What Are The Most Popular Goals?

What Are The Most Popular Goals?

A Common Sense Approach to Goal Setting

What are the most popular goals? Often, many people set goals to overcome bad habits or negative behavior. Others set goals to achieve success or honor God. Regardless of why you set goals, the New Year offers us the perfect time to set new goals! 

Perhaps you’ve already set your goals, now you must act on your goals. If you haven’t set any goals, now is the time. Having a goals system will ensure that you focus your efforts to achieve success. Keep in mind that a 'goal' is different from a 'wish.' You may wish to be rich, but that doesn't mean you've taken any practical steps to make that 'wish' come true. 

Why would or wouldn’t you set goals? Setting goals is the best way to improve your life. The most common reason for not setting goals is procrastination, but there are lots of other excuses. Ironically, stopping procrastination is one of the most popular goals. So, why not get started now? 

Here are some of the most popular and common personal goals:

1.       Lose weight

2.       Stop  smoking

3.       Earn more money

4.       Vacation

5.       Get out of debt

If those goals don’t appeal to you, or you feel they are not a problem, perhaps you may have higher aspirations.

Here are some popular goals for Christians:

1.       Grow spiritually

2.       Improve marriage

3.       Give more

4.       Save more

5.       Write a book

So, now that you have an idea of the more popular goals, why don’t you set your own? It can be as simple as getting out a piece of paper and a pen. The most important thing is to get started now. 

The goals you choose are the “what” you would like to accomplish. Simply choose 1 to 5 goals and write them down. You may want to do this in a journal or notebook or pin them to the refrigerator. Be specific with your goals and be careful to keep your goals simple and to the point, listing only what is important and realistic to you. If you make too many, you may get discouraged or have problems focusing.

Once you have your goals written down, you’ll want to determine “why” you want to accomplish your goals. This is simply the purpose for accomplishing your goal. The “why” is vital and will keep you motivated when you run into roadblocks or get sidetracked. Be honest with yourself about why these goals are important to you and why you should do them now.

To summarize, the Goal is “What” you want to do and the Purpose is “Why” you must do this now. Once you determine mentally what you want to accomplish, you will unconsciously start taking on behaviors that will bring you to your newly programmed income level. 

Here are some examples of goals, specifics, and purposes:

Goal (What)	Specific	Purpose  (Why)
Stop Smoking	Decrease gradually and No cigarettes after 6 months	To breathe easier and live a longer life with your family.
Lose Weight	Lose 24 lbs. this year	So you can be more physically fit and live a healthier life.
Write a Book	200 page “how to” book	To promote a cause and teach others what you have learned.
Save Money	$40,000 over 10 years	To pay for your children’s college, so they will be able to get a higher paying job.
Give to Charity	10% of your earnings	To give back and help others because you have prospered.

You should now have your goals and your purpose written down. Continuing to take action is vital at this point. If you break your goals down into short steps they will be easier to accomplish. For example, if you want to lose weight, be specific. Let’s say you want to lose 24 pounds this year, you could break that down to 2 pounds per month. Or if you want to write a book, you may write a chapter a month or 2 pages a day.

Getting started requires action steps. So, you may want to journal or keep track of your daily accomplishments. By tracking your successes you will build confidence.

 

If your goal is to stop a bad habit, you will want to think of ways to interrupt your negative pattern. You will want to create a positive reinforcement for the negative one. Create a new association that will provide pleasure for the success.

Over the years I’ve put together a common sense approach for setting goals and broken it down into easy to follow steps.

Steps for Achieving Your Goal(s):

1.       Write down your specific goal and purpose for achieving your goal

a.       First handwrite, this will cause you to further think and visualize your goal

b.      Later you may want to type or print out your goal

2.       Plan your goal setting

a.       Set a specific date for accomplishing your goal

b.      Break your goal down into easily attainable steps

3.       Take action toward accomplishing your goal

a.       Work toward your goal daily

b.      Practice discipline until you form a habit

4.       Visualize yourself achieving your goal

a.       Play a movie in your mind

b.      Watch the movie at night and in the morning

5.       Verbalize your goal

a.       Say “I choose to earn $ (your financial goal here) per year 

b.      I will do this through (your specific plan or job here)"

The most important part of any goal plan is taking action. So, start now! Keep your mind focused on the above steps and start working towards your goal.  Close your eyes picture yourself in the place you want to be.  Don't worry about whether or not it's working or over analyze what you’re doing.  Just keep your mind focused on your goal and discipline yourself to do the steps above on a regular basis.

