Morning Mojo ~ “Love is that condition in which the happiness of another person is essential to your own.” ~ Robert A. Heinlein ~ In my humble opinion a person’s success/happiness in life will be largely effected by the successful/happy relationships that person can have. Decisions that are made with the goal of what’s best for all involved are always the best decisions. Communicate your needs and elicit the needs of others and make the decisions for the greater good of all involved…that is friends, family, spouses, co-workers and anyone you have a close relationship with. Failure to communicate clearly can be misinterpreted and lead to some bad choices over time in any relationship, organization or business.

Morning Mojo ~ “Something in human nature causes us to start slacking off at our moment of greatest accomplishment.” ~ H. Ross Perot ~ Self-discipline gives you the authority to make that decision to keep working toward your goal until it’s done. Self-discipline puts you in control and causes you to follow through. Self-discipline is about regulating, restraint and being in step with the things you want…in every area of life!! Have a great week.

Daily Mojo ~ Life on average for a man in America will yield around 28,000 days. If you’re male around the age of 42 you have about 12,000 more sunsets to see and enjoy. Each morning results with the withdrawal of 1 day from our life bank. The great awareness that we should all have is this….if we don’t like where we are in life or where we’re headed, we can change it. Make it all count by living a life that means something. The life you live is your legacy. If you have a song to sing…sing it. If you have a book to write…write it. If you have something to say to the world…say it. If you have another mountain to climb…climb it. And by all means never allow others to dictate or direct your life for you. Life is only a flicker to live and to live on your terms. You are the Captain, Director, Commander and Guide of this gift of LIFE. Make each day count. Have a great week!

Setting and Planning to Achieve Your Goals

 

You may have heard of S.M.A.R.T. goals…people talk about them because they work. Here is an overview and you will find a goal setting worksheet right after the overview.

 

SPECIFIC – Your goal needs to be spelled out very precisely and you also need to have a reason WHY behind your goal…some benefit or emotional attachment that will keep you focused. For example, a goal might be to earn $12,500 per month and onboard 5 new quality clients monthly in the next 90 days.

 

Using language that leaves no doubt as to what the goal is, why you want to achieve the goal, and how you will get there is very important. If you are not able to be detailed in your description of the goal, it will be hard to meet it. Take the time to do this part right.

 

MEASURABLE – This is where the Journal comes into play. It’s a report card and a method to measure what you want to accomplish and what you actually accomplished. If your goal cannot be quantified, then it’s not a full goal and you won’t know how when you have succeeded. An example of a measurable goal would be “I want to deposit to our bank account an additional 100 dollars per week. I’ll accomplish this by writing five 500-word articles each week for a life coach.”

 

ACTIONABLE / ACHIEVABLE – There are different things that “A” can stand for, but it’s usually actionable or achievable. In order to achieve anything, you must take action. So, make your goal actionable, where you do something each day that will eventually result in an accomplished goal.

 

Goals should also be achievable or you will quickly get frustrated. Be accurate about the time it takes to reach a goal, and what actions it takes to get there. Also, know who will be responsible for doing it.

 

REALISTIC / RELEVANT – “R” can stand for realistic or relevant, and both are important. If you want your goal to succeed, it should most certainly be realistic or you will fail. If you’re currently making $500 a week and your goal is to increase that to $12,500 in 90 days, that’s not realistic. However, you may be able to increase it by $300. Once you achieve that goal and are earning $800 a week, you can set a new goal to increase your income by another $500 a week or something similar.

 

Your goal should also be relevant to your life’s vision and match your values. There’s no point in making or achieving goals that have no relevance to your long-term life goals. You could instead use that time to reach goals that get you one step closer to actually reaching your life goals. So always ask yourself, if the goal is relevant to your life goals.

 

TIME BOUND / TIMELY / TRACKABLE – Various authors refer to the “T” in the S.M.A.R.T. acronym as time-bound, timely or trackable. All of these t’s are important parts of the goal creating and setting process. If you don’t set a time limit and you can’t track what is happening, your goal will be hard to quantified or show as achieved. Journaling helps you with this.

 

Whichever words you use to help you craft your goals, the important thing is to have a process to help you make smart goals. Smart goals are goals that you follow through on achieving and know when you’ve met them.

 

To get started with planning your S.M.A.R.T Goal, use the worksheet on the following page.

 

Determine Your Smart Goal Worksheet

 

Specific: If you went through the first part of the training, then you should have these goals documented already. But it never hurts to write them down again to further cement them in your mind and to clarify if necessary.

 

What goal do you want to accomplish?

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Why is this goal important to you?

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What do you need in order to accomplish the goal?

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What obstacle(s) might you face while achieving this goal?

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Measurable:

 

How much or how many do you need in order to achieve your goal?

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How will you know when you have achieved this amount?

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Actionable / Achievable:

 

Is your goal attainable in the period provided?

