How are you doing with your goals?

Do you check-in regularly to see if you’re moving closer to your goals? Do you give yourself pulse checks once a week to make sure you’re on track? Or, do you set a goal and forget it? If you’re like most of the people I coach I’m guessing you set and forget.

I learned a tip that changed my goal setting for the better and I’d like to pass it on to you. It’s simple and easy to do. It requires very little effort and there’s no reason why you can’t incorporate this into your day. After all it’ll only take a few seconds, or at most a minute. However, just because this tip is easy to do please don’t dismiss it. It can play a crucial part in the mental side of achievement. I’m not going to give you a long persuasive argument on the Law of Attraction. This is no big, secret. Actually It’s in part 7 of the CFL technique.

The tip is to rewrite your goals every day. That’s it. Just find a few seconds to rewrite your goals. If you ever had to write lines in school you know what to do here. Simply find a blank piece of paper and write out your 3-5 current goals. Then the next day do that again. Do it every day until that goal is achieved. If you’re into super achievement you could write your goals three times or more, but I’ll leave that up to you.

Why does this work? I honestly don’t know why. I guess it gets you to focus on what’s important rather than what’s urgent. Doing this just for a minute a day can have amazing results. It seems there is something to the power of focus. Putting our attention on where we want our life to go will have a dramatic impact.

Give it a try, I know you can find a minute a day.

I call the fear of success the undiscovered fear, because most people that have this fear have no idea this is what’s holding them back. But this fear is the killer of more goals and dreams than anything else. If you find yourself not achieving your goals than this is a fear you will want to look at closely.

The first question I often get when I talk about the fear of success is, why? Why, would anyone be fearful of success? To most of us it just doesn’t make sense. The fear of success is not the best name for this fear, a better name would be the Fear of Change or the Fear of the Unknown. It’s not succeeding that we’re afraid of, it’s the impact that success will have in our lives.

The first sign that the fear of success is a problem for you is self-sabotage. You may find yourself not following through on the plan you’ve set for yourself. You may find yourself missing key opportunities. You may even say that you’re procrastinating on starting your goal. These are all signs that there is something that you’re afraid of. That achieving your goal will bring a change that you may not want. Even if you think there is nothing but positive outcomes from achieving your goal you may be afraid of the change.

Maybe you’re afraid that achieving this goal will mean less time for yourself. Maybe you’re afraid that it will mean more hours of work and less time with your family. Maybe you are just really comfortable where you are and you don’t want things to change. Maybe you’re afraid that earning more income will mean more taxes and you may have to get a lawyer. Maybe you’re afraid you could get sued. All of these are fears I’ve heard in the past.

Don’t let your fears stop you. Don’t get comfortable. When you feel things changing get excited. You’re learning and growing and coming one step closer to reaching your goals. You can tweak your goal to make sure you’re taking care of your fears. If you want to make sure you have time for your family than plan that into your goal. If you are worried about getting sued and needing a lawyer than plan for that. Face your fears by preparing for them.

There is also the problem of not feeling like you deserve to be successful. This is a deep rooted issue with no quick fix. You’ll need to spend some time thinking about what you want from your life. I’d recommend you consider professional help and therapy to help you break through what’s holding you back. No one is not given the power to think of a goal without the power to also achieve it. If you can dream it you can do it!

Don’t let the fear of success hold you back. Just keep moving forward. When you catch yourself sabotaging your success figure it out as soon as possible and move on. Break your goal down into a simple plan and follow it. You can overcome your fears and achieve anything you want.

I honestly don’t think the fear of failure is that big of a deal for most people. At least it shouldn’t be that big of a deal. After all what’s the worst that could happen if you failed at achieving your goal? When I ask myself this question I usually answer with, “It will take me longer.” That’s right it will take a little longer. That’s about the worst that can happen if you have the right mental attitude.

One thing I’ve been teaching my 5 year old son since he was born is the power of tenacity. I started doing this with a game we play of throwing his clothes in his laundry hamper. We start by standing 10 feet back from the hamper and we throw, or shoot, his clothes towards the basket. Before every shot we say, “If at first I don’t succeed… I try, try, try again. When do I give up? I don’t give up!” We do this for every shot. If we miss, we run as fast as we can and pick up the clothes and… try, try, try again. We do this until all his clothes have been successfully shot into his laundry basket. After years of doing this my son now repeats this anytime he’s having difficulty. He refuses to quit until he gets it right.

This is exactly how we overcome the fear of failure. If you have something you’re afraid of trying you have to confidently tell yourself that… You’ll never give up! If you don’t succeed… You’ll try, try, try again. Once you have that attitude the fear of failure is meaningless to you. Why? Because you can’t fail. You’ll study harder, train harder, run faster, be smarter, work harder, you’ll do what ever it takes to get you to your goal.

So stand about 10 feet back from your laundry basket and try, try, try again, until you make every shot.

