Are You Paying Attention

Aug 302010

Are you paying attention?

This is another great guest post from Kasia Rachfall from Fresh Perspective Coaching

Many of us like to accomplish things in our life. For some this may mean traveling to lots of places or writing the next bestselling novel. For some this may mean finishing a marathon or an Ironman. For others it may mean finding joy in a relationship or in one’s work. Whatever accomplishment you want to achieve in your life…make sure you’re paying attention to what’s going on inside and out to know if you’re on the right track or not.

Why would you want to look inside? What does it mean to look inside, anyway? In his book The Holographic Universe, Michael Talbot explores how our beliefs shape our reality. When you believe in something you’re more likely to make it happen – whether it’s healing from a dis-ease or finding a new career.

Beliefs cause us to think a certain way. They cause us to have certain emotions and to behave in certain ways. When our beliefs aren’t congruent with what we want in our lives, they can also cause us to miss opportunities that are standing right in front of us. Sometimes the universe has to literally be sneaky to give us what we want. And even then we may not be aware of what’s going on.

Which is why it’s important to notice what’s going on around outside us too. We may meet people or pick up a random book that gives us exactly what we need to know, and unless we put two and two together, we will completely miss the message.

It’s important to have this awareness and to let go of the limiting beliefs that can create such missed opportunities and stagnation. When we look for ways to think differently and become empowered with tools like NLP that help us easily align our mindset to accomplish all our goals, we achieve those goals in record time.

I have a funny story about this concept that I’d like to share. When I was struggling to build my business I had lots of goals that I wanted to reach. Of course, one of them was a certain level of income. I thought I was doing all the right things and believing and thinking all the right things until I had a huge “aha” one day. I realized that I was afraid of my new career becoming just another j.o.b. that I had left behind because I hadn’t liked the corporate world. I didn’t want to become a robot who traded hours for dollars and was miserable sitting in an office all day long with other miserable employees. No wonder I wasn’t making any money or attracting many clients! By thinking this way I was telling the universe that I didn’t want to work. Now the universe, the wonderful consciousness that it is, was sending me abundance in other ways. For example, in the span of 2 months I won 3 trips that totalled over $20,000 in value! They were spectacular and luxurious trips to neat places and my family and I enjoyed ourselves very much.

So what was my learning? How did I figure this out and finally get my memo from the universe who wanted me to be successful so badly that it had to sneak me money through ballots and contests?

I released the limiting beliefs I had about my new career and life purpose, I aligned my thoughts, attitude, and actions to reflect all the goals I had, and I began to attract the perfect clients and abundance through my work, not through winning contests!

When you look at the areas of your life that are not the way you want them to be, make sure to look inside and outside yourself for the possible misalignments. What do you believe and think about your ability to have that area of your life exactly the way you want? What’s going on in your life that is giving you clues and opportunities to change and create the perfect solution? Then take the necessary action to make it happen. Being, doing, and having the things you want is easy when you’re willing to do whatever it takes to get there.

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Olympian’s, Goal Setting and You

Mental Strenght Coaching and Training 1 Response »

Jan 082010

I love sports…specially the Olympics! I’m in awe of top performing athletes, no matter what the sport.

With the 2010 Winter Olympics almost here and a New Year still fresh with us; I thought we could take a look to these top performing athletes and see what we can learn…specially with goal setting.

Virtually every Olympic athlete shares the same goal: winning the gold medal. (Although a few seem to be there just for the parties – we’re talkin’ about you, Bode).

Seriously, though, the interesting finding from research by sports psychologists is that successful athletes set goals in a very specific way that is far more precise and detailed than just setting one big goal.

The best news: we can all use the goal-setting strategies of elite athletes to achieve more in our everyday lives.

Here’s the most crucial principle: supplement the big, long-term goal with specific, challenging, near-term goals. Then focus more of your effort and attention on those near-term goals.

An athlete who wakes up each day to focus only the gold medal (or the Super Bowl, or the World Series, etc.) will quickly become overwhelmed. He or she will start to wonder:

How can I get from here to there?

As two experts on sports psychology, May and Veach, put it: “Repeated daily focusing on long-term goals is often counter-productive. The focus is too far into the future and prevents the athlete from completing the intermediate steps essential to ultimate success.”

What happens when you focus on near-term goals?

According to the scientific research, lots of good stuff, including…

Heightened performance and success
Greater likelihood of accomplishing goals and making life changes
A stronger sense of confidence and self-efficacy
More determination and persistence, particularly after setbacks
More enjoyment and intrinsic interest in the topic

What happens when you don’t set near-term goals, or focus too heavily on long-term goals? I call it “the goal gap,” and it’s a perfect recipe for procrastination and rumination – thinking about goals, but not taking action toward goals. It’s also a recipe for general unhappiness.

People who focus too much on their long-term goals view those goals as more difficult, more pressure-filled, and less enjoyable. And at the same time their near-term goals seem less relevant and satisfying.

Who avoids the goal gap, and successfully leverages the power of near-term goals? The scientific research points to many examples, including…

Successful athletes, as we described above
Successful students. Research conducted at Stanford University found that students struggling in math significantly improved their grades, and their psychological well-being, by focusing on near-term goals
Successful business and military leaders. Effective leaders often “segment” or “compartmentalize” complex tasks or missions into smaller, “bite-sized” sub-missions.
Resolution-keepers. Less than 20% of New Year’s resolution-makers become resolution-keepers. One of their key success strategies: focusing on near-term goals.
Happy people. Those who are most satisfied with life are those working toward enjoyable, moderately challenging goals of high short-term importance.

It’s easy to use the power of near-term goals to achieve more success in your everyday life. Just don’t go overboard by making goals “too near-term.” For example, students asked to make general monthly plans and goals perform better than those asked to make highly specific daily plans.

They spend more time studying, study more effectively, procrastinate less, and get better grades. Monthly planners experience more flexibility in crafting strategies for accomplishing their goals. They more easily adjust “on the fly” and are less easily “derailed” by changes in circumstance.

A daily planner who gets a mild case of the flu quickly finds his daily goals unattainable, resulting in disappointment and a loss of momentum. General planners enjoy the process of planning more, gaining a sense of designing their lives, while highly specific planners get the sense of their lives being controlled by their appointment books and PDAs.

The bottom line: Set weekly or monthly goals, and work aggressively toward them while giving yourself some flexibility about how to achieve them. Do this, and you’ll not only get the maximum performance boost, but you’ll also be setting goals like an Olympic champion.

Mental strength coaching and training will help you develop the strong mind-set need to set and stick with your goals. And presuming you have your strategy and tactics in place, with the development of the mind-set you WILL be able to accomplish your desired goals.

If you need assistance in determining your top 5 goals, developing a plan to achieve your goals, or sticking with plan…I’m here to help you.

Let me know how I can assist you OK?