Review Your Goals Daily
It is a psychological law that whatever we wish to accomplish we must impress on the subjective or subconscious mind.
– ORISON SWETT MARDEN
Sometimes I ask my audiences, “How many people here would like to double their incomes?” Not surprisingly, everyone raises his or her hand. I then go on to say, Well, I have good news for you, Everybody here is going to double their income-guaranteed-if you live long enough!”
If your income increases at the rate of 3 percent to 4 percent per year, the average annual cost of living increase, you will double your income in about twenty years. But that is a long time to wait!
So the real question is not about doubling your income. The real question is, How fast can you do it?
Double the Speed of Goal Attainment
Many techniques can help you to achieve your personal and financial goals faster. In this chapter, I want to share with you a special method that has taken more people from rags to riches than any other single method ever discovered. It is simple, fast, effective, and guaranteed to work – if you will practise it.
Earlier, I said, “You become what you think about most of the time.” This is the great truth that underlies all religion, philosophy, psychology, and success. As a teacher of mine, John Boyle, once said, “Whatever you can hold in your mind on a continuing basis, you can have.” This is the key.
Positive Thinking versus Positive Knowing
Many people today talk about the importance of “positive thinking.” Positive thinking is important, but it is not enough. Left undirected and uncontrolled, positive thinking can quickly degenerate into positive wishing and positive hoping. Instead of serving as an energy force for inspiration and higher achievement, positive thinking can become little more than a generally cheerful attitude towards life and whatever, happens to you, positive or negative.
To be focused and effective in goal attainment, positive thinking must translate into “positive knowing.” You must absolutely know and believe in the depths of your being that you are going to be successful at achieving a particular goal. You must proceed completely without doubt. You must be so resolute and determined, so convinced of your ultimate success, that nothing can stop you.
Programme Your Subconscious Mind
Everything that you do to programme your subconscious mind with this unshakeable conviction of success will help you achieve your goals faster. This method I am going to share with you can actually multiply your talents and abilities and greatly increase the speed at which you move from wherever you are to wherever you want to go.
One of the important mental laws is, Whatever is impressed, is expressed. Whatever you impress deeply into your subconscious mind will eventually be expressed in your external world. Your aim in mental programming is to impress your goals deeply into your subconscious mind so that they “lock in” and take on a power of their own. This method helps you to do that.
Systematic versus Random Goal Setting
For many years, I worked at my goals, writing them down, once or twice a year and then reviewing them whenever I got a chance. Even this was enough to make an incredible difference in my life. Often, I would write down a list of goals for myself in January for the coming year. In December of that year, I would review my list and find that most of the goals had been accomplished, including some of the biggest and most unbelievable goals on the list.
I then learned the technique that changed my life. I discovered that if it is powerful for you to write down your goals once a year, it is even more powerful for you to write down your goals more often.
Some authors suggest that you write down and review your goals once a month, others once a week. What I learned was the power of writing and rewriting your goal every single day.
Write Down Your Goals Each Day
Here is the technique. Get a spiral notebook that you keep with you at all times. Each day, open up your notebook and write down a list of your ten to fifteen most important goals, without referring to your previous list. Do this every day, day after day. As you do this, several remarkable things will happen.
The first day you write down your list of goals, you will have to give it some thought and reflection. Most people have never made a list of their ten top goals in their entire lives.
The second day you write out your list, without reference to your previous list, it will be easier. However, your ten to fifteen goals will change, both in description and order of priority. Sometimes, a goal that you wrote one day will not appear the next day. It may even be forgotten and never reappear again. Or it may reappear later at a more appropriate time.
Each day that you write down your list of ten to fifteen goals, your definitions will become clearer and sharper. You will eventually find yourself writing down the same words every day. Your order of priority will also change as your life changes around you. But after about thirty days, you will find yourself writing and rewriting the same goals every day.
Your Life Takes Off
At about this time, something remarkable will happen in your life. It will take off! You will feel like a passenger in a jet hurtling down the runway. Your work and personal life will begin to improve dramatically. Your mind will sparkle with ideas and insights. You will start to attract people and resources into your life to help you to achieve your goals. You will start to make progress at a rapid rate, sometimes so fast that it will be a little scary. Everything will begin to change in a very positive way.
Over the years, I have spoken in twenty-three countries and addressed more than two million people. I have shared this “Ten-Goal Exercise” with hundreds of thousands of seminar participants. The exercise that I give them is a little simpler than the exercise that I am giving you here. Here it is.
Culled from GOALS! by Brian Tracy