 

___ Yes, as long as I work on it daily I should have no trouble achieving my goal.

 

___ No. After careful consideration, I need to rework the goal so that it is attainable.

 

Can the required tasks be completed in the timeframe?

 

___ Yes, as long as I work on it daily I should have no trouble completing the goal within the timeframe.

 

___ No. I think my goal may be a bit lofty. I will break it down into more achievable steps.

 

Realistic / Relevant:

 

Is your goal realistic?

 

___ Yes, while it may not be easy, it is possible to reach my goal.

 

___ No. After careful consideration, I think I may need to rework it a little.

 

Is it relevant to your overall life goals?

 

___ Yes, this goal will bring me one step closer to achieving my life goal.

 

___ No. After careful consideration, I think I need to create a different goal.

 

Time Bound / Timely / Trackable:

 

When will you complete your goal?

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Your Brain is a fantastic piece of craftsmanship. Its ability to process and store information couldn’t possibly be contested by even the most advanced computers, now or in the future. It’s so advanced, it seems, that it needs no real help from “You” to run your life. It issues reactions to your environment by reaching into its vast memory, going through all kinds of calculations, and producing the best action.

How does it determine the best action? Well, generally, that is a result of the experiences you have had up until the moment of the decision. You see, the brain kicks into gear when you are born. It’s Grand Purpose…Self Preservation. It needs to keep you alive. To do that, it must make sure that you are equipped to handle the world around you. It takes in everything and tries to breakdown all it stores into categories and groups. Good, Bad, Likes, Dislikes. Basically, it creates boxes and labels them; then organizes events, circumstances, objects into these boxes. It also has reactive behaviours stored in connection with these boxes.

As these boxes and their contents increase, we have more and more defined reactions to life. Long after the incidents that cause the addition of objects to boxes, the references remain. Result – our attitudes towards certain things are formed. We don’t truly remember why, whether the reason is valid or not. We just accept that “I like that person” or “This makes me uneasy”. Of course there are loads of situations that we react to, based on intuition etc. The point is that there are also loads that we have no input whatsoever into how the brain has chosen its reaction, at least not anymore.

Soon, these boxes start to determine your state of mind. You are no longer in control. Your brain has it filed away somewhere that since your football coach thinks you suck, the greatest possibility is that you do suck. More importantly, this situation is in the “Sad Things” box. And this box has certain reactions linked with it…inadequacy, sadness, depression, anger (No doubt, because the same situation crosses into the “Angry Things” box somewhere along the line). So, surprise, surprise, you are sad! And if it rains or is cloudy…that’s another item for the “Sad Things” box to accentuate the situation. It’s not really your fault you see. It’s the box!

The Brain has taken over. Most of us are on Auto-Pilot. You have to take control back. You need to be there to catch that pre-defined action that the brain throws out at you. You can then choose not to react accordingly. Those boxes have to be purposefully emptied so you can start to see things anew again.

This is a tough task. You have been this way all your life. In trying, you will meet with fierce opposition from your mind. You cannot win this battle my friend. You can, however, see the actions the brain presents in a different light. These actions are simply recommendations. More and more you can catch yourself react to things that happen around you. As you become more “aware”, you stop yourself from proceeding with the directed action, and “respond” in your chosen way. This is how you can start to deprogram.

Create Your Compelling Future
Victor Frankl, psychologist and author of man’s search for meaning, said; “Everyone has his own specific vocation or mission in life; everyone must carry out a concrete assignment that demands fulfillment. Therein he cannot be replaced, nor can his life be repeated, thus, everyone’s task is unique as his specific opportunity to implement it.”
As a young boy I had a poster on the wall in my room. It was a picture of a very busy and crowded city street. The city was full of confusion: people everywhere, crowded streets, with signs and billboards. The words across the top of the poster ask the question, Why am I here?
My question to you is why are you here? What is your purpose on this earth? Maybe you’ve asked yourself that question before. Maybe you know your purpose but you’ve never made the decision to act on it. Peter Drucker, management consultant, educator, and author of management by objectives, says; “The best way to predict the future is to create it.”

The majority of people never live a life of purpose because it takes hard work and discipline. Most people just settle for what comes along. They live the life of quiet desperation. They talk about what they should do and dream big dreams, but never go forward. A life without action is a life without purpose. Success has been studied and researched for years. We have more information on success today than ever before and one outstanding similarity is that the winners in life all have a major definite purpose. You see, it’s your purpose that keeps you in a forward motion.

Your purpose gives you momentum. We need to know that we are growing and making a contribution. Each time you reach a goal your self-esteem will grow and then you’ll build on that accomplishment, like an avalanche it will grow as it pushes forward. That’s why winners have goals and a major purpose for their life.
Tony Robbins, life coach and inspirational speaker on leading a successful life, says, “People are not lazy. They simply have impotent goals – that is, goals that do not inspire them.” Some people have a goal to get up and go to work.

