Five Reasons Why Success Plans Often Fail

Goal Setting: How to Tweak Your Strategies for Better Results

Are you a positive, goal-oriented person who would like a bit more success with your goal-setting strategies? Here are five ways success plans sometimes fall short, and how you can tweak your own plan for better results.

1) Vaguely defined goals and/or strategies If you want to get to New York from Chicago, you could probably get there by climbing in the car and simply starting to drive, but you’ll get there faster and more comfortably if you plan the trip, have daily destinations along the way, and bring a roadmap with you. It isn’t enough to make something your goal. You have to define the steps that will get you there.

So often we set goals like “I will lose 25 pounds,” then can’t understand why we put on 5 instead. We do better if we plan the steps, such as lose 2 pounds a week, exercise at the gym twice a week, and have a daily intake of so many calories. These steps are our strategies. Having a goal without clearly defined strategies is like driving around the Midwest countryside hoping you’ll stumble upon New York.

Solution: Break your goal down into the practical steps or strategies you must take to reach it. Write these strategies out in clearly defined, measurable terms. Rather than “I won’t work late as much,” write “On Tuesdays and Thursdays until June 1st, I will leave the office by 5:10 p.m.”

2) A reluctant commitment With or without strategies, if you don’t want a goal enough to commit to doing what it takes to achieve it, chances are you’ll drop out before you reach your target. Motivation is extremely important. Think about the times you’ve wanted something with every fiber of your being. Didn’t you find it easy to stick to your goal plan and didn’t you achieve your desired outcome?

Solution: Pick goals you’re strongly committed to. If you really don’t want to start that workout regimen yet, don’t create a goal program for it. Doing so before you’re ready will only lead to failure, which will make it yet harder to get started with the regimen, because you’ll have your added guilt to contend with. If you know you ought to do something, and find yourself resisting, ask your subconscious mind to reveal to you the attitude that prevents your moving forward. Then look at that thought.

3) Forgetting to make it fun When goal setting programs are too arduous, we balk at implementing them. Doing the work required to reach a goal isn’t typically easy, so making the process as enjoyable as possible is part of achieving success. Intrinsic motivation goes a long way in helping, but rewards and celebrations for milestones are needed, too. Having a reward to look forward to keeps us going when the goal looks far off, or when our commitment flags due to physical and emotional fluctuations.

Solution: Make fun a major consideration of your goal-setting program. If you know you need to exercise five times a week to reach a weight goal, for instance, you’ll have a better chance of sticking with your weight loss plan if your strategies involve exercise activities you find fun instead of the kind you abhor. Structure rewards and celebrations for milestones of progress right into your goal plan. The boost to your enthusiasm that celebrating gives will get you over your rough spots. Rewards need to be planned and specific, so you can look forward to them as self-promises. It’s the looking forward that is motivating.

4) Neglecting to track your progress As you move toward a goal, it’s important to track your daily or weekly progress (for longer goals, your monthly or yearly progress as well). This keeps us accountable so we don’t “cheat” and lie to ourselves. It also provides motivation, as we see a visual record of our progress. Without motivation and positive reinforcement, it’s easier to give up on goals than to keep working toward them.

Solution: Make a chart that measures your progress. Post it inside your closet door, on the wall of your bedroom, or inside your personal planner. Record all the times you perform the strategies you’ve committed to at the time you resolved to perform them. If you find you’re repeatedly failing to do a strategy, take a look at it to see why. If the strategy needs tweaking to be workable, just tweak it. It’s natural for strategies to need adjustment as you move toward your goal.

5) Expecting too much of strategizing Unlike visualizing, which can be applied to any goal, strategizing is only appropriate for some goals. In visualizing, a person can ask the universe to create most anything, but strategizing only works for some things. When we goal-set for targets we have no material control over, strategizing becomes interfering or manipulation, and we set ourselves up for disappointment and resistance.

Solution: If you’re having trouble moving toward a goal, rather than berating yourself, consider whether the goal or strategies could be at fault. Is this goal something you really want and that’s good for you to have? Is it also good for other people, or are there those who don’t want you to succeed? Are your strategies effective in moving you toward your goal or did you conceive them before you had knowledge of what is really needed to reach this target? Getting down on yourself makes no sense if the reason you’re not having more success has to do with answers to these questions. Adjust your goal or strategies to be realistic, and you’ll be back on the path of progress and enjoyment.

Goal setting is a skill, and like any skill it takes practice to be done smoothly. Learn from your experiences in goal setting so far, and adapt your efforts to your growing understanding.

