you can place the main reason squarely within one of the three.  So I am now going to show you how to start chipping away at the reasons for the stall.

I don't believe it is achievable

There is nothing that is completely unachievable, no matter how ambitious it may seem.  You have to be prepared to move outside your comfort zone.  Maybe by so doing you will find what you thought couldn't happen actually can.

In many cases, though, this is not enough by itself.  Even moving outside your comfort zone you cannot see any way you could achieve this.  Don't worry, this is not the end of the process!

Where you very much want to achieve something but feel it is completely unachievable, begin by breaking it down, where possible, into smaller "jumps".  By looking at the end result, and seeing all the obstacles in the way of achieving it, you are convincing yourself it is impossible - but nothing is impossible.  Nothing!  Imagine you cannot swim, and between you and your goal there is a very big and deep river.  If you just see the goal in the distance and the very wide river you will not even begin to do anything to reach your goal, as it doesn't seem possible to get there.  But now I want you to look much more carefully at what is in the river.  Can you see there are stepping stones there?  When you were focussed on the goal you couldn't see those stones, but now you can see they are there.  Jump from the bank to the first stone.  You are not at your goal, but you are one step closer.  Now jump to the next one.  You are two steps closer.  Keep doing this and you will keep narrowing the distance.  Eventually you will find there is just one more jump and you have reached your goal.

Each time you make a small jump, you are not only one step closer to your ultimate goal, but also you have reached a smaller goal which can also bring you happiness.  So keep making those small steps and keep changing your life for the better.

Something inside me is stopping me from making any progress

This is a very common reason.  Such limiting beliefs are more common that perhaps you realize.  Somewhere deep inside you is an illogical, but powerful argument that says you shouldn't get there.  Maybe it says it is wrong to try, that in some way your goal is sinful.  Maybe it says you don't deserve it.  Sit still for a moment and see what thoughts rise to the surface as you meditate on this goal.  Almost certainly you will find a reason that has no logic.  Once you have identified this reason, give it a form.  For example, make it a small but nasty green monster.  Pick up that monster, tell it that it no longer belongs here, and throw it in a dustbin.  Do this with full focus and you will find the power of this block is greatly diminished.  It has been inside you for many years, so you may need to repeat the exercise several times.  Each time you do, you will take away more and more of its power, until eventually it has gone completely.  You should feel as though a burden has been lifted, and now you can make progress towards your desired goal.

I cannot be bothered

If truth be told, this reason afflicts us all.  We have to take action to get anything that is worthwhile.  Yes, we want it, but we are lazy and cannot be bothered.

The answer to this one is to do something that DOES make us bothered.  Focus on what your life is like now, without reaching this goal, and what it will be like once you have reached it.  Do this enough times and the energy you will stir up inside yourself will be enough to propel you into action so you CAN reach your goal.

Summary

Most, if not all, of us have stalled goals.  But just like a stalled car engine, there is usually something we can do to start it - even if that means calling on a professional who knows how to do it.  So get out there and start your engine!

Why Have an Accountability Partner?

I have previously written about accountability partners, but as that was over three years ago, and as this is such a key concept in any personal development strategy I make no apology for doing so again.

If you have a full-time job let me ask you something.  Why do you bother going to work each and every work day?  Why don't you just stay at home on days you don't feel like going to work?  I hope your answer was that you are morally bound to do so, that if someone is paying you to do something then it is a moral imperative to do it!  But there is also probably another answer - you have to keep going because you are accountable to your boss.  If you just decide you won't turn up because the weather is nice and you want to sunbathe in your garden, then probably your boss will question you about this (at the very least!).

If you run your own business then maybe you feel there is nobody to whom you are accountable?  This is not really the case, though, is it!  Your accountant works for you rather than vice versa, but I imagine when you meet with your accountant and discuss what has happened over the year you feel accountable.  You are also accountable to your suppliers.  If you just decide not to turn up and your business goes downhill, you still have to pay your bills, so you are certainly accountable to them.  It is true, though, that this kind of accountability is not quite the same.  You probably don't get words of encouragement for doing the right thing or suggestions that you may be going in the wrong directions - although if you have a good accountant then perhaps you do get this.

If you are studying, then you are accountable to your teachers or lecturers.  They expect you to arrive in time for your lessons and to be fully prepared to learn.  They expect you to do work in between the lessons, and make you accountable for this, perhaps by handing in an essay.  If you have "off" days when you really don't feel like going in, you probably still go anyway - because you are accountable.  Sometimes you may feel you simply aren't making progress and that you might as well give up - but even then you still put in the effort because you are accountable, and the feeling that what you are trying to do is impossible passes.

