By now you’ve come up with 5-15 specific items you want to work on. Now answer these questions:

• Are they specific? They should be since that’s a great portion of what we spent yesterday on.
• Are they attainable? For example, this would not really be an attainable goal: You’re 60 years old and you can’t swim but your goal is to swim the English Channel. Of course you could learn to swim and perhaps eventually make it to that goal. But, in reality, it’s not really attainable enough that your subconscious mind will embrace it. This is very closely tied with the next one…..
• Are they believable? We always have problems with people who are currently making, let’s say, $20,000 a year and their goal is to make 1 million dollars a year. Why is this a problem if you really embrace the  Law of Attraction? Because you have to go back to the basics – what you create is based on your thoughts and the thoughts embedded in your subconscious mind which is very literal. So, your subconscious mind simply may not be able to make that jump from $20,000 a year to a million! You’ll see in the later part of today’s exercise where the problem might be. So, what’s the issue? Are you doomed to making $20,000 a year forever? No, but you need to “encourage” your subconscious mind and nurture it. The way to deal with this is to use percents of increase. You can say “my goal is to increase my income by x% per xyz”. “x% is the amount you want to increase it and xyz is the time period. For example “I increase my income by 10% per month over the next 6 months” – that equates to an increase of $166 per month over the next 6 months. Your subconscious mind can accept that and consider it attainable. When that happens and you’ve “exercised” your subconscious mind, then you increase it some more. One of the biggest mistakes people make is to “go too big” right out of the gate – like trying to run a marathon when you can’t even run a mile yet.  Don’t be impatient.

Yesterday you were to make a list of 50 – 100 things you wanted to achieve/attain.

Now it’s time to really see if these are really burning desires…and then to prioritize them.

If this seems like a lot of work, I have to ask you how cluttered your mind is right now. If you’re already focused on the one or 5 things you want to achieve then you’re ready for the next steps. But if your mind is filled with many things that bounce around and around and you’re flitting from this to that when trying to think of what’s important to you in the near future, then this is the right method to get you going in the right direction. Remember that I said that how we “set up” for the process is so important because you have to be in the correct mental state in order for your subconscious to take the proper direction – and of course, you have to know what you want to order it to do!

1) Go back over the list and start crossing out the items you really had to reach for or those that when you look at it on the list you say “huh?”.

• When you see yourself saying “huh” or “what’s this all about”, give it a few minutes and look deep inside. Is there a deeper reason you put this on the list? If so, leave it there.
• Do NOT cross them out because  you think you can’t attain them..or that you can’t attain them in 2012. That’s not what this list is about.  It’s a list of things you really want.
• DO cross off those things that you look at and can say “I really don’t care about that” or “nah, there are many other things I’d rather do (or have)”.

2) After you’ve been over the  list and crossed out some items (maybe), then go over it and prioritize it based on what you really want (try NOT to use the word “need” – remember that your thoughts shape your world so put it in the positive – “I want”).

• Start numbering the priorities even if you have to go back and change the numbers
• Number the 25 most important

I’m assuming that you’ve completed your inventory by now.  That’s an important step. It should also show you the importance of keeping a diary/journal on at least a weekly basis.

You can use the Gratitude Journal for that purpose and get the benefits of expressing gratitude as well.

Before you start making your list, I want you to think about what different words mean to you.

What is your immediate EMOTIONAL reaction to the following words:

“Goals”

“Resolutions”

“Desires”

“Accomplishment”

Here are some dictionary definitions:

“Resolution” – a decision to do something or to behave in a certain manner; A course of action determined or decided on. But interestingly from the Latin it means “to loosen or dissolve again”.

“Goal” – The purpose toward which an endeavor is directed; an objective.

“Desire” – to express a wish or make a request for; ask for.  Feel or have a desire for; want strongly;  The feeling that accompanies an unsatisfied state.

“Accomplishment”  – Something completed successfully; an achievement.

Hi folks,

I’ve been out of commission for about 3 1/2 months working on a multi-million project for work. But that is on hold for a few weeks now (and then I guess we will start up again after the first). I apologize for such inactivity but my “day job” has to come first. I trust everyone had a meaningful Christmas. Mine was quiet but pleasant.

Now that Christmas is over, you know what comes next – the “new year”. I am always amazed that people use this time of year as the ONLY time they make resolutions and goals. You really should be reassessing every month or so and changing your goals as appropriate throughout the year.

I thought I would give you some tips for starting the year off right. There is much greater detail in some of our special reports and especially in “The Art of Making Things Happen“. But here’s some starting points for you. I’ll go into more detail every day this week.

The first thing I want you to do is make the most of LAST year! Why focus on the past? Well, you want to have a starting point for making your goals and plans for next year. The best way to do that is to go back and make a list (or write in a journal if you can do that) about what happened in the last year. This will be your inventory.

– Divide your list into categories: Health, Wealth, Peace of Mind/Well-being, Happiness, Relationships, Work, Play, etc.

– Where were you last December/January – not geographically but in life.

– What happened throughout the year – make this in a list form (you can put more detail if you have time but the primary goal here is to list what happened in all areas of your life throughout the last 12-13 months).

– What happened that you considered “forward steps”

– What happened that you considered “backward steps”

– What happened (or didn’t happen) that you consider to have kept you stagnant

– What do you want to repeat this coming year?

– What don’t you want to repeat?

– What words and phrases seemed to predominate in your life throughout the year. Examples are “times are tough”, “the economy is bad”, “I worked hard this year”, “times were hard”, “It was quite a year”, “I had a great year”, “I’m glad the year is over”, “I’m ready for 2012”, etc. Write down everything that comes to mind.

Get this done and you’ll have your inventory AND your starting point for your 2012 plans.

Terrie