“The potential of the average person is like a huge ocean unsailed,

a new continent unexplored, a world of possibilities waiting to be released

and channeled toward some great good.”

Brian Tracy

Success is goals, and all else is commentary. All successful people are

intensely goal oriented. They know what they want and they are

focused single mindedly on achieving it, every single day.

Your ability to set goals is the master skill of success. Goals unlock

your positive mind and release ideas and energy for goal attainment.

Without goals, you simply drift and flow on the currents of life. With

goals, you fly like an arrow, straight and true to your target.

The truth is that you probably have more natural potential than you

could use if you lived one hundred lifetimes. Whatever you have

accomplished up until now is only a small fraction of what is truly

possible for you. One of the rules for success is this, it doesn’t matter

where you’re coming from; all that matters is where you’re going.

And where you are going is solely determined by yourself and your

own thoughts.

Clear goals increase your confidence, develop your competence and

boost your levels of motivation. As sales trainer Tom Hopkins says,

Goals are the fuel in the furnace of achievement.

You Create Your Own World

Perhaps the greatest discovery in human history is the power of your

mind to create the aspects of your life. Everything you see around

you in the man-made world began as a thought or an idea in the

mind of a single person before it was translated into reality.

Everything in your life started as a thought, a wish, a hope or a

dream, either in your mind, or in the mind of someone else. Your

thoughts are creative. Your thoughts form and shape your world and

everything that happens to you.

The great summary statement of all religions, philosophies,

metaphysics, psychology and success is this: “You become what you

think about — most of the time.” Your outer world ultimately

becomes a reflection of your inner world, and mirrors back to you

what you think about. Whatever you think about continuously

emerges in your reality.

Many thousands of successful people have been asked what it is that

they think about most of the time. The most common answer given

by successful people is that they think about what they want, and how

to get it most of the time.

Unsuccessful, unhappy people think and talk about what they don’t

want most of the time. They talk about their problems and worries,

and who is to blame, most of the time. But successful people keep

their thoughts and conversation on the topics of their most intensely desired goals.

They think and talk about what they want most of the time.

Living without clear goals is like driving in a thick fog. No matter

how powerful or well engineered your car, you drive slowly,

hesitantly, making little progress on even the smoothest road.

Deciding upon your goals clears the fog immediately and allows you

to focus and channel your energies and abilities. Clear goals enable

you to step on the accelerator of your own life and leap ahead rapidly

toward achieving more of the things you really want.

Your Automatic Goal Seeking Function

Imagine this exercise: you take a homing pigeon out of its roost, put it

in a cage, cover the cage with a blanket, put the cage in a box and

then place the box into a closed truck cab. You can then drive a

thousand miles in any direction. If you then open the truck cab, take

out the box, take off the blanket and let the homing pigeon out of the

cage, the homing pigeon will fly up into the air, circle three times and

then fly unerringly back to its home roost a thousand miles away.

This is the only creature on earth that has this incredible cybernetic,

goal-seeking function, except for man.

You have the same goal achieving ability as the homing pigeon, but

with one marvelous addition. When you are absolutely clear about

your goal, you do not even have to know where it is or how it is to be

achieved. By simply deciding exactly what it is you want, you will

begin to move unerringly toward your goal, and your goal will start to move unerringly toward you. At exactly the right time, and in

exactly the right place, you and the goal will meet.

Because of this incredible cybernetic mechanism located deep within

your mind, you always achieve your goals, whatever they are. You

move toward them and they move toward you. If your goal is to get

home at night and watch television, you will almost certainly achieve

it. If your goal is to create a wonderful life full of health, happiness

and prosperity, you will achieve that as well. Like a computer, your

goal seeking mechanism is non-judgmental. It works automatically

and continuously to bring you what you want, regardless of what

you program into it.

Nature doesn’t care about the size or scope of your goals. If you set

little goals, your automatic goal achieving mechanism will enable

you to achieve little goals. If you set large goals, this natural

capability will enable you to achieve large goals. The size, scope and

detail of the goals you choose to think about most of the time is

completely up to you.

Why People Don’t Set Goals

Here is a good question: If goal setting is automatic, why is it that so

few people have clear, written, measurable, time-bounded goals that

they work toward each day? This is one of the great mysteries of life.

I believe there are four reasons why people don’t set goals.

Goals Aren’t Important

First, most people don’t realize the importance of goals. If you grow

up in a home where no one has goals, or you socialize with a group

where goals are neither discussed nor valued, you can very easily

reach adulthood without knowing that your ability to set and achieve

goals will have more of an effect on your life than any other skill.

Look around you. How many of your friends or family members are

clear and committed to their goals?

They Don’t Know How

The second reason that people don’t have goals is because they don’t

know how to set them in the first place. Even worse, many people

think that they already have goals, when in reality, what they

actually have are a series of wishes or dreams like, “Be happy,” or

“Make a lot of money,” or “Have a nice family life.”

But these are not goals at all. They are merely fantasies that are

common to everyone. A goal however is something distinctly

different from a wish. It is clear, written and specific. It can be

quickly and easily described to another person. You can measure it,

and you know when you have achieved it, or not.

It is possible to take an advanced degree at a leading university

without ever receiving one hour of instruction on goal setting. It is

almost as if the people who determine the educational content of our

schools and universities are completely blind to the importance of goal setting in achieving success later in life. And of course, if you

never hear about goals until you are an adult, as I experienced, you

will have no idea how important they are to everything you do.

The Fear of Failure

The third reason that people don’t set goals is because of the fear of

failure. Failure hurts. It is emotionally and often financially painful

and distressing. Everyone has had failure experiences from time to

time. Each time, they resolve to be more careful next time and avoid

failure experiences in the future. They then make the mistake of

unconsciously sabotaging themselves by not setting any goals at

which they might fail. They end up going through life functioning at

far lower levels than are truly possible for them.

The Fear of Rejection

The fourth reason that people don’t set goals is because of the fear of

rejection. People are afraid that if they set a goal and are not

successful, others will criticize or ridicule them. This is one of the

reasons why, when you begin to set goals, you should keep your

goals confidential. Don’t tell anyone. Let them see by your results

and achievements what you have accomplished, but don’t tell them

in advance. What they don’t know can’t hurt you.