The truth is, if we have someone to whom we are accountable this almost certainly makes us do what needs to be done.  It makes the employed person get up early every day no matter whether he or she feels like doing so.  Perhaps most days this is simply a habit you don't think twice about, but on those days when you don't want to get on with it then this accountability makes sure you do!

Hopefully you now recognise just how important accountability is.  That it keeps you going, keeps you on target, makes you achieve what you need to achieve even at those times when you really don't feel you can.

Now let me ask you.  Who is your accountability partner for the goals you wish to achieve?  Do you have one?  If not, why not?

Some people at this point tell me they don't have a partner because they don't need one.  Usually they are deceiving themselves.  We all have days when it just seems too much of a challenge.  We have days when we find we are going backwards rather than forwards.  Those are the days we really need an accountability partner to keep us going.

Others tell me that although they would like to have an accountability partner they cannot find the right one.  Certainly it is true that it shouldn't just be anyone.  It has to be someone who will be positive, and certainly not the kind of person who says "I told you so!" when you pull up at the first hurdle.  You should be surrounding yourself with people who are positive and will support you in going for your dreams.  You need those people around you anyway, not just to have accountability partners, but this is certainly the first place you should look.  But if you haven't yet made much headway in creating that "mastermind group" of like-minded people, there are certainly other ways of finding an accountability partner.  For example, go to a forum that is related in some way to whatever goals you have set yourself and ask someone to do an "accountability exchange".  They will be your accountability partner for your dreams in exchange for you doing the same for theirs.  You should find this a very positive experience.  Many people who do this find they become inspired by the goals of their accountability partner and the way their partner works through the barriers stopping him or her from reaching them.

Give it a go!  Get yourself an accountability partner and see what a difference that makes to your ability to make your dreams become your reality!

Take Action

How easy is it to achieve your goals?

If you believe what some people say, it is very easy.  All you have to do is to decide what you want to achieve, use daily "affirmations", perhaps put it on a "vision board", and it is a done deal.  Right?

Wrong!

If you have read many of my blogs you may be excused for thinking I am one of those people trying to tell you that is all you need do.  But I am not.  Deciding on your goals first and making sure they are your "real" goals is, of course, absolutely essential.  Once you have set your goals, you should certainly use affirmations, and a vision board (or ideally a "Mind Movie").  But that is NOT all there is to it.  And that is where so many people who try to use the Law of Attraction fail.  They miss out the final step.

And what IS that final step?  It is to take action!

This is, of course, absolutely key!

You may at this point think I am crazy!  Of course you know you need to take action!  Yes, you know it, but do you DO it!

Take a look at what has happened to you in the last few years.  Are there any goals you set yourself which you did not achieve.  Be really honest here.  If so, and again be really honest, why did you not achieve them?  Was it because they were simply not achievable, or was there any element of you not taking the right action?  If you ARE honest, I am sure you will admit that there have been times when you have decided what you wanted to achieve, got yourself "pumped up" to achieve it, but then not taken the first necessary steps to achieve it.  Or you took those first steps, but then didn't continue in the same direction.

Taking action is essential.  But the first actions need not be big steps.  In fact, it is much better if they are not.  Certainly have big dreams.  Have big ultimate goals.  But don't expect suddenly to achieve those goals without having put in any work to reach them.  Instead, make it a lot easier on yourself.  Set yourself initially very small steps towards small goals.  Goals that take you in the right direction towards your ultimate goals.

When you do this you will find things are much easier.  You are not creating so much work for yourself that you freeze like a rabbit in car headlights.  That little goal you have set yourself can be reached easily without too much effort.

When you reach it, two things will happen.  Firstly, you will genuinely have achieved something.  It may not be a lot, but you have still achieved it.  You are closer to your ultimate goal.  Secondly, you will have started creating a habit - the habit of setting goals and achieving them.  And this is perhaps the most important thing you can do.

Up to now your subconscious may have been used to you saying you are going to achieve something but never achieving it.  Each time you set yourself a goal your subconscious shrugs its shoulders and says "not again!"  But with this first small success you are starting to change things.

Keep it up.  Make another small step.  Then another.  And then another.  Keep doing this.  Just small steps.  Nothing too big.  Keep doing this and you will now have the habit of achieving.  Now when you say you are going to achieve something, your subconscious will no longer shrug its shoulders and make disparaging comments.  It will take notice.  And when your subconscious starts to take notice, believe me things will begin to change, eventually quite dramatically.

