Do I Need To Set Goals?

Do you find yourself trying and trying but just never quite reaching all the things you dream about? The secret that you have been missing until now is you're not taking the time to set goals. By not setting goals you are actually just dreaming.

When you understand how to set goals you have the key to success and attaining all your dreams. It's like taking a trip. Right from the start you know your ending and you have a goal for when you will get there. Along the way you will know whether or not you can take more time or you need to hurry based on your progress.

When you set goals, you will know how you are doing and what to do to achieve your targets or dreams in life. You will know if you can relax or if you need to double your efforts when you're falling short of what you expect.

The fact is that when you set goals you are coming from a place of positive expectancy and are already on your way towards success. Part of the process will have you thinking through possible obstacles with a solution oriented mindset and that will give you confidence and help you solve these challenges before they become a problem.

If you set goals and want to have the greatest chance of success then you need measure you progress to make sure you are on track. You do this by setting smaller measurable goals that you must reach along the way. You will find that by doing so you actually are more motivated to continue since you are focusing on the smaller goal and not being intimidated by the large overall goal.

Some people think that once they have set goals they're done. Well they are wrong. If all it took to be successful was having a goal then every 5 year old girl in America would have a pony. All kidding aside besides taking the time to set goals you have to take action. That means that you must always be moving towards your goal. As long as you working toward your goal and you determine never to give up you will eventually achieve success..

To be truly successful when you set goals you need to believe the goal you set is actually something you can achieve. With time and practice you will find that you can set amazing goals and reach them but if you're new to goal setting you need to start with something that is a stretch but still believable for you. That doesn't mean you should set something so easy you can reach it without trying. Goals will help you grow and achieve more than you ever thought possible but only if you have to stretch to reach them.

Keep in mind that when you set goals they must have a due date. That is the big difference between dreams and goals is that goals have a deadline. When you have a due date you will have a natural tendency to get started on your goal and with that your are on your way to success.

As you set goals and begin to achieve them, even if you are only partially successful, be sure to congratulate yourself which will help you stay motivated. That isn't to say you should be comfortable with minor success. Keep striving to achieve the total goal.

When it's all said and done with you can set goals for any aspect of your life - it doesn't matter if its personal or family life, career or finances. Goal setting can be as simple as setting a target weight when you wish to lose pounds or something big, like earning your first million.

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How Do You Meditate And Why?

More and more people are looking for a way to relieve stress. This is no surprise seeing that the price of everything is going up and jobs are getting harder to keep and find. Relaxation has changed over the years. In the early days you would get a book and sit in bed reading for about an hour, maybe two. This alone used to be enough to get the daily stress off your mind. It was like drifting to another universe. This does not help any more, which is why so many people are asking "how do you meditate?"

Many people find that they are really tired when it comes time to go to bed. Some even feel tired just after dinner time. This means that there is no time to meditate before falling asleep.

So, a lot of people are turning to meditation to replenish what they have lost over the course of the day. There are many reasons you would want to meditate, relaxation is only one of them.

Most people say that they feel revitalized after a good meditation session and others feel that they did not accomplish anything. It is important to do a meditation first thing in the morning, as it ensures that you do not fall asleep during your session.

Many people say that they feel meditation is too intimidating for them. This is only because they do not understand it, and because they feel silly doing it. These people also do not know how to do it properly, but it is very easy to do.

The first thing you want to do is find a place you will not get messed with. Ensure that the place is quiet and that you have you legs crossed. Sit with your back straight and preferably with your hands on your knees. Think of nothing, let your muscles relax and focus your mind on the sounds around you. Soon you will be in deep meditation.

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What Is A Subliminal Message?

You might think about hypnosis as a way to put thoughts into people's heads, but in fact you don't need to hypnotize people to do this. Subliminal messages are used all throughout the world to covey messages to people, even when they are awake. This is normally through the TV during adverts. These advertising companies have figures out how to use subliminal messages to make people buy their products. So what is a subliminal message?