And pat yourself on the back for your tenacity! Those who stick around long enough to learn a thing become the experts. That’s going to be you.

If you'd like more information about Goal Setting there are a number of articles and tools on one of my other websites - www.4lifeselfhelp.com

Download our free Goal Setting Ebook - '7 Pointers to Goal Setting Success'

Your Being Whispers -- It Doesn't YELL

Teachings like The Secret, and many others, advise people to become still and silent as an essential part of any growth experience. But have you ever reflected on why this is?

Yes, sure, stillness and silence seem like they "should" be part of things...but why? After all, the creator of this universe (you can give credit to whomever you wish :) also "created noise" right? So why is silence so much better than noise?

From what I've experienced and grasped, it's not a question of silence being "better" than noise -- it's not like that. It seems that the tone of the soul -- of your original self -- is very quiet. The inner you -- the one that guides you; your intuition -- simply doesn't yell. It whispers very faintly.

As such, only when you're still and silent can you actually start to hear what your being is trying to say. It may be telling you to do something or it may be telling you to not do something; but regardless of that advice from within, it's going to be quiet -- again, like a whisper.

How much time do you spend each day allowing yourself to hear your inner self give you direction? If you don't spend any time doing it then guess what?

You don't even know what you really want.

How can you "envision success" when you don't even know what you want?

Stop. Separate. Be silent.

Is there Space in Your Life for Success?

Hmmm...that's a weird question, isn't it? Is there space in your life for success?

You may automatically assume that the answer is an emphatic YES(!), but really take a quality moment and reflect on this. Is your life overflowing -- perhaps saturated -- with things that are simply not nourishing you spiritually and in many other ways?

If so, and if you really want success, you will have to create space in your life for it to happen. This doesn't necessarily mean "external space" -- though, sometimes, winding down a relationship or changing direction may actually be in order. Quite often, it's the inner space that needs to be reclaimed.

This, of course, is scary. Why? Because when you create inner space, you must let go of things that you know, and invite the unknown. And the unknown is...well, not known! And for many, many, MANY people, the fear of the unknown is more powerful than the misery and dread of the known.

And so, in many subtle ways, they cling to bad situations because they don't want to let go. They don't want to let the boat lose sight of the (miserable) shore.

If you want to really experience change in your life, then you must, sometimes, let go of the known and participate in the mystery of life. You must create room for success to happen -- and that room won't be created until you let go of some of your security. Yes, that security may be utterly miserable and indeed ruining your life, but it's still security.

Helen Keller said that life is a daring adventure or nothing at all.

If you want success, you must -- at the same time -- become more adventurous. Success and security do not walk together.

Success vs. Peace

Most people focus on success -- whether it's financial or otherwise. That seems to make sense, but really, if you look deeper -- and deeper still -- you'll notice something pretty strange.

People don't actually want success. What they want is the "stuff" that success can bring. And therefore, they simply figure that success will get them those things. Those things may be tangible -- a better house, a nicer car, a diamond necklace -- or it can be intangible things -- the experience of travelling to exotic locations, the "fun" of not having to work for an evil boss...and the list goes on.

But again, success is not actually the goal -- it is the means.

However, people regularly confuse the two! That's why successful people almost always -- if not ALWAYS -- discover that there is something very unpleasant about their "success" -- something missing.

What's missing is not the success. After all, success is there -- so that, obviously, can't be the "thing" that is missing.

What's missing is the peace that, "way back when," that success was supposed to lead towards.

But because this was forgotten, the success became and end unto itself. And that -- naturally -- compelled successful people to behave in unsuccessful ways. Oh sure, they may have increased their success on a superficial level, but on a spiritual or emotional or even plain old fashioned ethical level, they were not being successful at all.

Remember: you can follow the law of your country to the letter, but that in itself doesn't mean that you're following the spiritual laws of the universe. You can "legally cheat" your way to success by exploiting people, but hoarding information, by manipulating, by 100 of other things that are technically legal -- but they are against the laws of spirituality. And so, obviously -- patently -- a so-called "successful person" who has violated these laws will not under any circumstances enjoy their success. They can't -- it's not that they don't want to. They DESPERATELY want to, and they can't understand why, despite all of their success, they are profoundly miserable.

It's because they have forgotten that the real goal of it all was peace. Inner peace -- and then, as a by-product of that, outer peace, too.

When you forget the goal, you confuse the means with the end.

The measure of success is peace. Not the "peace at any price" kind of peace -- life will give you challenges, and sometimes, you will need to stand up confidently and boldly. You may need to take a stand -- defend a principle -- make a point -- right a wrong.