Promise yourself that from now on when you want to achieve something you will take the necessary action so you really can achieve it - and see what a huge difference this makes!

Soul Garden Meditation

What exactly do you want to achieve in your life?

When I ask this question I typically get one of two reactions.  Either a person immediately tells me a dream they have, or they stumble around mentally and find it difficult to come up with an answer at all.

If you fall into the former category, and immediately know what it is you wish to achieve that is probably a very good start.  I say "probably" as quite often people are absolutely convinced that they know what they want to achieve, but what they REALLY, deep inside, want is something very different.  Maybe it really was the right dream earlier in your life, but we all evolve and our dreams change as we change.  Or sometimes, for many different reasons, our true dream morphs into something else as it passes from our unconscious to our conscious mind.  We think it is one thing, but deep inside it is something else.  So even if you believe you know exactly what you want you should still attempt the following exercise.

If you find it difficult to come up with an answer, it is very important to find out what it is.  Unless you really know what you want to achieve, how do you expect to get there?  How do you know you are moving in the right direction?

Make sure you are alone and that nobody will interrupt you, then try this exercise.  Don't worry if the first few times you try it you don't feel, see, or take in the things I am telling you to be aware of, as each time you practise this you will find it becomes easier to go deeper and get greater benefit.

Lie down and close your eyes.  Breath deeply and slowly.  Focus on your breathing.  Listen to the sound it makes.  Notice that thoughts try to come into your head to take you away from this meditation.  Notice, but don't focus on them.  Don't give them power by trying to stop them or getting irritated about them.  Just notice they are there but ignore them.  Keep focussed on your breathing.  In ... Out ... In ... Out.

Keep doing this until you feel yourself completely relaxed and at peace.

Now allow your focus to go deep inside and then straight down.  Feel yourself at one with Mother Earth.  Notice the warm, comfortable, loving feeling that comes up from the depths of the earth and fills you as you do this.  Allow this feeling to expand through your whole body.  As you do this, feel yourself expanding with it.  Your true inner spirit is now filling your body and going beyond.  It is filling the room you are in.  Allow it to keep expanding.  Now it is filling your entire home (or the building you are in).  Good!  Allow it to keep expanding beyond.  Now it is filling the town you are in.  It is growing even further.  The country.  The world.  Expanding beyond the world, to fill the solar system.  Beyond the solar system to encompass the whole of the Milky Way.  Recognize that now you are one with the Infinite Spirit.

Lie still, just basking in and accepting this new Universal Spirit "you".

Come back to yourself, your inner spirit.  Know that you are "you", but that the Universal Spirit is within you.

This is an exercise I recommend whenever you begin a meditation of any kind.  You can even do this by itself and will reap tremendous benefits if you do it regularly.

You are now ready to begin today's meditation.  Know that you are looking for the goals you have in your life.  Take that knowledge with you and then see yourself opening a gate and entering a garden, the garden of your soul.  See what this garden looks like.  Is it overgrown?  Is it the opposite - almost a desert?  Is it filled with beautiful flowers?  Is it filled with fruit and vegetables?  Remember what you first saw when you entered the garden and be ready to write this down in a notebook after your meditation.

No matter what your soul garden first looked like when you entered it, now see flowers, trees, bushes, fruit and vegetables growing there.  Even if before they were withered and sorry looking, now they are fresh, lively, and beautiful.  As you look at each plant in your garden allow it to speak to you and tell you what it is.  Again, be ready to write this down when you finish your meditation.  Be open to whatever message each plan in your soul garden gives you.  You may feel that you need to water some of the plants.  Do so if this is what you feel.  You may find some that are threatening and are clearly weeds.  If this is what you feel, pull them out.  Do whatever you feel your inner spirit is telling you to do, remaining open to the messages it is receiving.

When you have finished wandering through your soul garden, go back to the gate, open it, and walk back up the path that is taking you back into your daily life.  Focus again on your breathing.  In ... Out ... In ... Out.  Lie there relaxed and observing your breathing.  Slowly, when you feel ready to do so, open your eyes.  Smile.  Then sit up.  Your meditation is over.