Most of the time, a subliminal message will be used in the background of a song. It can even be used in TV adverts to make you more willing to buy the products. The brain will detect these messages even if you don't hear them consciously.

This could be done in advertising by giving you a subliminal message that you really feel like having a cheese sandwich. You will just go and make a cheese sandwich without knowing that an advertiser used this in order to get you to buy more cheese. This is taking it to the extremes, but this is kind of how it works.

Subliminal messages are quite intrusive because people will not receive the message properly. Being taken in by the brain when in its unconscious state, you cannot place any reason or judgment around it. The information you receive can be taken the wrong way or jumbled with other messages.

To prevent subliminal messages from plaguing you, there are some things that you can do. One of them is to use your undivided attention at all times when watching TV or listening to songs on the radio.

The messages you receive can be eliminated or have little effect when you concentrate. The subliminal messages cannot be used in a dangerous way and most of the time advertising companies will use more direct messages. These can be heard consciously, but if you don't watch TV adverts and go into another room, you will still pick up these impulses. You might find that even listening to the radio in the background can give you subliminal messages.

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Awareness Is The Key To Personal Growth And Self Discovery

If there is one thing you need in order to help yourself on this journey to self discovering it's awareness. Awareness is the state of being conscious of something or a sense of knowing (either by perception or by means of information) and is your key to making real and lasting change.

Without awareness you will continue to do the things that you are doing that keep you stuck, stop you from taking risks, make you hate change and limit you from developing your full potential.

Think about a time when you had no idea about something. Lets focus on being a 2 year old that doesn't know that they need to tie their shoe lace, and lets face it they did not care.

Then one day awareness struck. They understood that they needed their shoes on when they went outdoors and the way to keep them on is tie the laces. Now they care about their shoelaces but they do not know how to tie them. Then awareness strikes again to let them know that if they really want to be seen as 'grown up' they were going to have to learn how to tie those shoelaces all on their own, especially as they were starting school soon.

They went from no awareness of what shoelaces are to complete awareness of what they are and why they are important. They also knew that walking around at school age and not being able to tie their shoelaces would keep them in the category of 'baby' and so they worked hard at learning until they got it!

Now you need to discover what you need to be aware of and you are already a grown up so you will need to either wait until an event happens that raises your awareness to something needing to change or you can go within and ask your unconscious mind what needs to change to ensure you are the best person you can be.

We all have the power to ask questions of ourselves and expect an answer (and if you did not know that then I just opened your awareness of it) so trust yourself and have paper and pen ready.

You can ask as you go to sleep 'What do I need to know about myself that is stopping my self development. Please bring whatever you feel I need to know to my awareness' Answers will be given to you as long as you relax and trust. The answers may come to you in the shower or while exercising so you will need pad/paper close to you at all times!

Eventually as you practise you will receive them at a certain time. I receive all my messages first thing in the morning the second I open my eyes. If my unconscious mind has something to reveal to me that is when I hear about it.

Without awareness you continue to live in denial and it becomes impossible to truly discover your greatness because most of it will be hidden in fear, guilt, negative internal chatter, worry and other limiting experiences that will not promote growth. Give yourself the gift of personal growth by opening yourself up to the insights that occur when you focus on awareness.

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The Reality Of Personal Growth. From Baby Steps To Enlightenment

The true nature of personal growth is seldom spoken about. In this article I want to explain how it feels when you go through the different stages of growth and the meaning of spirituality as I have come to experience it after many years of working on myself.

If you are committed to working on your personal growth you will sooner or later enter unknown territory as you transit from one developmental level to the next. Many a time you will uncover shadows from unresolved early life trauma, you did not even know you had, which makes the transition from one level to the next more involved and challenging.

Yet few professionals or gurus have the experience and knowledge to tell you about what really is going on, or are simply unwilling to be totally honest with you. I believe that you should have as good an understanding as possible about what it is like when you decide to take personal growth into your own hands. This knowledge will prepare you for the journey into the unknown.