Go back home set down in front of the television, have a couple of beers and go to bed, only to do the same thing the next day and the next day and the next day. Like a washing machine that only washes on one cycle, they fall into a pattern of neglect — neglecting their inspiration. It only takes a moment to turn the dial, and increase the level of inspiration, or choose a small goal to snap your life out of the same wash cycle.

If you don’t have a major purpose in your life, you will always be bound under the power of the people who do. I believe that many people you find in hospitals, prisons, and in the court system are without a major definite purpose. Without purpose you have no compelling future to look forward to. Without a compelling future you give up on life and find yourself in a state of mind that’s not productive. And through the law of attraction and focus you attract more depression and more of the things you really don’t want.

“Far better is it to dare mighty things, to win glorious triumphs, even though checkered by failure…than to rank with those poor spirits who neither enjoy nor suffer much, because they live in a gray twilight that knows not victory nor defeat.” ..Theodore Roosevelt
When you find your purpose you find who you are…. what you are…. and most importantly why you are! In the end it is not what you say or what you plan for. And it is not what you intend or what you hope for. It is What You Do that makes the difference. A life without action is a life without purpose. Live your life on purpose each day. Ask the question…why am I here? What talents, skills and abilities do you have that you can contribute to others in an eloquent way? Serve others and serve yourself.
R. Lynn Lane
Author of Never Ending Mojo ~ Speaker ~ Trainer

A Short Post On Leadership.

“Effective leadership is not about making speeches or being liked; leadership is defined by results not attributes.” ~ Peter Drucker ~ What is a Leader? A Leader takes responsibility, makes the hard decisions and brings out the best in all the people around them. They have a vision of the future and share it openly with all involved. They don’t hide behind excuses and never play the blame game. They seek out solutions and work for results to benefit everyone. They don’t play one group of people against the other to benefit themselves. A Leader never takes pleasure in the pain and suffering of their people. A true Leader never needs to manipulate your emotions to get things done.

Believe In The Possibilities!

The other day I was reading a very interesting article concerning a shark attack that occurred way back in 1916. It played off along the North East coast of the U.S. and concerned a great white shark that had been terrorizing the New Jersey beaches.

Now everybody knows and accepts that a shark is a creature of the sea and needs salty water to survive. Therefore nobody thought that a shark may attack them in freshwater, but that is exactly what happened later that year.

This particular shark remained close to the shore and eventually swam up a river stream around Raritan Bay, attacking a couple of bathers upstream.

Shortly before the attacks occurred, a retired Sea captain, by the name of Thomas Cottrell saw this shark swimming upstream while crossing a bridge. He couldn’t believe his eyes, but nevertheless got into his boat and raised the alarm. Not surprisingly nobody believed him. “A shark in a river? C’mon, get real, It’s not possible.”

But you know what? As incredible as it seemed there was a shark in the river and all those who didn’t heed the warnings were in danger of being attacked.

Eventually this shark killed two people. The first victim was a teenager who may or may not have heard Cottrell’s warning. Shortly after this attack another man jumped in the water to look for the victim, even though he was told there is a shark in the water. He too was attacked and died from a severe loss of blood.

While reading this I couldn’t help thinking about September 11 and see the parallels between these two stories.

When asked by the U.S. Congress and the media, why “clues” which should have been picked up were disregarded, the heads of the FBI and CIA as well as members of the Bush administration replied, “We didn’t think they would use airplanes as missiles.”

Had the FBI and CIA believed that something like what happened on 9/11 was possible they might have put measures into place which would likely have prevented this from happening. But they didn’t, even though the hijackers left dozens of “clues.”

Similarly if the swimmers at the US East Coast had believed Captain Cottrell when he told them there was a shark in the river, chances are that nobody would have been killed by this shark on that day.

But because they believed it is “impossible” for a shark to be found in freshwater they disregarded the warning altogether, just as the US law enforcement agencies did, resulting in many paying with their lives.

On the other hand there are human beings who overcame extraordinary odds and accomplished great feats. Every day we hear stories of people who were told by the so-called “experts” they didn’t have what it took, yet made it regardless.

The lesson here is that anything is possible, both the good and the bad. By believing or not believing in something doesn’t mean you will not be affected by whatever happens. But it means that based on what you believe, you may take some action which may save you from something terrible or may get you out of a terrible situation.

There are many of us who are in terrible situations, including poverty, unhappiness, debt, etc. Those of us who have changed their situation, did it because they believed they could make it.

Those who don’t obviously don’t believe that they can change their situation otherwise they would have done something about it, right?

How many opportunities have you missed just because you thought it wouldn’t work or wasn’t possible. Just think what you could do if you believed that you could do anything, even realize your dreams?

What great talent do you have which you have done nothing about, because you probably believed you can’t do it.

I hope to have shown you through this short article that anything is possible. And that by just believing, “I Can,” your battle is already half-won.