Over the last year, change in our lives and in the world’s economic, financial, social and environmental systems has accelerated at ever increasing speed. In a similar fashion, 2011 saw Lift International experience another record increase in demand – and all indications point to same again in 2012. What’s interesting about this is the reason why.

I believe it is because in times of extreme uncertainty, unrest and rapid change, people look more and more for that internal stability, security and courage to take control of their lives and their future.

Lift’s systems of success fit this bill perfectly because they are principle-led as well as universal in their application. They help people to find their ‘true north’ in the midst of chaos and turmoil; have clear direction; and turn change into the stepping-stones of success.

Success in life is not an accident: authentic success happens on purpose. It is the natural result of thinking successful thoughts, living winning attitudes and taking effective actions.

I share these secrets of success through seven universal principles. Each one is like the rung of a ladder, and helps people overcome obstacles, climb out of ruts and clear chasms on the path towards the achievement of their goals.

I have learnt through my own journey of success and working with thousands of others that it is not knowing these principles that makes them work, it is living them.

You don’t go to the gym once and get fit. It’s regular exercise that keeps you healthy. Likewise, it is applying these principles to your life over a period of time that brings true and lasting success. And the more you live the principles, the faster they work.

For this reason, starting on Thursday 5 January, I will be running a seven-part webinar series. For anyone that may have been to one of my workshops you will already know that these seven principles form the power behind the Goal Mapping system.

Each month I will be guiding you to apply the principle to your life and desires, and to update your Goal Map with any new insights or ideas that have been inspired through the webinar.

Wherever you are, and whatever you wish to achieve, join me, book your place and take a giant step towards achieving it.

More about our webinars ›

When you have an addiction your whole life revolves around it. Days become months, months become years, and before I realised it I was a 31-year-old woman with no idea how to survive in the ‘real’ world.

I got clean from heroin – and had been clean for approximately 11 months – yet I found myself lost and scared with nowhere to turn. I had such a clear picture as to what I wanted from my new life, but not a clue as to how to get there.

My mental health symptoms (which had been masked by my use of heroin) came flooding back. Facing a long wait ahead for a mental health reassessment, I slipped up and had a small relapse.

I had almost given up on myself, but one day when I dragged myself out of bed to get the post, there it was – the letter confirming the start date of the Goal Mapping course.

A couple of days after receiving that letter, I had my rewind sessions with Jane and I couldn’t believe my luck. I had been seeing various counsellors and psychiatrists since the age of 15 and nothing seemed to work for me, but Jayne was like a miracle.

The Goal Mapping course is an essential tool for people like myself (and believe me, there are plenty) who are desperate to get away from their predicament but just cant see life after addiction.

At first I was worried I would be stuck in a room with a load of junkies who had no intention of moving on, but were on the course as a get-out clause for some reason or another. You can’t imagine my delight to find I couldn’t be further from the truth. They was such a diverse range of people from all walks of life, and who I am pleased to say I will stay in touch with and become life-long friends.

The tutors, Accredited Goal Mapping Practitioners Jayne Bell and Bethan Stritton, could not be more suited to the job – talk about finding your vocation in life! I have never met anyone like them; they understand us, share their own experiences with the group, and can see the good and potential in each and every one of us. The tools they use are like nothing I have seen before and would not be able to have access to if it weren’t for this course. I have always known I was put on this earth for something special and thanks to Jayne, Bethan and the people who fund this scheme, I am no longer a thinker but am becoming a go-getter.

As my Dad says… don’t tell me the sky’s the limit when there are footprints on the Moon.

Thank you from the bottom of my heart for believing in us and being willing to put time into a group of people who are not a lost cause – we were just lost. So many people can benefit from this opportunity and I am privileged to have been one of the first.

We are not all motivated by the same things or in the same ways. Being clear about your own motivations and drives will enable you to generate natural enthusiasm for any endeavour thereby maximising your effectiveness.

Identifying your purpose and setting clear goals turns motivation into inspiration. Purpose is to a person what fuel is to an engine – without it we end up going nowhere.

Everyone can find a sense of purpose for his or her life. When we live with purpose, we find our passion, our power, our flow, and it feels as if life is working with us. When we are not on purpose, or off track, our power to create is dissipated and every last chore seems to drag.

To be ‘on purpose’, you must first find or know your purpose – you must discover ‘that thing that makes your heart sing’ the thing that you are passionate about. This is one of the great lessons of life, for when you find your purpose you also find your power.

