Category Archives: Goals

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Are You Willing To Stand In Line? What Motivates/Inspires You?

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This is just one of the photos online (courtesy of CNN.com) of people standing in line yesterday (Black Friday). It amazes me what people will go through “for a bargain”. What’s your definition of a bargain, by the way? Edit – even though I credited CNN I was forced to pay a fine and remove the photo.

What is it that drives you? That is a better question for you to ponder.  I know why I trained so hard for the New York City Marathon and put myself through that entire year of hard work. That knowledge/awareness is extremely important in keeping you motivated toward your goal.

What do you think these folks’ motivation was? What was your motivation if this was you standing in line? What is propelling you to do something? How strong is that thought or feeling?

Abraham makes a distinction between “motivation” and “inspiration” and I like it. Essentially “motivation” is pushing someone toward something whereas “inspiration” comes from within and it’s a very positive desire to achieve something. Think about it. I had to listen to this several times before it made sense to me but it finally made sense to me.

A motivational speaker tries to push someone into doing something where an inspirational speaker simply tells a story and the essence of that story is what makes you want to go forth and accomplish something. I’m not sure that the actual words really matter as much as the internal/external concept. “Motivation” to me comes from without and “Inspiration” comes from within.

So, as you start to prepare for the New Year, look toward your inner self to find what goals to work toward. Now is the time to start examining what it is you feel inspired to change. If you are going to make a change it has to come from within and be something YOU want, not something imposed on you by others – I know that when I was younger I “tried” to stop smoking many times for my mom or for others. It wasn’t until I woke up one morning and said “I’m tired of this. I want to stop smoking now”. And I did. And guess what, it wasn’t tough at all. I developed a plan (see a pattern developing here) ahead of time, set a date to start and then I simply followed the plan. I succeeded on my first attempt when I finally decided to do it for myself.

Start examining your inner thoughts and feelings this coming month. Find out what you want to do next year. Write down these thoughts and feelings. Keep them to yourself. Do NOT share with anyone. As we’ve talked about so many times, that can potentially backfire for you. Your loved ones may mean well but they can sabotage your efforts before you even begin. Just start with this simple step right now.

Terrie

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The Cactus Parallels Our Lives….

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 I’m sure there are other plants that also parallel our lives but I’m not really a flower or plant person BUT I am a very big Cactus lover!

Every day when I come in I stop and look at my Cactus Patch – but some days I forget or some days (even weeks) I don’t come in through the front door. The next time I do, though, I see how big my babies have gotten and then there’s another little cactus bud. I am not sure why but I am fascinated by this. Perhaps because it’s slow compared to flowers which are fast bloomers and then in a day or two they are gone. The Cactus takes its time and buds off, then slowly grows into another “arm” (you can tell I don’t know much about these things being a city gal all my life so I invent my own terms).

Next thing you know, though, the Cactus plant has grown and grown and grown and is bending this way and that.

So what the heck does this have to with either metaphysics or with life?

Change happens slowly in our lives. If we expect to see obvious evidence of major change over night, we’ll continually be disappointed.

But If we step back, continue to move along our planned path, and then in a couple of weeks or, preferably, months look back at how far we’ve come, we’ll be surprised AND amazed. As with my race the other day, there’s absolutely NO WAY I would have predicted taking 12 minutes off a short distance like 3 miles in just a year. I’ve never done that before. And you know what? It was never my plan to do that either. But I worked my other plan and this was a very nice and rewarding side benefit of it. But if I had been looking at my times every single day, I would NOT have seen so much of a change and might even have become disappointed.

Like the Cactus we have to step back and view our lives and what’s happened periodically, not continually. Then, and only then will we be able to see that there’s been significant change and also evaluate what it is and what it means. Then, we can do something further about it – new goals sprout up just as the Cactus will grow a new bud because it has the foundation and the nutrients to feed that new bud – my goals have been rejuvenated because of that one little race I was doing just to support the cause (Epilepsy Foundation), not to see how good I could do. I was blown away and stimulated, enthused, invigorated, etc. As Abraham says “everything is always working out for me”. And I proved it. After my tremendous disappointment this month I wasn’t sure where I was running-wise – and it had spilled over into my attitude about everything else. I just felt blah. Now I know I can attack the world and climb back up on top and sprout a new bud!

Use Thanksgiving to do some reflection. Take a look at where you were 6 months ago (or you can go for the whole Enchilada as they say and do the whole year). How far have you come? Write it down. Put it in the comments. See what’s happened in your life. Don’t just go blithely along each day like a robot. See your progress and your change. Then do something with that information. Try to figure out what has happened and why there’s been the change. Or, if you think there’s been no change, try to look at that too. Maybe you need a team like I did. Maybe you need a coach like I did. Look at it and be grateful for it all.

Happy Thanksgiving to everyone – even those not in the US – know that I am thankful that you are in my life!

Terrie

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I Was Hit By Lightning…..

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 I was hit by lightning! Not really but yesterday I realized what this last year did for me and what it can definitely do for you if you approach it right.

Short background. I had not run since about 2001 but had missed it so very much. In September 2011 I started running again. In November 2011 I ran my first 5K in 10 years. I am very slow and always have been but that’s ok.