Write in your meditation journal all that came to your during this meditation.  If you don't have a meditation journal, see if you have an empty notebook of any kind and make it your meditation notebook.  If not, then just write today's meditation on any blank paper you have to hand.  Later, buy a notebook, ideally one with a pretty cover, one that makes you feel good when you look at it, and that is now your meditation journal for recording what happens, what you feel, what images and ideas come to you each time you meditate.  Why didn't I tell you to do this before I took you through your meditation?  Because your mind will use any excuse it can to stop you meditating to improve yourself, and one way it may do this is by telling you that you cannot meditate yet as you don't have a meditation journal!

Look at what you have written.  Do clear goals appear?  Often, they do.  But also it often takes more than one meditation of this kind to make those goals clear.  Don't give up.  Keep doing this meditation regularly until you have identified your true inner goals.

Once you have those goals, great!  You can now take the right steps to begin achieving them.  But also keep returning and examining those goals, as they will change as you change.  Use this meditation regularly and ensure you stay on track.

A couple of my daily affirmations

What affirmations do you use each day to ensure you reach your goals?

Do you use a list someone else has prepared for you, or have you created your own?

How do you use them?  Do you simply read them out, do you visualize them as you read them, really feeling them internally?  Do you include them as sub text in your own personal Mind Movie?

In asking those questions I am not suggesting that the way you currently do it is wrong, or implying from the way I have worded the question there is a best way to do it.  Some people would say there is, including many coaches.  But that is not where I am coming from.  I simply want you to ask yourself the questions and justify to yourself the way you use (or even don't use) affirmations in your efforts to evolve and improve.

Let me share with you a couple of the affirmations I use daily.  Again, I am not suggesting that you should use the same affirmations, or that you should use them in the way I do.  But perhaps by looking at what I do, and what I know works for me, you will pick up some ideas on ways you might wish to change what you say and what you do.

The exact affirmations I use depend on which aspect of my personal development I am focussing on.  I have some that I use regardless (I call these my "Mind and Motivation" affirmations) but in addition to those I add some that are much more specific to the range of goals I have made my priority.  Many people think that there is only one goal to reach, and often it is linked in some way to their wealth.  I believe this is an important goal, and I do give it more emphasis than the others simply because it can be easier to reach some of those goals if I am wealthier, but it is most certainly not my only goal.  The affirmations I am giving you today are two of my "Mind and Motivation" affirmations which I use every day regardless.

Ok, here is my number one affirmation, one I use every day regardless:

"I create my own life.  I choose the direction in which my life is going and determine how successful I am."

I strongly recommend you have something like this in your list of daily affirmations.  As I have said, I am not suggesting you add this to your list exactly as I have written it, although you are welcome to do so if you find it helpful.  But I do feel you should look through your list and see if you have something like it there.

To me, this is number one not only in terms of its position on the list, but also in terms of its importance.  We must all recognize that we are each individually responsible for what happens in our lives and our own success.  It is easy to blame your employer, the government, your circumstances, your family.  In fact, anyone and anything except yourself.  As long as you place the blame outside you are dooming yourself to failure.  You cannot control what happens outside.  You may be able to influence it to a degree, but you cannot control it.  When you realize that you are responsible for your own success this can turn things around.  Trust me, it really can.  I constantly use this affirmation and know it work.

Here is the second one I use every day:

"I know my goals and know how I am going to reach them."

This is very important too.  When I first started using this affirmation I realized I didn't really know my goals as well as I should.  I was still using goals I set myself decades ago.  In the intervening years I have moved towards those goals, so the personal development techniques I was using have certainly worked for me.  But now I no longer feel strongly about some of those goals and need to set myself new ones.  The first step in doing so was recognizing the gap, and this affirmation gave me that realization.

With both these affirmations there is both something that gives us a realization that something inside needs to change, and also by affirming we are starting that process of change.

In another blog article I will give you some further insight into my own affirmations and how I use them.  Hopefully you have found this helpful and will start putting into practice anything you may have learned from it.

The Meaning of Life

What is it that you want to achieve in your life?

This is probably one of the most important questions you can ever ask yourself.  It goes to the very root of another question so many of us ask, perhaps without expecting an answer - what is the meaning of life?

With such an important question you should not simply accept the first answer that comes to mind.  Not even if you believe you already know what you want to achieve.  Spend some time thinking deeply about this achievement.  How will you feel as you begin to achieve it?  What will change in your life and in the lives of those around you as this begins to happen?

Make sure as you do this that everything feels really positive.  If it doesn't, then there is something wrong.  You may think that this is what you want to achieve, but the reality is that there is something quite different that you really want, which is expressing itself in a different way for some reason - as it arises from the depths of your mind and spirit it appears to change, until when it comes to the surface it looks completely different.  So if you do not feel really positive about this achievement you must dig much deeper to find out what your true desire is.