To get from where you are now to the profound understanding that there will never be an end to your searching or an end to life's challenges and to let that be okay takes time. Time and working towards something you have difficulty in fully comprehending are your challenge.

You can't not grow, no matter where you are in your development

After all personal growth is natural. Everyone does it all the time. Your development starts from the moment you are conceived and continues until you die. (We are just concerned with the human life span here.) Most of us will remain at the developmental stages where most of our growth is largely subconscious and this gives us the illusion that we have no influence over the process.

Most people believe and will continue to believe that they are the victims of outside circumstances. Insisting to hang on to this piece of fundamentally flawed "knowledge" causes many problems on the path of personal development and spiritual growth.

My journey of personal growth started in earnest when I encountered big problems trading derivatives and realised that I had to do something about the massive losses I was incurring in the early days of my trading. My world as I had known it was falling apart.

My personal growth journey led me to insights and countless challenges along the way which I could not have dreamt of and which have completely changed my view of life. This was a long process during which I travelled mostly in the dark, unable to find someone who really understood what I was going through and who could guide me.

I learnt by trial and error until I found something that worked for me and clarity gradually replaced the mental fog.

When you pursue your personal development properly beyond the pop culture of personal growth you will find yourself often in uncharted territory as you move from one level to the next and this process can take some time. At this point on the journey many give up, partly because they do not understand what is happening to them and how to cope with the seemingly endless challenges which are posing a threat to your identity and security.

The further you climb up on the rungs of personal growth the fewer people can assist you and that can be a little daunting to say the least. On the plus side, as you get beyond a certain point in your personal growth your ability to manifest the outcomes you desire will start to accelerate. Often at a surprising rate of knots. Suddenly it feels as if you have reached the top of the mountain.

Unfortunately, these experiences seldom last for long periods initially. They are more like a glimpse of what it could be like to be arriving at the end of the tunnel and finally seeing the light. At this point in your journey you will not have fully grasped the idea that you will never arrive and that all beginnings and endings are an illusion created by your mind which insists on putting every experience in neat boxes. You will still be struggling with what parts of you need relinquishing so that you can evolve to a seemingly new reality.

Transition periods are a large part of your personal growth journey

Moving from level to level always involves transition. The transition takes up a fair time of your journey hence you need to understand the process. As you transit through the different stages of personal growth it may feel at times as if you are temporarily losing your identity. This is natural, yet quite a weird sensation when you encounter it for the first time.

When you are moving from one developmental level to the next you have to give up something that was previously of value to you. This causes value conflicts and confusion you experience as loss of identity.

Until you have completely let go of the things that keep you anchored with one foot in the old developmental level you will experience problems. Another challenge is to know exactly which old habits, thoughts and beliefs you have to let go off and which ones to keep. Your next challenge is finding a practical way that works for you as you go through these transitional periods. As you can see there are many challenges.

To illustrate the pointI am going to use an example I have used before: As a toddler you had to give up crawling eventually in order to walk. Of course, in the early developmental stages you allowed the process to evolve unconsciously and you also had the guidance and help of your parents who knew how to encourage you and make you feel safe.

As you are evolving into the higher levels of consciousness, and that is basically what personal growth is all about, your increased level of awareness as an adult is a handicap as you are more aware of the strangeness of the new territory you are entering. Old conditioning creates further conflicts. You will be fighting the new insights with old coping mechanisms. The idea of having to relinquish those things that worked so well in the past in order to move forward is not part of your life principles because you probably were never told about this important step that makes progress possible.

Coming back to the example of the toddler, this is what is happening to the toddler: During the learning period, or transition the toddler is effectively crawling and walking intermittently. Since he has found out that walking is much faster than crawling he will want to walk more, but is not yet able to maintain the walking stance for very long. He gives himself a break and reverts to crawling when he gets tired, has enough of the new experience or falls over. Going back to crawling now feels cumbersome and not as good or natural as it used to.

