In the previous weeks we looked at reviewing 2021, to identify where you are right now; and creating a vision for 2022, which is a large, vibrant, exciting, and inspiring vision for every aspect of your life.
Now, we need to calculate the course, weigh the anchor, raise the sails, and point in the right direction. A grand trip will need stops at various ports and islands, strategies to avoid typhoons and adverse tides, and also provisioning for a sustainable journey. All these steps are Goals.
You could say that goals are mini-visions of the grand vision, or the grand vision chunked-down into achievable steps and milestones. This is where you get practical.
Each aspect of your vision could be a project, or a number of projects. A project is an endeavour that has a beginning (planning and deployment), a range of tasks (actions), and an end (goal).
In visions you let your imagination, desires, and dreams loose. This is the airy and ethereal side. Goals are pragmatic, the watery and earthy side. Actions are the fire.
In order to create effective goals to achieve your visions, they need the following properties, they need to be:
Guess what? The acronym is SMART!
SMART goals are powerful goals, because they change lives and they transform the world. SMART goals are acts of creation.
A goal is specific when you can clearly identify what it is. Not something hazy like “being rich,” but something like “having money in my bank savings account” or “owning a wooden beach house on Waiheke.”
Being as specific as you can, rather than general, makes the goal more real and believable, and energetically defines what is being created.
How much of the specific item do you want? Don’t just say “a lot”! State an amount, even if you have no idea what it “should” be.
Businesses do this all the time. “We will sell X no of products,” “Our profit will be up by 25%,” “We will have 30 lease properties on our books.” Stating a number is like drawing a line on the sand, it creates certainty and commitment of energy.
Sometimes stated as “Achievable,” I prefer “Actionable” because it makes you action-focused. What are the actions that I will need to do to achieve this goal?
Many people make the mistake of creating goals, and relying on affirmations and visualisations to achieve them. This is an incorrect use of the Law of Attraction. I know, I made the mistake of misinterpreting the Tao Te Ching in my youth, where it says “Do without doing.” I then proceeded to do nothing, and life happened by default, not by design.
The creative energy only starts moving when we take actions. Initially, they may be incorrect actions, or ineffective actions, or even disastrous actions. All these are a necessary part of the heroic journey; they are the only way for us to learn how to navigate better, and to take more correct, effective and skillful actions.
We often are held back because we are waiting for a “favourable time,” or “to be better prepared,” or “to be inspired.” This is justification for fear. Watch out for this enemy, it may be the only one we have; but a most powerful one.
It takes one step to climb Mt Everest. Take it. Then take the next. Then the next.
Make sure your goals identify the steps, the actions you need to take.
In our visions post, we talked about creating visions that are out of your normal reality, i.e., your vision should be “unrealistic.” They stretch your imagination, and your hitherto limited idea of “possibility.”
Goals, however, need to be realistic. You need to see how they can be achieved, so you can plan the actions.
As you break down your belief-barriers, through your actions and the momentum they create, your perception of what is realistic will change. Where you initially thought you could achieve $1M, you might start seeing how you could achieve $10M. Then, change your goals!
Many goals are made to be achieved in the never-never, with no set date, just some hazy time in the future. Just as you have to be specific with the definition, the measure, and the actions of your goal, you need to be specific with the exact time you plan to reach it.
Remember, a goal, in a project, is an end-point. That is where you stop. There is a finality to it.
For every goal you write down, give a date and even a time for its ending. It doesn’t matter if you are making it up. In fact, it doesn’t matter if you are making most of this up.
Whenever someone tells you, “let’s do this” or “let’s achieve that,” nail them on the date and time. You will find that many things in life will change.
When you follow the above, you will see that things happen in your life like never before. This is because, these principles are principles of Magic. Magic is creation by harnessing all the forces of nature, of divinity, and of your mind. When you place an intent, and act on it, you are doing magic.
Do you believe in magic? Maybe not. But, where I come from, people do (or did, when I was young), and weird things happen. If only they learned to harness this power with correct intentions, their lot would be so different.
In fact, we do magic all the time. Our problem is we have so far been doing it in a random way, unfocused, confused by conflicting beliefs, with lack of clarity, lack of purpose, lack of vision.
If you want to be wealthy, you need to set clear goals. You need to be “pure of mind,” that is, you need to be aware of and clear through your limiting beliefs, fears, derogatory self-talk, doubt. Then you need to act decisively, with full commitment. This is entirely your choice.
Now you know this secret, go and do magic in a clear, focused way—and transform yourself and the world.
I will leave you with a true story.
I have a longtime friend who used to live in Jakarta, Indonesia, and went to school there. He had a school friend, a skinny little brown boy.
Now, what if that little boy had thought to himself, “I’m going to be the President of America”?
What if that boy worked hard at school, attended university in the US on a scholarship and studied political science, became a lawyer, entered politics, connected with many communities, and ran for president—and won?
Well, he did. That little boy’s name was Barack Obama.
