Goals - The practical approach

Hello Lifectioners,

“Obstacles can’t stop you. Problems can’t stop you. Most of all, other people can’t stop you. Only you can stop you.” — Jeffrey Gitomer



The overwhelming majority of really successful people work much longer than forty hours a week. And you don't hear. them complain of overwork. Successful people have their eyes focused on a goal, and this provides energy. The point is this: energy increases, multiplies, when you set a desired goal and resolve to work toward that goal. Many people, millions of them, can fmd new energy by selecting a goal and giving all they've got to accomplish that goal. Goals cure boredom. Goals even cure many chronic ailments.

The most amazing thing about a deeply entrenched goal is that it keeps you on course to reach your target. This isn't double- talk. What happens is this. When you surrender to your goal, the goal works itself into your subconscious mind. Your subconscious mind is always in balance. Your conscious mind is not, unless it is in tune with what your subconscious mind is thinking.
Without full cooperation from the subconscious mind, a person is hesitant, confused, indecisive. Now, with your goal absorbed into your subconscious mind you react the right way automatically.
The conscious mind is free for clear, straight thinking.

Let's illustrate this with two hypothetical persons. As you read on you'll recognize these characters among the real people you know. We'll call them Tom and Jack.

These fellows are comparable in all respects except one: Tom has a firmly entrenched goal; Jack does not. Tom has a crystal-clear image of what he wants to be. He pictures himself as a corporation vice president ten years hence. Because Tom has surrendered to his goal, his goal through his subconscious mind signals to him saying "do this" or "don't do that; it won't help get you where you want to go." The goal constantly speaks, "1 am the image you want to make real. Here is what you must do to make me real."
Tom's goal does not pilot him in vague generalities. It gives him specific directions in all his activities. When Tom buys a suit, the goal speaks and shows Tom the wise choice. The goal helps to show Tom what steps to take to move up to the next job, what to say in the business conference, what to do when conflict develops, what to read, what stand to take. Should Tom drift a little off course, his automatic instrumentation, housed securely in his subconscious mind, alerts him and tells him what to do to get back on course.
Tom's goal has made him supersensitive to all the many forces at work that affect him. Jack, on the other hand, lacking a goal, also lacks the automatic instrumentation to guide him. He is easily confused. His actions reflect no personal policy. Jack wavers, shifts, guesses at what to do. Lacking consistency of purpose, Jack flounders on the rutty road to mediocrity.
May I suggest you reread the above section, right now. Let this concept soak in. Then look around you. Study the very top echelon of successful persons. Note how they, without exception, are totally devoted to their objective. Observe how the life of a highly successful person is integrated around a purpose.

Surrender to that goal. Really surrender. Let it obsess you and give you the automatic instrumentation you need to reach that goal.