“When you are inspired by some great purpose, some extraordinary project, all your thoughts break their bonds; your mind transcends limitations, your consciousness expands in every direction and you find yourself in a new, great and wonderful world. Dormant forces, faculties and talents become alive and you discover you are a greater person by far than you ever dreamed yourself to be.”
Patanjali 1st-3rd Century BC

A sense of purpose

We are all born with an automatic motivation programme that urges us to move towards pleasure and away from pain. Identifying a sense of purpose that we feel genuinely passionate about will help us lead life from our right brain towards pleasure, while the left brain works through natural fear to warn us of any potential danger. Once again it is the balance between the two achieved through goal setting that helps us be at our best.

Purpose is like an on-going journey of adventure: it doesn’t have a defined finish date. Goals do. A purpose is an on-going endeavour, a long-term mission, or life-vision. Purpose is like the path you tread; goals are the significant milestones along the way; motivation is your reason for making the journey.

People who live with a sense of purpose feel inspired – and from that inspiration bubbles natural motivation.

Being on purpose is one of the seven principles of Goal Mapping. If you need a little help to define and articulate what your purpose is, why not join at one of our Goal Mapping events?

View our events calendar ›

As Goal Mapping Practitioners we are all passionate about what we’ve learned and want to share that knowledge with as many people as we can so they too can benefit from Goal Mapping and the wonderful benefits it can bring to their lives.

Moving from becoming a Goal Mapping Practitioner and all the excitement that brings, to successfully being able to share your knowledge and build your Goal Mapping business can provide some challenges.

Uplift 2012 will help you focus on that 20% that will ensure you achieve your goals.

Uplift 2012 has been developed by Practitioners for Practitioners, to give you what you need to progress your Goal Mapping business.

We had some wonderful feedback and comments further to last year’s events – take a look!

So what can you expect from Uplift 2012 and how can it benefit you moving forward in your Goal Mapping business? Here is a preview of the programme:

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Friday 17 February 2012

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Welcome and network, relax and meet other practitioners, learn what others are doing to succeed (over a buffet dinner).

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Saturday 18 and Sunday 19 February 2012

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Raising Your Awareness

Are you aware of any limitations or fears you have which may be holding you back, or may have resulted in putting actions off?

Discover, from someone who’s done it with great success this year:

• How to find your Winning Edge
• Identify the Difference that will make the Difference
• Turn your Thoughts into Actions

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Developing Your Possibility Consciousness – Which is your Goal Mapping Target Market?

Are you really sure which market you want to deliver Goal Mapping to? Understanding the market you want to deliver to can make the 20% difference to get 80% of the results.

Understand the different Goal Mapping Markets and where your strengths and experience lie in each of these. Learn how sell Goal Mapping in each market, discover where you can make the 20% change to maximise your business. Looking at;

• Where your own strengths and interests are, and how to use those to your advantage
• How to use Networking Groups to get your Goal Mapping business heard and build leads
• How to sell specifically in your chosen market
• Selling techniques, cold calling, email, referrals
• Developing your Goal Map (marketing plan) to get your business moving
• What do to do in your first meeting and closing the sale
• How to provide excellent customer service throughout the whole journey
• How to ensure your Goal Mapping Workshop is fabulous

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Involve to Evolve – Funding agencies and how can they help

There is a wealth of funding out there waiting to help businesses, charities and schools benefit from Goal Mapping. Involving these funding agencies will help evolve your Goal Mapping business. Learn how to access this funding by understanding;

• Who the different UK agencies are and their markets
• What funding is available from the different agencies
• What eligibility criteria is required for gaining grants for different agencies
• How to claim the funding and how long it will take
• How to find a contact within the grant team and building relationships with them

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Be On Purpose – Using social media to share your love of Goal Mapping and how it helps to lift so many lives

Social media such as Twitter, Facebook, blogs and YouTube is used by business in a variety of ways with. Learn how to show that you are On Purpose by discovering:

• Which forms of social media are particularly relevant to which types of business
• How social media can be used in to grow revenues from markets including:
• General public
• Education
• Business
• SME
• Large / Global
• How to build a social media strategy, and why doing so is important

Our guest who knows everything there is know about social media is Adam Gray, an expert is helping businesses to use social media in a smart way to gain competitive advantage.

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Maintaining a Positive Focus – Keeping in touch with the global Goal Mapping community

We all know how important it is to communicate with like minded people, and that’s why keeping in touch with your fellow practitioners is so important.

Find out about the global Goal Mapping community.

• For all non-UK practitioners to experience inclusion and support within the community regardless of distance
• To raise awareness of the amazing Goal Mapping work being done internationally and to act as further inspiration for all
• To enhance the opportunities of lifting lives across the globe.

