The Power of Goals

How many books have you read about setting goals? How many of these have you tossed away? If you are like me you would’ve had a pile of semi-read books on the topic. Yawn.

But something has happened. New information has emerged about the power of combining your desires with affirmations and emotions. Note that I said “desires”. Well isn’t that the same as goals?

I see that there is a difference. Goals, as they used to be, were often related to work and finance; or they related to achievements that others held in high esteem. Generally they represented what was expected of you. So if it was expected that you have a university degree, well then that was your goal.

You had this very mechanical process of writing goals on paper, but not really connecting with them. You wrote them because it was expected, and because, to get ahead in life, you needed to know where you were going. This meant that your head may have been focused on one thing, but your heart on another, giving a fairly half-hearted goal.

After the spate of books over the last 2 decades on energy and using the energy of your thoughts and your feelings to generate what you desire (a desired goal), the concept of goals has changed in this context. Of course there still is the “old” kind of goal but if it is not as effective, well…

Oh, and if you are somewhat doubting about energy – have a look the new physics, and studies on the power of thought and prayer.

I feel this is pretty exciting. We’re finally looking at our desires, our passions, what we feel strongly about. We combining our heads and hearts so that we have a feeling about our goals, giving them more power. The more you focus on something, the more power that focus has.

The word ‘desire’ is a combination of wanting something and the feeling of that wanting. See the difference between saying “I want tea” and “I desire tea”. Desire is the stronger of the expressions. So adding the desire component to goals gives a little more strength.

We now also know that goals need to be phrased carefully. Goals are best phrased as though they are happening, for example, “I’m holidaying in Macau“; and are best phrased in positive language “I have everything I need” as opposed to “I don’t lack money“. Apparently the brain has trouble recognising words like ‘don’t’ or ‘not’ in our affirmations or goals and so the latter sentence comes out as “I lack money” – the complete opposite.

Different word types trigger slightly different activity in the brain. But there is also
something to say about your thought patterns if you have constructed a sentence such as, “I don’t lack money“. It may be that you are focused on your current condition – that you don’t have much money – and therefore this is your underlying belief. Understandable!

So the challenge is to remove any negative thought, any thought of lack or absence, as a continual practice. The challenge is to believe that you are currently abundant in money and behave that way. If you then give money away, you are telling your brain you have money, rather than lack money. Then your brain starts to believe you have money. Like attracts like, and you start attracting money or whatever it is you are focussing on.

This might seem a bit complicated. But it explains why people have been unhappy about goals and their achievement. It is not as straightforward as writing a goal down and then having it happen. You have to work on it in a variety of ways.

You have to understand and monitor yourself. You have to check what your brain is doing and check if it is in sync with your feelings. If you desire money, what is your brain thinking?

The next thing is to think about words such as “want”, “need”, “gotta have”. When you say “I want money“, you focus on the wanting so what you get is more wanting. The want that you have is intensified. So phrasing goals in ways that indicate you already have them, or by using words such as “choose” as in “I choose abundance“, you create a much more positive goal.

Focusing on goals regularly – every morning and evening – gives them more power. Even better is when you can create the feeling you would have if you have those goals. If you have achieved a goal, imagine how you would feel. Take this feeling and expand it when you say your goal. Then visualise yourself rejoicing with that feeling.

You are activating your senses – seeing, feeling, thinking – giving the energy from these sources to your goal. This could be something you build up over time. You could experiment and see.

When you create your goals think about how they fit in the overall picture you are building for yourself down the track. Are your goals consistent with that picture?

Finally goals work best if you categorise them into short, medium, long. Short being a day to a couple of months; medium 3-6 months; long more than 6 months.