Since the toddler develops largely subconsciously he does not judge his progress, but you, the adult, do. Your learned need to be critical of yourself makes personal development work challenging.

In addition, you, the adult going through the transition to the next level will often experience relationship or business worries during this time. It feels as if your life is completely disintegrating and you will be resisting this instead of allowing this disintegration as part of the process.

Every time you put up a fight or resist the changes you are making matters more difficult for yourself. You are using the old coping mechanisms, pushing, fighting, goal setting, etc. and expect to see events unfold in a certain order. Continuing to hold on to these views ironically increases chaos and the potential damage to those things which are so dear and familiar to you and which you fear losing most.

Gradually you will learn that there is a very different universal order from your old reality and what you have been told about the workings of this world. You begin to adjust your behaviour accordingly, it is a natural process at this point. You can't help yourself. Force will not be necessary. You are beginning to flow with the process of evolution and are integrating all the new ideas as a perfectly natural way of being.

When you reach this point you are ready to embrace the first levels of enlightenment and you will inevitably begin to understand what it means to be a spiritual being having a human experience. You will also begin to understand the deeper meaning of spirituality.

As I said, transition from one level to the next takes time. Often years. You did not wake up one morning walking as if you had always walked when you have been crawling until now.

The modern pop culture of personal development will tell you that you can change instantly. As a general rule this is nonsense. Change is gradual because the speed of change depends on your developmental level. Most people are in the concrete operational stages and change simply does not happen that fast unless induced by profound shock. (You can learn more about these stages and how to use them to help you with your growth in my books The Buddhist Trader, and Forgive And Let Your Love Grow and my On Line Course)

Spirituality and success are one

As your self awareness expands you will gradually have more and more control over your emotions and thoughts and thus more choice. It is precisely the increased choice which makes your life more worthwhile. Increased choice will bring you peace and happiness. Both are the foundations for success.

You will also understand that the world is a spiritual place. Spirituality is a way of understanding the make up of the universe rather than something to strive for. As you reach the levels of so called enlightenment you will become aware of the spiritual nature of everything that is.

You will understand that success comes naturally to anyone who has an understanding of this state. You will discover what you have been looking for is effectively already there and a part of you. You will also begin to develop unity consciousness and see how everything interacts with everything.

You are starting to understand that duality is a choice. Duality is how we make sense of our world, at least most of us, but as you grow into the levels of enlightenment you will experience that duality just like everything else in your life is a choice of operating. It has its place but is not the only place. I will stop here now before we get too involved in this concept.

Suffice it to say that true change comes only from within and you do not need to change what you are doing on the outside, even though many people do as they grow. There is a lovely Buddhist saying: "Before enlightenment chop wood and carry water, after enlightenment chop wood and carry water."

No matter what you do in your life, whether you are a stock broker, trader, mother, or are employed or self employed the higher levels of development will increase your happiness, well being and success and above all they give you more choice, independence and control over your existence.

Transition and growth enables you to see for yourself that the universe always evolves in an orderly fashion, and this is immensely reassuring.

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How To Think Your Way To Success

"When you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change." - Dr. Wayne Dyer

We are what we believe we are, and we can do what we believe we can do. Yes, I know that sounds all touchy-feely and new age, but you don't have to be a metrosexual to climb onboard the belief bandwagon.

There is an interesting connection between our conscious mind and our subconscious. Our subconscious is tasked with the responsibility of making what we consciously believe is true, actually come true; at least to the best of our subconscious mind's ability to make it true.

So, if you think you can do something, you can. And, if you think you can't, you can't. It sounds simple, right? Well - it is simple, sort of.

Back up at the top of this article is a quote from motivational and self-help author Dr. Wayne Dyer. I picked the quote because it embodies the entire concept of overcoming self-limiting beliefs. Think about it. When you CHANGE the way you look at things, the things you look at CHANGE. Let's examine that statement.