So whether you’re just starting out in your Goal Mapping business, looking to take it to the next level, or are considering a different Goal Mapping market and aren’t sure how to take it there, then make sure you come to Uplift 2012 and:

• Hear about the amazing success stories of other practitioners (can we insert photos or a link of some of them) and take some of their learning’s into your own business.
• Make new friends with other practitioners
• Get advice on any aspect of Goal Mapping

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Make sure you don’t miss out on this weekend! Book your place NOW!

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Whatever stage you are at on your Goal Mapping practitioner journey, you simply need to be at the lift off with Uplift 2012 on Friday 17 to Sunday 19 February at De Vere Uplands House, High Wycombe. A practical and inspiring ‘must attend’ weekend, it’s been created for practitioners, by practitioners (on a non-profit basis) to provide you with all the strategies, tools and tips to help you take your business to new levels of success in 2012.

Don’t delay: earlybird offers end 31 December 2011.

Visit the Lift Academy shop and book your place today!

We looking forward to seeing you in February at Uplift 2012!

Written by the Uplift 2012 Planning Group in association with Brian and Sangeeta Mayne

Brain Mayne reflects on the reasons why too much choice isn’t always a good thing…

I believe we’re becoming an increasingly overloaded society in many ways. Perhaps the biggest of these is choice. You’d think having plenty of choice would be a good thing. But actually, more choice equals more responsibility, which often leads to more stress.

The trouble with choice is that you have to choose. And, in today’s world, more of us need to make more life-changing choices – about our work, about our family, about our own beliefs – than ever before.

The world is changing so fast, it’s now normal for people to have more than one career, more than one family, more than one ‘life of experience’ within a lifetime. The greater freedom that humanity has for so long strived for brings with it greater choice – and greater ‘response-ability’.

You may not have voted for a fast-changing world but it’s becoming reality for the vast majority of the population – and the pace of change is increasing.

Anyone starting their working career today is likely to experience half a dozen career changes and over a dozen different job changes within a 25-year career.

Overloading any system beyond its capabilities is always disastrous in the long term. In our hectic and overloaded lives, one of the main dangers is stress and mental shutdown. When we have too much to do in too many areas of our life, and too little time to do it, we become stressed.

Stress causes our brain to shut down and narrow its focus to just the problem at hand. This is a natural survival instinct designed to help our ancestors escape from threatening situations, but today’s overloaded world can leave us feeling stressed on a regular basis.

Choose your choice

The solution is to choose. Make a fundamental choice about the pace you want to live at, and the quality of life you want to enjoy, and then make plans to move to towards it. This is a trend that’s gaining momentum as record numbers move from city to country in an effort to escape the overload trap.

The most important thing is to do whatever you can do, however insignificant it may seem. Making decisions about your life – however small – is empowering, and a great way of regaining a feeling of control, and reducing stress.

As well as looking for a physical retreat, practise creating a mental retreat – a quiet inner place you can enter whenever you need to calm yourself. Breathe.

My preferred way of turning negative overload into manageable growth in any area of life is simple: decide what you want, set it as a goal, and start working towards it.

Over the years, I’ve developed two techniques to help people achieve the life they want to live: Goal Mapping – a success system for physical achievement, and Life Mapping – designed to help people develop their qualities of character, such as response-ability and self belief.

So, if you’re feeling overloaded – whether at work, school, or in your home life – relax… help is at hand. Find out more about Goal Mapping and Life Mapping ››

Our ability to choose our response is our greatest freedom. We are each able to think about our own thinking, define our own beliefs, create our own habits and, ultimately, shape our own life.

Thought is always the first point of creation. Everything that has ever been created in the history of the world began as someone’s idea. Every great work of art, every empire, every achievement of any nature was once simply a thought in someone’s mind. Likewise, every habit, action, and emotion you experience also begins as a thought.

In the words of Marcus Aurelius, the philosopher and Roman Emperor, “If you are distressed by anything external, the pain is not due to the thing itself but to your own estimate of it; and this you have the power to revoke.”

Some people believe that ‘the way they are is the way they are, and there’s nothing they can do about it’. Some even argue for their weaknesses and list reasons why they can’t change or improve their life – it’s their genes, their upbringing or their environment that is holding them back.

But these things, no matter how strong, are only ever influences in our lives, they do not determine who we are or how we feel. We always have the ability to improve ourselves and influence our lives.

While there may be times when our physical options are limited, we always have the freedom to choose our mental and emotional response, our outlook and attitude. We can choose to be our best, and through that we make the most of ourselves.

