Planning Your Goal
The quick and immediate attainability of satisfaction and happiness, instant gratification, has become a part of our culture. Being plugged in with your smartphone, tablet, computer or watch means that information and cyber-connection is at your fingertips. There is no delay.
When it comes to self-development, instant gratification is brief and quickly slips away. Witness attendees of personal development seminars and how pumped and powerful they are at the end of the event. Follow up a week later and you find folks back at their daily struggle, leaving them wanting to come back for more.
Knowing that you live in a culture of fleeting happiness, what can you do to adjust so that the change and growth you seek is long-lasting and actually has an impact on your life? How can you consciously make choices and create sustainable change? What more can you do right now to bring even greater success and purpose that produces amazing results now and forever?
Practice awareness of the moment, visualize the upcoming shift, and believe in the results you are aiming for.
Immediate term – Practice Awareness of the Moment
No matter what you are trying to achieve, a new relationship, career change, or personal development, start with a vision of what this would look like when done and a believe that you deserve your goal. Like any good project, you need to know what it looks like at the end so you know you have succeeded.
Once you identify what success feels like, hold onto that energy. As you begin planning for this change, select 2 or 3 things you can do differently right now that can bring this reality closer. Begin making new choices based on this strategy and take note what happens differently that week.
If you notice no shift, then your change is not big enough. Bring it up a notch. When you recognize a new offer coming in, different people coming into your life, or opportunities rising up, celebrate like crazy.
Realize you do not need to say yes to everything, but knowing you are making change happen is pretty powerful. Hold on to this immediate gratification and keep it up.
Short-Term – Visualize the Upcoming Shift
Determine what the short-term change might look like. Maybe more like-minded people are in your life, support and networking opportunities for a new career is in place, or training, coaching and mentorship is available to support your personal development.
It’s time to connect with a new network of folks who are there for your continued growth. Hang out with new people who have a long term strategy with life and whose very presence points you in the right direction.
Keep the short-term vision fluid enough to change as you learn more and keep it consistent enough to remain a stepping stone to your long term goals.
And always, every step taken closer to this goal is an opportunity to celebrate your life and how brilliant you are.
Long Term – Believe in the Results you are Aiming for
Your long term (3 to 5 years) goal is actually the easiest to achieve. The further out you see your objective as something attainable and that you believe in, the easier it is to achieve. As life happens and things change, be sure you are truly detached from the outcome. Allow yourself to get beyond the downs and celebrate the ups.
If you are too attached to the short term results your fear of failure, the force of making the wrong decisions, and the chances of missing the mark increases. Practice seeing this future with the belief that it is OK if something else materializes, then you are able to truly enjoy the journey.
Once you establish your goal, become laser focused on your target. The key to detachment is focus while being aware that other opportunities are around you.
Focus on the journey, enjoy the roller-coaster ride, and celebrate that you have free-will and can choose every step of the way. You can develop becoming even more conscious of how to make choices that are perfect for you bringing instant gratification, achieving short-term goals, while driving toward your long-term mission. You can do this.
If not now, when?
Choose managing short-term and long-term goals for success, or not. Either way, you have chosen.
Gail Kraft, Author, Trainer, Strategist, and Mentor guides her clients in navigating their relationship to life.
info@theempoweringprocess.com
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