Set goals to get things done.
Our great production system would be hopelessly bogged down if production executives did not establish and adhere to target dates and production schedules. Sales executives know salesmen sell more when they are given a carefully defmed quota to sell. Professors know students get term papers written on time when a deadline is set.
Now, as you press forward to success, set goals: deadlines, target dates, self-imposed quotas. You will accomplish only what you plan to accomplish.
According to Dr. George E. Burch of the Tulane University School of Medicine, an expert in the study of human longevity, many things determine how long you will live: weight, heredity, diet, psychic tension, personal habits. But Dr. Burch says, The quickest way·to the end is to retire and do nothing. Every human being must keep an interest in life just to keep living."
Each of us has a choice. Retirement can be the beginning or the end. The" do nothing but eat, sleep, and rock" attitude is the poison-yourself-fast form of retirement. Most folks who regard retirement as the end of purposeful living soon fed retirement is the end of life itself. With nothing to live for, no goals, people waste away fast. The other extreme, the sensible way to retire, is the 'Tm
going to pitch right in and start fast" method. One of my finest friends, Lew Gordon, has chosen this way to retire. Lew's retirement several years ago as a vice president of Atlanta's biggest
bank was really Commencement Day for him. He established himself as a business consultant. And his pace is amazing. Now in his sixties, he serves numerous clients and is in national demand as a speaker. One of his special projects is helping to build Pi Sigma Epsilon, a young but fast-growing fraternity for professional salesmen and sales executives. Every time I see Lew he seems younger. He's a young thirty in spirit. Few people I know of any age are reaping more from life than this senior
citizen who resolved not to go out to pasture. And the Lew Gordons aren't the boring old grumps feeling sorry for themselves because they're old. Goals, intense goals, can keep a person alive when nothing else will. Mrs. ,D., the mother of a college friend of mine, contracted cancer when her son was only two. To darken matters, her husband had died only three months before her illness was diagnosed. Her physicians offered little hope. But Mrs. D. would not give up. She was  determined that she would see her two-year-old son through college by operating a small retail store left her by her husband. There were numerous surgical operations. Each time the doctors would' say, 'Just a few more months."
The cancer was never cured. But those "few more months" stretched into twenty years. She saw her son graduated from college. Six weeks later she was gone. A goal, a burning desire, was powerful enough to stave off sure death for two decades. Use goals to live longer. No medicine in the world-and your physician will bear this out-is as powerful in bringing about long life as is the desire to do something. The person determined to achieve maximum success learns the principle that progress is made one step at a time. A house is built a brick at a time. Football games are won a play at a time. A department store grows bigger one new customer at a time. Every big accomplishment is a series of little accomplishments. Eric Sevareid, the well-known author and correspondent, reported in Reader's Digest (April 1957) that the best advice he ever received was the principle of the "next mile." Here's part of what he said:
"During World War II, I and several others had to parachute from a crippled Army transport plane into the mountainous jungle .on the Burma-India border. It was several weeks before an armed relief expedition could reach us, and then we began a painful, plodding march' out' to civilized India. We were faced by a 140-mile trek, over mountains, in August heat and· monsoon rains.
"In the first hour of the march I rammed a boot nail deep into one foot; by evening I had bleeding blisters the size of a 50- cent piece on both feet. Could I hobble 140 miles( Could the others, some in worse shape than I, complete such a distancel We were convinced we could not. But we could hobble to that ridge, we could make the next friendly villag~ for the night. And that, of course, was all we had to do ....
"When I relinquished my job and income to undertake a book of a quarter of a million words, I could not bear to let my mind dwell on the whole scope of the project. I would surely have abandoned what has become my deepest source of professional pride. I tried to think only of the next paragraph, not the next page and certainly not the next chapter. Thus, for six solid months, I never did anything but set down one paragraph after another. The book 'wrote itself.'
"Years ago, I took on a daily writing and broadcasting chore that has totaled, now, more than 2000 scripts. Had I been asked at the time to sign a contract 'to write 2000 scripts' I would have refused in despair at the enormousness of such au undertaking. But I was only asked to write one, the next one, and that is all I have ever done."
The principle of the "next mile" works for Eric Sevareid, and it will work for you.
The step-by-step method is the only intelligent way to attain any objective. The best formula I have heard for quitting smoking, the one that has worked for more of my ftiends than any other, I call the hour-by-hour method. Instead of trying to reach the ultimate goal-freedom fi'om the habit-just by resolving never to smoke again, the person resolves not to smoke for another hour. When the hour is up, the smoker simply renews his resolution not to smoke for another hour. Later, as desire diminishes, the period is extended to two hours, later to a day. Eventually, the goal is won. The person who wants freedom from the habit all at once fails because the psychological pain is
more than he can stand. An hour is easy; forever is difficult.
Winning any objective requires a step-by-step method. To the junior executive, each assignment, however insignificant.it may appeal~ should be viewed as an opportunity to take one step forward. A salesman qualifies for management responsibilities one sale at a time.

Sometimes it appears that someone achieves success all at once. But if you check the past histories of people who seemed to arrive at the top suddenly; you'll discover a lot of solid groundwork was previously laid. And those "successful"' people who lose fame as fast as they found it simply were phonies who had not built a solid foundation.
Just as a beautiful building is created from pieces of stone, each of which in itself appears insignificant, in like manner the successful life is constructed.
Do this: Start marching toward your ultimate goal by making the next task you perform, regardless of how unimportant it may seem, a step in the right direction. Commit this question to memory and use it to evaluate everything you do: "Will this help take me where 1 want to gor'~ If the answer is no, back off; if yes, press ahead ..
It's clear. We do not make one big jump to success. We get there one step at a time. An excellent plan is to set monthly quotas for accomplishment ..
Examine yourself Decide what specific things you should do to make yourself more effective. Use the form below as a guide. Under each of the major headings make notes of the things you will do in the next thirty days. Then, when the thirty day period is up, check your progress and build a new thirty-day goal. Always keep working on the "little"' things to get you in shape for the. big things.

All of us have desires. All of us dream of what we really want to do. But few of us actually surrender to desire. Instead of surrendering to desire, we murder it. Five weapons are used to commit success suicide. Destroy them. They're dangerous.

“Many people fail in life, not for lack of ability or brains or even courage but simply because they have never organized their energies around a goal.” — Elbert Hubbard


Five weapons to destroy to reach goal

1. Self depreciation. 


You have heard dozens of people say, "I would like to be a doctor (or an executive or a commercial artist or ill business for myself) but I can't do it." "I lack brains." 'T d fail if I tried." "I lack the education and! or experience." Many young folks destroy desire with the old
negative self-depreciation.

2. "Securititis." 

Persons who say, 'I've got security where I am" use the security weapons to murder their dreams.

3. Competition.

 "The field is already overcrowded," "People in that field are standing on top of each other" are remarks which kill desire fast.

4. Parental dictation.

 I've heard hundreds of young people explain their career choice with 'T d really like to prepare for something else, but my parents want me to do this so I must." Most parents, I believe, do not intentionally dictate to their children what they must do. What all intelligent parents want is to see their children live successfully. If the young person will patiently explain why he or she prefers a different career, and if the parent will listen, there will be no friction. The objectives of both the parent and the young person for the young person's career are identical: success.

5. Family responsibility.

 The attitude of "It would have been wise for me to change over five years ago, but now I've got a family and I can't change," illustrates this kind of desire murder weapon.
Throwaway those murder weapons! Remember, the only way to get full power, to develop full go force, is to do what you want to do .. Surrender to desire and gain energy; enthusiasm, mental zip, and even better health ..

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