Remember:

• When you change the way that you think about everything, everything about you will change.
• Learning to choose a positive response to a negative situation allows you to find the opportunity in difficulty and change any aspect of yourself.
• It’s not what happens that makes the biggest difference. It’s how you respond that makes the biggest difference.
• Being able to choose your response is like a muscle – you must exercise it for it to grow strong. Practise choosing your response on little things (like choosing happiness while stuck in traffic) and you’ll strengthen your ability to choose your response on the big things of life.

Learn more about being Response-able at a Goal Mapping event. There are plenty to choose from, with many run by me, Brian Mayne, and many run by our fantastic Goal Mapping Practitioners. Take a look at our events calendar ››

When I first met Mike, he was a depressed and empty guy with no light in his eyes and no joy in his spirit. This gentle, quiet man had lost everything other than his family, having spent two damaging and degrading years in prison, where he paid the price for embezzlement – a mistake that nearly destroyed him. He went from financial director of a large company to a prisoner within a day.

Following his spell in prison, Mike had been unable to secure a job for a number of reasons. I believe interviewers were picking up on the negative energy that surrounded him. His state of mind and dark view of the future were preventing this qualified and capable person from getting a job, and having the chance to rebuild his life.

After our initial meeting, I convinced Mike to attend a day of positive and energising Goal Mapping. Soon after the course I received a message from him that filled my heart with great joy. He said that, for the first time in years, he felt alive and totally positive about his future.

A week later I received a text to say he’d had a job interview and had been offered a very good position, and that it was all due to “changing the way he was thinking”. A few days later he sent me this email and his goal map. It speaks for itself.

Hi Ed

I’ve attached my Goal Map, as promised. When you see it you’ll realise why I became an accountant!

My wife and I are now planning for and looking forward to the future, for the first time in quite a while. It’s remarkable what a change has occurred in the last two weeks – if it is solely due to positive thinking, I should have done it years ago.

I cannot thank you enough, and hopefully we will meet again.

Best wishes

Mike

Goal Mapping lifted Mike from despair, transforming the way he thought about the future, and pointing him towards a brighter, happier, more fulfilled life. It can do the same for you.

Learn more about Goal Mapping ››

Discover Goal Mapping Online ››

I watched in horror as the news unfolded of the bombing and shooting in Norway recently.

It had only been a few weeks earlier that I had presented at the Oslo Leadership Event, and was so touched by the genuine warmth and openness of the people I met there.

A reoccurring theme in the many conversations I had with was how different it is to live in Norway when the darkness comes in winter, when there is very little daylight, and the feelings of depression or heaviness it can bring.

The key, everyone agreed, was to carry the light inside of yourself; to choose to be bright. There is the potential for both light and darkness inside each and every one of us. And in every society there will be some individuals who lack the light of love, and who live with a dark, disconnected heart and unbalanced ego, and behave in beastly ways – even to the extremes of murder.

Our greatest gift – and spark of humanity – is our ability to choose our thoughts, and through them influence our emotions and control our behaviours.

By choosing to focus on the positive and celebrate what is right with life and yourself, you can find the energy to help improve what is not.

To see people respond in loving ways, even to the most horrific of acts, is a most inspiring sight.

The dark deeds of one unbalanced soul have actually ignited millions of lights and an outpouring of loving emotion in response.

A new generation will be inspired to strive not only to be their best, but also to help create the best society to live in.

From the darkness of one, comes light in the response from millions.

Whatever decision you need to make, whatever challenge you want to overcome, whatever goal you wish to achieve, raising your awareness will be the first step towards it. Raising your awareness of yourself and current situation, the likely outcomes of your intended actions, or continued inaction, is always the first step in clearing the fog of confusion, overcoming procrastination and developing self-motivation.

The level of awareness that has led you to your current situation will not be sufficient to take you to the next level of your growth, the next stage on your journey or the next goal on your life path or purpose. That will require a new and higher level of awareness.

“The first rule is to keep an untroubled spirit. The second is to look things in the face and know them for what they are” Marcus Aurelius

Personal picture paradigms

We all create internal thought pictures of understanding and then project them onto the world about us.

Our overall awareness of ourselves, of a single situation, or of the world in general, is known as a paradigm. A paradigm is a general viewpoint that we hold about something or someone and acts as a guidance grid for our opinions, attitudes, and actions.

Each paradigm that we hold is like a personal picture of understanding that we project onto the world and everything in it. It is the map or blueprint that our sub-conscious
constantly reads to regulate our actions and reactions. When you woke up this morning chances are that you didn’t need to think through who you are as a person and how you deal with the world.