When setting your goals it’s important to look at what you value the most. It’s vital that you incorporate your values into your goals. Doing this will help you clearly define what you want and help ensure your goals will be achieved.

One great question to ask yourself daily is, “If today was my last day on earth, how would I spend it?” What would you do with this last day. How do you envision your last few hours. Once you have this clearly defined you’ll now know what you should incorporate into your goals.

If you’d spend your last day with your family, friends and loved ones, then you should build goals that involve them. If you’d spend your last day completing a great adventure, then you now know that this needs to be a big part of any goal you set. If you’d spend your last day in meditation, than that is something you should build into your goals as well.

By taking a good look at how you’d spend your last day, you can start to figure out how you should spend the rest of your life.

For a lot of people goal setting is difficult. It’s not that they don’t have the power, or desire, to set goals. It’s that they don’t know what they want from life. They may know that they want to be successful, but they don’t know how they want to get there. To some this might be surprising, but I suspect that a lot of people have this as a problem.

Some people are really lucky. They know at a young age what they want to do and then spend their lives pursuing it. I’ve always envied people that were fortunate enough to know exactly what they want from life at an early age. However, I think that the majority of us are not that blessed.

So how can those that don’t know what they want find their goals and achieve them?

I like to look at a goal as a mountain to be climbed. When you set a goal you’re at the base of a mountain and the achievement of your goal is the peak. The best way to find your ultimate goal and determine what you want is to start climbing a mountain, even if you’re unsure this is what you want to do with your life. Take a chance and start down the path towards achieving a goal. Once you’ve reached the peak you will see many more mountains, or goals, you can achieve. You’ll have gained valuable experience and you may look at things differently. Often the achievement of a goal will help you determine what you want to do with your life.

If we don’t take a risk and decide not to attempt any goals, we may find ourselves unfulfilled and no closer to finding what we want out of life. We must be willing to step outside of our comfort zone and go for goals. Even if we are unsure it’s what we ultimately want.

I’m certainly not advocating wasting time and I would much rather you have a clear idea what you want from your life. However, if you don’t know you’ll need to take action anyway. Sitting still is not the path to figuring things out. You must take on new challenges and new experiences if you’re going to find out what you are made of. Of course it’s important to reflect on your choices and decisions but don’t let too much time pass. You must keep moving forward. Even if you don’t know where that’s going to take you.

Where will you be in 5 years?
Where will you be living?
What will you be doing?
Who will you be doing it with?
What will you have achieved?
What challenges did you have to overcome?
What friends did you make?

These are the kinds of questions that start you on the process of goal setting. They get you thinking about the direction you want your life to take. The first step in the CFL Goal Setting process is to think of your life in 5 year blocks. It’s the perfect amount of time to plan and prepare for.

So where will you be in 2015?

Read more about 5 year thinking.

Download the free CFL Worksheets to help you plan you next 5 years.

Happy New Year!

Just in time for your new years resolutions and after many weeks of preparation I’m excited to tell you that the CFL Goal Setting technique is fully available. To learn more about CFL, you can follow the 7 steps:

Step 1 – 5 Year Thinking
Step 2 – Think Big
Step 3 – CFL Goal Setting
Step 4 – Reason to Achieve
Step 5 – Determine Timelines
Step 6 – Accountability
Step 7 – Make it a Commitment

To download all the free worksheets you can do that here: CFL Worksheets

Can’t wait to hear your feedback.

I just finished Step 1 for the website. It’s now available here: CFLGoalSetting.com/cfl-basics.

I decided to add an audio element to each of the steps. I’d appreciate any feedback on these audio recordings.

Well, off to tackle Step 2.

It’s time to put CFL Goal Setting out in the world. Today I’m launching a whole new way to look at your goals. Although this site is not 100% finished I promise to get it complete within the next few days.

CFL Goal Setting is a technique to use to help you achieve all you want from life. It can be used at any stage of your life and can help you set a clear path for your future. Even if you are not sure where you want to go, CFL will help you find a direction.

To get started I’d recommend you watch our video located in the media box on the top right side of our website. This short video will explain the basics of CFL. Once you’ve watched the video you can download our worksheets to get started on setting your own goals. It just that easy. Don’t forget to subscribe to our blog so you can keep up to date with the latest on CFL Goal Setting.

In addition to all the free resources this site has a membership option. The membership is limited to a small group of people that want to take action to achieve their goals. You can find out more here: CFLGoalSetting.com/Membership

Feel free to provide any feedback on this site.

I’m officially late on launching CFL Goal Setting. It was just too much to do combined with all the family commitments during the holidays. But a day late is better than never. So, I’m going to launch this today!

The only challenge is some parts of the site are not ready yet. The CFL basics pages are almost done but not quite ready to be posted. There are many other little parts of the site I’d like to finish as well. These will be done over the next couple of days.

The membership is now available to purchase and I’ll be able to offer that to people very shortly. Look for the official launch later today.