Success Is Less Dependent On Your Goal And More Determined By What You Believe You Can Have - Grasshopper

Goal setting is the global preoccupation. There was a cartoon that Eckhart Tolle referred to recently that read something like this:

"The reason you set goals is so you can keep track of all the things you have failed at."

Goal setting is easy. People do it every time the new year is upon us. You get out a pad of paper and just start writing your goals, and if you've read a book or two on goal setting, you also pencil down an action plan for each. Then you get busy visualizing your goals as if you already had them - ala The Secret.

Then after a fashion, you give up because your action plans aren't working. You blame yourself and the cycle begins again next January.

I have no quibble with goal setting, action plans, visualization, etc. I think they are necessary elements in formulating fruition. The difficulty with most of these methods is they are putting too much emphasis on the weakest syllable.

The emphasis is like most advertising - mostly sizzle. My beef is that little attention is paid to the major component that keeps success at bay - your beliefs.

Imagine setting a goal of completing the Boston Marathon. You set up a training schedule and you do all the visualiztion that one can muster. Here's the rub. If you don't believe you can do it, you will find a way to give up even before you get to "Heartbreak Hill."

You can't talk yourself out of your beliefs because they pay no attention to logic.

If you haven't been very successful achieving goals in the past, chances are you have sabotaging beliefs running at an other than conscious level. The best you can hope for is 1 step forward and 2 steps back as long as these controlling beliefs are in place.

Here's an easy test to find out if you have a limiting belief. If you really, truly desire something and your passion wanes quickly, you have a sabotaging belief sucking the life force out of your action plan. By really desiring something, I mean it has to be more than something "nice to have." It has to be closer to, "if I can't have this, I won't be able to breathe."

Even if you have the requisite passion, you will only be so successful if you have, as Joe Vitale calls it, a "counter-intention" regarding your goal. These counter-intentions cannot be visualized away. You need a more effective method of commnication with yourself, and here it is:

1. Recognize that your limiting belief has a positive intention. That means it was formed at one time in your life for a purpose. That purpose was probably to get you through that part of your life. Here's an example:

If you smoke, you didn't start because tobacco tasted good. You took up smoking because you wanted to be somebody who you weren't and being a smoker was going to get you there. You may have since intellectually outgrown the need to smoke to be accepted by your peers, but the initial belief  has not been updated. It still runs the show and you still smoke. Beliefs are frozen in time. Eventhough your smoking occurs now, a part of your mind still has it catalogued as being back then.

2. Acknowledge and honor that part of you for building you a belief that got you over a hump. It only did what you truly desired. You'll get nowhere by berating that part of you. It was following instructions and doing a fabulous job of pattern building. It's quite productive to genuinely acknowledge and honor that part of you for its exquisite craftsmanship. Let it know that you respect the skill it possesses. 

3. Apologize to that part of you and ask its forgiveness for giving it poor information. You were giving that purposeful part of you the best information available to you at the time. Ask its forgiveness because you had no way of knowing that you were giving it a shortsighted desire to work with. Let that part of you know how sorry you are for having been so ignorant. Forgiveness will begin to flow as you communicate that you didn't know the long-term folly of your request back then.

4. Treat that part of you as a loving member of your family. Let that pattern building part of you know that you love it for dutifully serving your intentions. Recognize and acknowledge that this part of you loves you and only wants what you want. 

5. Request that it take apart the belief that has been holding you back, and further request that it build a new one that takes you where you want to go. This is where visulization and feeling as though it's a reality comes in handy.

Walk yourself through these 5 steps on a regular basis and watch your limiting beliefs come unglued. It's a more respectful and effective way of communicating with the part of you responsible for building your patterns and beliefs.

All the best,
John