Peace doesn't mean non-action. Peace means acceptance of reality as it is; a harmony with nature itself. A intimate friendship with life.

Success that doesn't lead to peace -- that doesn't guide itself by the pole star of peace -- is never, ever going to work. And if you turn on the news, read the paper, or simply look out your window, you'll see that this is dramatically true.

We just don't want to believe it.

What is Success?

The Secret is kind of like one of those Zen parables that seem remarkably simple on first glance, but reveal layers and layers (and layers and layers) of enhanced meaning the more deeply you allow yourself to explore. I wouldn’t call this “deceptive simplicity” – rather, I’d call it ‘mysterious simplicity” – because the minute you think you’ve figured something out, there’s a whole new level of meaning to play with.

Take, for instance, the whole idea of success. Now, many people gravitating towards The Secret – either consciously or unconsciously – may feel pulled by the idea of “success.” That is, they want success in some part of their life. They want to experience success. They want to celebrate success. That makes sense. Who doesn’t want success?

But…the very idea of this – wanting success – compels us, whether we want to be compelled or not, to address an even more fundamental question: what is success?

Really. Ask yourself. What is it?

Is it a bank balance? Is it “stuff” that you have – cars, homes, other toys? Is it measured on terms of approval, the way that people vote for a politician (ack!). Or is it measured some other way? Is it measured in terms of peace, of awareness, of love?

I can’t answer this question – and I’m not even going to try. It’s not a question for me to answer for you – only YOU can answer it; and that means, you have to sit back, reflect, and really understand what success “is” to you. Otherwise, even if you GET what you think you want – what you think will make you successful – you won’t actually feel like a success. Somewhere deep inside you’ll feel…empty and confused; because that idea of success hasn’t been satisfied.

Spend some time reflecting on this idea, and developing your personal definition of success. Here’s a big, maybe even life-changing hint to get you going in the right direction: pretend that you were the ONLY person on earth. Really. What would success mean to you?

You are actually a Success, even though you may not think it.

“The secret of success is constancy to purpose.”
– Benjamin Disraeli

I think most of people want to be successful, but there are many who never seem to reach their ‘ultimate goals’. They don’t realise that even if they haven’t made it to their ultimate destination yet, they are still a success.
I make sure that every day, I tick off each and every ‘win’ that I have had during that day. They might only be little ‘wins’ like ‘I finished going through my emails for the day’, but they are worth acknowledging and celebrating.
Otherwise you can go through your whole life striving for your goal, and not realise that...

YOU ARE SUCCESSFUL EVERY SINGLE DAY!

Here is an article that Winsome (Global Secrets) has recently written about success.

What Is Success – Or How Will You Know When You've Got There?

If you step back and take a look at your life you actually already have reached success. Your life is in fact a success story even though you may not realise it. Take a look at where you are successful …..

When you think about success, first think back to your childhood.

"Are we there yet? Are we there yet? Are we there yet?"

Do you remember that mantra chanted from the back seat of the car during long drives? You could have been passing amazing scenery, unusual people and having a great conversation with your family ... but all you wanted to do was get to the destination so you could get out of the car and play.

Most adults live their lives as if they are still in the back seat of the car. They ask "am I successful yet" like a mantra and ignore what is passing them by.

It seems that we are so focussed on the end goal we forget there is a whole lot of stuff that happens in the middle. And if we reach one goal we instantly set an even bigger goal and start aiming for that one (and beat ourselves up for not hitting our goal earlier, faster, better).

We don't allow ourselves to see that our success journey is really a series of smaller journeys with infinite possibilities for enjoyment along the way.

We don't allow ourselves to feel relief, gratitude and to bask in the glow of achievement when we reach a minor milestone. We just race off to the next one without drawing breath.

We don't allow ourselves time to stop and reflect on our journey so far – what we have learnt along the way.

So how can you turn this around?

The first step is realising life is not a one destination goal – your only measure of success is not just one exam at the end of your life. Life is a series of smaller tests – some obvious and some not so obvious. Success is a cumulative process on how you go on all of these tests.

If you are a logical type – look at setting goals in all areas of your life. This includes work, spirit, family, health, and friends. Once you have set your targets ask if they really are achievable – I mean REALLY achievable.

If you set your targets too high you will never reach them – which means in your world you will never achieve success. Break the big targets down into smaller manageable steps and tick them off as you go. Factor in time to celebrate each success – with a personal rule that you can't start the next step until you have properly celebrated the one you have achieved.