The following steps will allow you to “really” accelerate your results:

1.       Are you going to dream about this or really do it?

2.       Really print this out right now.

3.       Really paste this next to your computer right now.

4.       Really follow the steps once a day for 30 days.

5.       Do it now and don't let anything get in the way of you accomplishing your goal.

Take action and you will feel better about yourself and others. You will achieve success!

Until next time,

Barry Page
http://pma101.com/PMA 

Set your Financial Goals, Contact us for a meeting.

9 Steps for Achieving Success
An Easy to Follow Guide for the New Year

It seems like yesterday we were celebrating the year 2000, and now we’re almost a decade into the 21st century. This past year has been especially trying for many, and may have even dampened your spirits, but that’s no reason to put your dreams and goals on hold. Often we grow stronger in adversity and we can use our problems or difficulties to strengthen our desire to achieve success.

A great influence in my life once told me, “Life without sacrifice is life without”. When I think back to my most treasured accomplishments, they all came with sacrifice. Whether it be time, labor or money, you will have to give up something to get what you want in life. Sure, some fortunate ones will seem to have it easy, but those who give their all will reap the rewards.

Regardless of your career or occupation, you can achieve your best at what you do. Even if it’s only you that knows that you gave your best, then you will appreciate the satisfaction of knowing that you gave your all. So, I’ve put together 9 steps for helping you achieve your best in 2009.

1. Acknowledge and Recognize Your Situation, Good and Bad – The only way to improve is by recognizing your current position by being completely honest with yourself. Take a personal inventory to determine where you are and where you want to be.

2. Be Proactive – You probably have a secret ambition that you’ve been holding back on. Whatever it is you’ve been wanting to do, just do it. Don’t rely or wait on someone else to motivate you, take initiative and be proactive. Regardless of the outcome, you’ll feel better knowing you tried.

3. Set Clearly Defined Goals – Too many people set a watered down New Year’s resolution (many times it’s the same one from the last 3 years), and forget about it before the month is over. The secret to achieving goals is setting realistic ones that can be broken down into small steps and visualized. You must be able to see yourself achieving the goal, understand exactly what it will take to do so, and follow through with the small steps until complete the overall task. You are the easiest one to break a promise to, so hold yourself accountable by telling your spouse and friends your goals.

4. Educate Yourself – Read often and regularly, and not just the newspaper and magazines. If you will spend 15 minutes in the morning, and 15 minutes at night, reading a non-fiction book, you can read 6 books a year easily. This will keep you informed, inspired, and allow you to grow mentally.

5. Stay Positive – Turn off the bad news and watch or read something positive. Garbage in, garbage out. Associate with uplifting people and develop a positive mental attitude.

6. Be Healthy – Take time to exercise and make it fun. Go ride a bike, join a tennis league or go walking, but make it a habit. We’re all in a hurry these days and it’s easy to eat junk food, so you may have to make an effort to change your diet. Keep some fruit and granola bars handy to hold you over until meal time, and watch what you put into your body.

7. Volunteer or Donate Your Time – It may sound impossible in today’s busy world, but your outlook will change when you see the response from those you help. You can accomplish more by joining a local civic or service group like Rotary or Kiwanis.

8. Give to Charity or Your Church – Experience the joy of giving by sharing a portion of your earnings with others and your rewards will come back to you in abundance.

9. Spend Time with Your Family – Your family will grow stronger when you spend time together. This is the one thing that you can’t go back and do over, so do it now. If you think about it, you can involve your family in all of the suggestions above. When you do, you will truly experience success in life.

Achieve your goals and dreams this year by Going For It!
Barry Page

P.S. Learn more about achieving your goals at http://pma101.com/PMA/positivementalattitude.html

P.P.S. Zig Ziglar publishes a favorite exercise of mine called the wheel of life, you may do a search to find it. If you need help finding it, respond and I'll help. Use it to keep your personal inventory and set goals for the upcoming year. Keep your wheel in balance.