My goal was to run in the 2012 New York City Marathon (26.2 miles). I paid my entry fee, figured out my plan and diligently began to execute the plan. I was ready. Well, it didn’t happen (but that’s another whole story as you guys know).

Saturday just for fun I ran in the same 5K I did last year. I knocked 12 minutes off my time since last year. For me that is phenomenal.

My take away points from that are that I can succeed in anything by developing a plan. Then all I need to do is diligently execute that plan and I (we) can score big time like I did in my race.

Simply knowing what to do and then doing it with the attitude of knowing it WILL work is something I completely embrace. What about you?

I know that as I was progressing through this plan all I “worried” about was what I had to accomplish that day or in that section. Your life can be like that too. Break it down (I like the phrase “chunk it down” because we actually are creating small chunks) and then go to work on a small chunk. I never imagined I would have taken 12 minutes off my time. That is kind of unheard of even for a  slow old person like me! I just went out to see how much I had progressed and I was blown away. Interestingly enough, all the components were the same – same weather, same time, same location at the start, same course etc. The only thing that was different was me!

Have a plan, make it manageable and you can achieve anything! You need a team though. I have had a phenomenal team this past year and attribute the majority of my success to that team – BUT, you know what? It was me out there at 2 a.m. running or running for 6 hours every Sunday in the San Antonio heat, not the team. I followed the plan they helped me lay out. That’s what coaching is all about.

Do you want to knock 12 minutes off your time (the equivalent in whatever life event you’re working toward)? Stay tuned for the upcoming program(s).

Enough for now – back to basking in my glory – for about 10 more minutes and then it’s out the door again…LOL.

Terrie

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Your Dreams and Where on the Emotional Scale You Are..

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 Part of planning to achieve your dreams is to specify what, exactly, they are. We talked about that in our last post.

And we also mentioned that you had to know where you are NOW in order to figure out how to get where you want to go, right?

Today’s Abraham quote aligns with that perfectly:

In your moving yourself up the Emotional Scale, your business will begin to prosper in new and profound ways! Your business, your relationships, your finances cannot grow beyond your emotional response – nothing can grow beyond your emotional response. Everything matches your Set-point of emotions on every subject that exists.

— Abraham

Excerpted from the workshop in Tampa, FL on Saturday, December 6th, 2003 # 628

That last sentence is so important – “Everything matches your Set-point of emotions on every subject that exists.”

When setting goals (which unfortunately we don’t always connect to our dreams and that’s why they often are not achieved but that’s for another day), we often tend to be so objective about it and look only at the facts. But it’s really what’s invisible and inside of us that’s key – our emotional set-point, our feelings about these goals. You can “wish” for something all you  want but if when you “stop” wishing for a few minutes and realize that you have to “wish” because you do NOT HAVE whatever it is you’re “wishing” for, then you’re attracting more of that lack – more absence. And you know what? Often times that’s because that’s where we’re comfortable. Comfortable is a damaging word for sure – it keeps us from growing beyond where we are right now.

Take some time to look at how you FEEL about where you are and how you FEEL about where you want to go. If there is a sensation of discord, then look more closely at the specific emotions behind that discord. Is it fear? If so, fear of what? When we examine our fears we find out so much about where we are and what is keeping us there. Also, when we begin to examine the fears and get specific about them then we can see that whatever is behind them is not really so frightening at all. When you get specific, you can evaluate where you are and what you want to do about that one particular specific thing.

So your action step today is to determine where you are emotionally in regard to your dreams. If it’s “that was a great dream I had but there’s no way I could ever achieve that because I’m too old” or something like that – stop and examine all the parts to that one sentence and see if it’s really true.

Write all these things down too. It’s important to connect the hand and mind to help you analyze and feel them better. Keeping a record will also help you later when you want to change these feelings and emotions or when you want to measure your progress!

Terrie

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What Are Your Dreams?

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 Can you turn your dreams into goals? Are they the same?

I think that your dreams are the beginnings of your goals. The reason they really aren’t goals yet is because they aren’t specific enough and maybe not attainable right now. If you are a couch potato but your dream is to be in the Olympics, that’s not very attainable RIGHT NOW, is it?

But if you take your dreams, make them very specific and then “chunk” them down (meaning break them into chunks) and develop a plan to get there, these individual goals become attainable. Your dreams really are alot of goals put together and visualized as having been accomplished.

Do you know a way to take your dreams and bring them into reality? Or do they just remain dreams – far away and only available when you’re not actually living in the “moment”?

You need a plan. I have a method for you to create your own plan, have a coach and make your dreams come true.

But if you just started with the tip I gave you here, you’ll be so much farther along than you were a few minutes ago.

So go ahead, write down your dreams – don’t be afraid to commit them to writing. You do NOT have to share them with anyone and in fact, I discourage sharing them at this point – many people are well meaning but say things that may cause you to question your dream. You don’t want that right now.

After you’ve written down your dream then go ahead and write down what it would take to get there. Write it in as many steps as necessary. The smaller the steps the better.

Do it now! Get a head start on the New Year (I never understand why we wait til the New Year to make resolutions – we waste so many opportunities the rest of the year).

Terrie