Take time at each step to reflect on your learnings. Accept you did some great things as well as some things that can be improved upon. The focus here needs to be on a balanced assessment – not a doom and gloom drama.

If you are a feelings type - work out what success feels like. What emotions do you associate with success? How does it feel in the base of your belly?

Each day when you reflect on your feelings – look to see when you have felt success that day. Again, you are looking for a balance of your emotions. You have succeeded just by virtue of the fact that you are still alive and breathing. Allow yourself to feel the gratitude and the emotions of success.

The bottom line is there is no one single "there" from your "are we there yet” mantra. There are a series of "theres". Stop – celebrate and enjoy each one. You are a success.

If you would like to read more of Winsome's articles about Success and Life Happiness, go to:

www.4lifeselfhelp.com

Win #9 for the day, “Put up Winsome’s Success article on our Blog”

Congrats to myself! :)

Richie. (Global Secrets)

Successful Goal Planning

My partner Anneli and I have really got into our goal planning in the last few months.

Three nights a week, after putting the little munchkin (our daughter) to bed, we get a pen and an exercise book out, sit down and really getting into the nitty gritty details of each and every goal that we have set for 2008 and beyond.

We have gone well beyond just writing up each overall goal and looking at it every day.

Now we have broken each goal down into mini goals; each one being a step towards how we are actually going to achieve this overall goal, and then making an action plan, setting a timetable, and finally, making the step that many people fall short of............doing it, making it happen.

And what a phenomenal feeling it is to see the goal coming closer to you, when you achieve each step and start seeing results.

Here is a recent article that I have written which describes in more detail how to set and achieve goals.

I would love to hear your comments.

Successful Goal Planning

You hear a lot about Goals and Planning these days – but is it just a waste of time, or does it really work? Won’t just making a quick list of things to do be just as effective, and much quicker? Please consider these ideas.

There are several steps we can take to increase success, whether personal or business, individual or group. One of the major components of successful outcomes is goal planning. High achievers in business and in life know that goal planning is a cornerstone to success. Learning how to plan goals, and then implementing your plan equals goal-planning success. And goal-planning success leads to overall success.

What are goals?

The best way to define the word “goal” is to say that a goal is a marked point in a process that indicates progress. Think of goals as the path markers on a trail. Every time you pass one, you know you’ve made further progress towards reaching a predetermined end or the final goal.

Why should I set goals?

You should set goals because of what they are – a way to see if you are progressing towards an objective or final result. So goal planning leads to success by creating a sort of map for you to follow.

How do I choose the right goals for goal planning success?

Well, that depends on the outcome you are hoping to achieve, but here are some guidelines:

First, determine exactly what it is that you want to achieve. Is it a fit body? A successful business? A happy family?

Next, define what that means. What exactly do you consider to be a fit body, a successful business or a happy family? Your definition will not be the same as your neighbor’s. Please don’t let anyone else define that for you.

Third, map it out. Ask yourself, “What are the ingredients that I need to fulfill this outcome”? And “In what steps should the ingredients be added”? If your final goal is a fit body, the ingredients will be different types of exercise, healthy foods and drinks, maybe even spa treatments and massage. In what way do you need to put these together to equal a fit body? This is where you can see your goals start to take shape.

• Goal one might be to check out the gyms in your area and join one.
• Goal two would be to actually go to the gym a certain number of times per week to workout.
• Goal three might be to hire a dietician to help you with your food choices.
• Goal four would be to take that dietician’s advice to heart and begin to follow an eating plan.
• Goal five might be to do research on body treatments that help the look of your body or help detoxify your body.

As you follow these goals you will start to notice changes in your body that are leading to your final outcome of fitness. Now, this example is a bit watered down, but you get the idea.

When you begin to understand how to use goals, you will experience goal-planning success in every part of your life. Your life will become much easier and you will experience fewer disappointments as a result. If you have work projects to finish and you are feeling overwhelmed, it will help to use goal planning as a tool for better organization and more success. If you need to accomplish certain tasks each day, goal planning will help with that. If you have personal goals such as finding a wonderful partner or returning to college to finish your degree, you can use goal planning for those things too.

Goal planning success means a more happy and successful life. If you are unsure, use goal planning for a small project and see how well it works for you. Then begin to use it to accomplish larger successes. Before you know it goal planning will become second nature and you’ll enjoy a more successful life.

My verdict – stop wasting time just wasting time! Set a Goal and plan the steps to fulfillment, and get to work on achieving those steps.

For more great information and tools to use about setting goals, try this website: Goal setting