Prior to that fateful day, on May 6th, 1954, everyone in the sports world believed it was impossible to run a mile in under 4 minutes. And because everyone believed it, it became true. But there was one athlete who didn't believe it. Roger Bannister believed that he COULD break the 4 minute mile. And, when he changed the way he looked at that barrier, the barrier changed. Even more amazing is that after Bannister crossed the 1 mile finish line in 3:59, nearly every professional runner had broken the 4 minute mile within the following year. Why? Because they believed it was possible once Bannister proved it to them.

But you don't need a Roger Bannister to overcome your own self-limiting beliefs. All you need to do is believe in yourself and the goals that you want to accomplish. Believe it or not, it's as simple as turning a "can't" into a "can" and then visualizing your success.

If you want something, start acting as if you already have it. This programs your subconscious to go about the task of making whatever it is actually come true. The best way to accomplish this is through the use of affirmations.

Affirmations are positive statements that you speak out loud when you need encouragement. They are always formatted to accentuate the positive as if the desired results have already been achieved.

So, if you are being held back by the self-limiting belief that you'll never be successful, for example, you could start saying these affirmations:

"I deserve the success that has come into my life."
"Every day I achieve more and more success."
"It is my right to enjoy the success I am achieving".

If you repeat your affirmations several times in the morning, whenever you have spare time during the day, and again before you go to bed, you will be conditioning your self-conscious mind to start the process of making you successful by removing the mental barriers that are holding you back. Before you know it, your personal "4 minute mile" barrier, whatever that may be, will disappear.

Article Source: http://www.aword2thewise.com

Know Your True Self - Relationship Between Values And Goals

It is very important that you know yourself and what you want in life. Choosing what you want in life can only happen when you create a life based on your own particular design. This design reflects your own personal growth and the way you make them fall into different choices made by you in life, i.e. in relationships, career and jobs and so on.

Right Values, Right Goals
As mentioned, your first necessary step towards your personal growth should be to identify yourself and your likes and dislikes. You should clearly demarcate a line between your needs and wants in life. For your personal growth, it is very necessary that you strengthen your strong suits and talents, a gift which you can identify yourself best. Everyone wants to achieve the best in life, give a push to their career as well as personal life. This can only be realized when you strengthen your core abilities and achieve a higher personal growth in life.

You attitude towards life and society in general is based on some values. Your values automatically are reflected in the way you present yourself to others. This forms an important aspect of your personal growth. When you as an individual contribute more towards your society and community, inspire others through your learning and values, admire beauty and stay connected, you already achieve a different position for yourself, a position, which is unique, and a position that contributes to your emotional, mental and personal growth.

We always, as individuals, set some priorities and goals for ourselves. We lead our lives based on these priorities. However, it is very necessary that these goal oriented priorities do not off sync with our values and ideas. Try not to pursue goals for the sake of pursuing it. This stagnates your personal growth. Therefore, it is always better to write down your goals, which you yourself can identify with and match it up with your values that define your true self. By focusing yourself to a particular set of goals, you can really motivate yourself to achieve what you want in life. It allows you to stay focused, clear in life, and identify your true self in the pursuit of personal growth.

Experiment with Life:
Achieving your goals require commitment and a desire to work on those goals and spend time on them. Change can only take place when you are prepared to undertake certain risks and experiment with different aspects of life. This really shapes and contributes to one’s personal growth. Experimenting with one’s life is very important as it helps you in discovering many facets of life and simultaneously designs your life according to these experiences.

Remove the roadblocks that come on your way when you are designing your life according to your values and goals. Often people are unaware or unable in identifying and removing these blocks. They seek the help of a Personal Coach who helps them in exploring their opportunities, outside perspective and the possibilities of achieving their goal. They guide you through the necessary tools and structures that leave a profound and ever lasting impact on your life. In the long-term, you would reach the higher echelons of your personal growth.

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