The reason for this is that you have built up paradigm pictures of yourself acting and reacting in lots of different ways to all of the various situations in your life. And it’s these “paradigm pictures” that inform your sub-conscious about how to make you behave in any given situation, without the need for constant rational thought.

Likewise it is your “paradigm pictures” that allow you to drive your car, ride your bike, walk and do all manner of other routine activities that you take for granted, all of which are achieved without conscious effort.

The only challenge with holding paradigms is that once you create them, they become set or fixed as if they were written in stone, while in reality everything around us in the world is fluid, flexible and constantly changing.

A paradigm that was created in the past may not accurately reflect the realities of today or tomorrow. We often see a situation in a certain way and then something happens that causes us to suddenly realise that it’s a different way entirely and our paradigm and attitude shift completely.

The paradigms we form and project onto the world determine our opinions, attitudes, behaviour and, ultimately, the results we create.

If we’re to respond correctly to the multitude of situations and choices that come our way, and steer the changes of life towards the achievement of our goals, we must learn to gain clarity of reality by consciously choosing to raise our awareness through questioning ourselves and our paradigms.

By David Jessop

For those who are regular readers of – and contributors to – the Goal Mapping Group on Facebook, you will know that I have just returned from San Diego where I was privileged enough to share the power of Goal Mapping with 300 young leaders from all around the world at the Global Youth Leadership Summit, an event hosted by the Anthony Robbins Foundation.

“Lucky you – and how come?” I hear you ask. Well, the answer is quite simple: I was gifted the opportunity by Brian – but, at the time, even he was unaware that a deeper level his request fulfilled two of my major Goal Maps which I created back in 2009.

One was that “I am delivering world-changing seminars”; the other “I am conducting global generational change”. What I meant when I wrote second goal was that I was with the youth of today, sharing with them techniques and tools that could not only help them change their world but the world of the generation they live in. Being somewhat big goals, I thought I would set a time line for these of 2015 – yet only 19 months later I find these goals occupying the ‘achieved’ section in my Goal Mapping folder.

My journey allows me to share the journey of the young people I’ve worked with.

High energy and high creativity

The summit was five full-on days of high energy and high creativity focused on only one thing: helping those who come along to be the best they can be by helping them take their aspirations, dreams and goals to another level.

But what the 300 balls of energy attending the summit needed most was something tangible that they could take away; something that allowed them to capture their unleashed creativity and combine it with practical skills that allowed them to make their dreams a reality, and think about life after the event.  Goal Mapping provided them with just that.

This was the first time they had experienced Goal Mapping, and to watch 300 young souls come alive in the process was an amazing sight. When I was with them they were already three days into the event and had already been exploring the concepts of positive thinking and goals. Goal Mapping gave them the structure to put their learning down on paper – and it backed up the ideas and principles with clear science, a combination that they loved.

In the many, varied and wonderful comments I received afterwards, one key theme was that Goal Mapping not only gave the teenagers a tool to take away, but that it also gave them something they could immediately share with family, friends and their local community.

Remember, the age range of the attendees was 13 to 19 yet many had already achieved incredible things including opening businesses, running their own foundations, and creating their own workshops to inspire. Others were busy working on themselves, their confidence, self-belief and self-worth to enable important next steps in their lives. Whatever an individual’s focus, the overwhelming feedback was that Goal Mapping had allowed them to get clear on exactly how to take that next step. “Thanks for allowing the geek in me to come out” was one response “I have hidden her away for so long because of others, but now I can truly be me and fly!”

Goal Mapping Online was also a huge hit. The ability to have such a current online facility at their fingertips where they could hone their Goal Mapping skills, include personal pictures and images, and even capture instantaneous memories of the very event – not to mention the ability to share Goal Maps with family and friends around the world – was seen as “awesome”.

The honour of sharing

I received one map from one of the adults watching the proceedings. In his words, “It was a pleasure meeting you. As discussed, here is my first map. Congratulations on speaking at GYLS. Your courage in setting and pursuing your goal is inspirational to me.”

For me, this sums up my visit to San Diego and my part in the Global Youth Leadership Summit: sharing – sharing my journey to help in theirs; sharing my experiences so I became one of their experiences; and sharing the power of Goal Mapping so that they can achieve great things if they put their mind to it and so continue the process of thinking your best thoughts, taking your best actions and living your best life.

“It was an honour to listen to you” I was told by one young man – but for me to be gifted the opportunity to share my goals with of 300 inspiring young people from all around the world, I truly believe the honour was all mine.