What you should find, once you have properly identified what it is you want to achieve in life, is that it is something that can grow and develop.  It is something that you can begin to achieve, if only in a very small way, very soon after you have identified what it is and have started working towards it.  That is why I have tried to avoid using the word "goal", which you maybe expected to see earlier in this article.  It is more a way of life, of moving along a particular path, than something that you get and then find there is nothing left to do.  It really does become "the meaning of life" for you.

If you have identified this path, this growth, this ongoing achievement correctly you should also be able to identify some "milestones" along the way.  Milestones that show you have made progress but are not at the finishing line.  By definition, none of those milestones can be the finishing line, none of them can say "zero miles to go", as what you are aiming for is a continuous growth, not something at which you can finally arrive.

You should try to identify both distant and very close milestones.  This is important.  Have a distant target in mind, and try to make sure that what you are working on now brings you closer to that distant target rather than further away.  But also have some close targets so you can feel fulfilled in the "now" rather than only in the distant future.

So, what IS the meaning of life?  This is a question that has perturbed many very intelligent men and women over many centuries.  When you have completed the exercise I have suggested in this short article, the answers arrived at by eminent philosophers will probably now seem mundane and unimportant to you.  You KNOW the one answer unique to you.  You know the meaning of your life and know that now your life can be fuller and better every day that passes.

The Power of Imagination

Which do you think is more powerful - imagination or will power?

If you can find the equipment to do so, I would like you to try a little experiment for me.

Find a plank of wood that is about as wide as both your feet pressed together.  Lay this plank along the floor.  Now start walking along it, placing each foot carefully in the middle of the plank.  There is quite a bit of space either side of your foot, so you should not find this exercise too difficult.  Walk all the way along the plank from one end to the other.

How did that go?  Did you misplace a foot at any point and step on the floor rather than the plank?  As long as you are reasonably fit and healthy I believe you got to the end of the plank without doing anything that would have meant you would have fallen off if the plank had been raised in the air.

The second part of the experiment is a thought experiment.  I don't want you actually to try it, as it would be a very dangerous thing to do unless you are a trained acrobat.  I want you to imagine the plank is now 500 metres in the air (around a third of a mile if you are not used to the metric system), crossing between two skyscrapers.  It is a very strong plank, and it is very firmly fixed at both ends, so it does not "bow" or move in any other way when you step on it.  Today is a beautiful day, with not the slightest hint of wind.  Now I want you to imagine stepping onto that plank and walking along it.  Way below you can see people walking along the road and they look like insects.  The cars look like little Corgi toy cars.  There is no safety net.  One false step and you will fall 500 metres to a very messy death.

How did that thought experiment go?  Did you walk the plank or decide you didn't want to risk it?  Whether or not you actually tried it in your mind I want you to answer this honestly - would you do this for real, and would you find it at all difficult.

Unless you are very unusual, if you were honest I am sure you either said you would not do it or admitted your walk along the plank would be very slow and hesitant.

Why is this?  The experience should surely be the same!  Every time you walk along the plank on the floor you walk smoothly and quite quickly.  Why is that not the case when the plank is high in the air?

The answer is - the power of your imagination!

When you try walking that plank 500 metres in the air, your imagination presents you with some very unpleasant scenarios.  Scenarios in which you fall off the plank and come to a very untimely end.  The power of your imagination is probably so strong that it completely counters the power of your will to walk that plank, or at least it makes you very hesitant.

Imagination is extremely powerful.  Typically much more powerful than will power.

Why is this important?

When you are trying to achieve success in something, do you normally try to succeed by using your will power?

Let's say you have decided to slim by following a particular diet.  If you are like most people you will try to use your will power to avoid eating certain foods, or to avoid eating between meal snacks.  There is nothing wrong with using will power.  In fact, you need will power if you really want to reach your goal, whatever that goal may be.  But you should always combine it with imagination.

Remember from your thought experiment just how powerful your imagination is.  Just how easily it can stop you doing something you want to do.  Well, apply that power of imagination to your attempts to reach your goals and you will find it so much easier to reach them.

Imagine how it will feel when you have achieved your goal.  How much better life will be.  Really focus on this.  Use the power of your imagination effectively.  Spend some time sitting quietly imagining your success and all the consequences of that success.

The power of imagination to help you achieve whatever you wish to achieve is immense.  Harness that power, linked with your will power, and you will be surprised at just how quickly and effectively you can reach your goals.