Barry Page publishes multiple websites, and newsletters. He can be reached at:
www.legacyinsurnaceagency.com
www.pma101.com
www.atbmx.com

Developing a Positive Mental Attitude

With PMA, dreams are realized, motivation is improved and greater confidence is created. Our goal is to provide our readers with positive input that will motivate them to achieve their goals.

Your vision of your world is created by your attitude. In other words your outlook on life is determined by how you approach things mentally. By programming your mind to think positive thoughts you can change the picture in your mind and increase your control over the outcome of your actions.

How can you program your mind to think positive thoughts? Over the years I have personally experimented with a multitude of ways to control my attitude, and some work better than others. You’ve no doubt experienced the uplifting feeling of being in a room full of people who are all chanting, yelling or singing; perhaps church or a pep rally. On the other hand you’ve probably been surrounded by negative people, complaining or arguing, leaving you feeling mentally drained.

Unfortunately, our minds are bombarded constantly with negative information. The television is just one example of this, but probably the best. Today’s programming is filled with news stations that run 24/7 broadcasts of the latest travesties. And, we eat it up even though we know that we shouldn’t. It’s like a drug that we can’t get enough of.

Curiosity can work for us in different ways, but often it encourages us to drag ourselves down. The rush of adrenalin you feel when you suddenly find yourself in a pressure situation is similar to the rush of endorphins that flood the mind when you think positive thoughts. Our decision to fill our minds and thoughts with positive, truthful information is a hard one. Partly because of peer pressure and partly because of the curiosity we have.

How many times have you been seduced today? It would be hard to know the answer because it is the job of advertisers to arouse you without your knowing. Today and every day that you turned on the TV and watched a commercial, picked up a magazine and saw a print ad or simply opened your email inbox, you have been assaulted by mind altering advertisements that your mind may not detect.

As adults we train ourselves to avoid these ads and to simply turn the channel, but they are becoming much more sophisticated. Advertisers purchase your demographics from sources that you thought were protected to send you targeted messages. Spammers use complex algorithms to fill your email box with sex and trash. Avoiding this negativity is becoming much harder to avoid.

We will delve deeper into ways to avoid the rubbish later, but for now let’s focus on the positive. Obviously not all advertising is bad, sometimes it’s just hard to interpret. For instance, you’ve probably been touched by ads from charitable organizations that urge you to donate, or insurance companies that encourage you to protect your family. Perhaps these types of ads will leave you with a feeling of hope or accomplishment, because they have touched you in a way that inspires you to do what you feel is good.

Throughout every day we have to decipher the good from the bad. In order to focus on the good it is important to avoid the clutter and pay close attention to our surroundings. Just as our parents warned us to watch who we were friends with, the same applies as adults. We as humans are likely to read, watch and use the same materials as our peers. So, what are the people you spend your time with doing? Is that congruent to what you want for yourself? If not, then you have some important decisions to make.

It’s easy to get caught up in every day life and avoid the things we know can improve our lives. You may want to ask yourself, what was the last book I read? Perhaps you already read motivational or inspirational books. Books and quotes are my favorite way to clear my mind and replenish it with positive thoughts. You may even listen to positive or educational tapes or cd’s in your car, if so you are on your way to a better life.

The Bible is a great source of inspiration and one that can provide hope and instill faith. Attending Church will allow you to surround yourself with others that also have a desire to improve their lives. Inspirational music can fill your heart with love and open your mind to hope. And prayer can provide you with strength in any situation. (NKJ) Psalm 28:1, “To You I will cry, O Lord my Rock: Do not be silent to me, Lest, if You are silent to me, I become like those who go down to the pit.”

Keep reading and keep learning. Inspire hope and faith by surrounding yourself with positive and uplifting people. You have what it takes to be successful in whatever you choose. And until next time, whatever your dreams are,
Go For It!
Barry Page
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Written by Barry Page – President, PMA 101, LLC
© copyright 2005 www.pma101.com
Ocean Springs, MS