When you set goals that are Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic and Time specific and still do not achieve your goal.
If I could show you a simple way that you can achieve any goal that you want, would you be interested? You may already be aware how some of the goals you set get accomplished and some don’t. ‘I want to be on time for a meeting, I want to earn $5000 a month, I want to be financially independent, I want to buy a dress for the work event on Friday night, I want to go to the gym 3-4 times a week…’
I invite you to remember some of the goals you set in the recent past. Go back to them and see what you saw, hear what you heard and feel what you felt when you set them. Which goals you accomplished and which you didn’t? If the goals you set were SMART and you didn’t achieve your goals you will get some great insights in this blog.
I recently gave a talk at the Business Women Network of Singapore on how to make your goals smarter. I’ve noticed that a number of my clients had SMART goals and were still not achieving them. So I showed them what lay beneath those goals.
Imagine an iceberg, the tip of it is your SMART goals and what lies beneath is the foundation based on which they are achieved. When you look below the surface you may become aware of the interferences that hold you back. Beliefs that are limiting, ‘I’m not good enough, I don’t have enough experience, the market is bad’. Followed by negative self-talk that supports those beliefs that create habits and behaviours, such as procrastination, anxiety, and confusion. Just like an iceberg, what lies beneath supports what’s on top.
In order to make our goals SMARTER, we need to add the E + R
E = Experience our goals
R= Release negatives and become resourceful
To experience our goals we need to we need to visualize them in the future, making them more tangible rather than theoretical. What would it look like when we achieved the goal, what would we hear and how would we feel. As Dr. Wayne Dyer (American philosopher and motivational speaker) says, “Imagine myself to be and I shall be”.
By visualizing and experiencing our goals we program the unconscious mind to focus on what we want, we activate the law of attraction and increase internal motivation.
Esther Hicks who wrote The Law of Attraction, states that if you hold a thought for 17 seconds it reaches combustion point and becomes powerful. If you continue to hold it in multiples of 17 seconds it grows exponentially. This is how we manifest the things we visualise.
In order to release negatives, we need to cancel, erase and replace any negative self talk that we have. So when the inner voice says, ‘I’m not good enough’, we cancel and erase that thought and replace it with an empowering thought or affirmation. We could replace the ‘I’m not good enough’ thought with ‘If I’m committed there is always a way’. Or the ‘what if I fail’ thought with, ‘there is no failure, only feedback’. That’s right. Our thoughts create feelings and the feelings create the actions. Empowered thoughts create empowered actions.
And finally being resourceful: In Anthony Robbins Total Success workshop he talks about being in a peak state for peak performance. Our state is the mood we are in, how we are holding ourselves. If we are irritable, complaining, tired and slouching in our chair, are we in a state to conquer our goals? We need to keep ourselves energized by exercising, meditating and investing in ourselves. Take the necessary actions to be in a peak state.
I invite you to examine what lies beneath the goals you are setting. Once you are aware and accept the beliefs, self talk, habits and behaviors you can take action to change them.
Setting SMARTER Goals - A talk at the Business Women Network of Singapore