How to effectively achieve goals and enjoy the experience

What would you say creates more pleasure - achieving goals or knowing you are on the right path to achieve your goals through undertaking the required actions? From what I have studied it takes shape in two forms; the first being the initial pleasure in the moment of achievement but then there is a subsequent feeling of emptiness if there are no future goals to move onto. Likewise working towards a goal can be immensely satisfying and rewarding over a period of time, but only if you know you are moving towards the goal you truly want.

What I wanted to write about today wasn't about ensuring your stated goals are truly the ones you want, rather I wanted to explore what was required to achieve your goals more efficiently. But also as important, and often ignored, was how to enjoy the journey of achieving the goals and minimizing any stress involved in the process.

When it comes to setting and achieving goals, the majority of us think of something we would like to achieve because of a reason important to us at a point in time. The majority of us don't consider a range of goals or even where a particular goal fits in with their overall life plan...if they have a life plan at all that is! A goal is something in the future and the primary weakness in goal setting today, whether wealth creation, health, business or career is that not enough thought and analysis is put into what is required to achieve the goal. That is, what steps or actions must be undertaken, in a somewhat predetermined order, to achieve your stated objective.

People are generally good at planning or action but not both and this is why goal setting and achievement is always an area we can improve. But the first point I want to make it that time must be allocated to planning the actions and steps necessary to achieve any potential goals.

Time management is also crucial in achieving goals...not much point in setting a goal for the next year that will take an average of 4 hours a day to achieve if you only have 2 hours available. Thus you must know your schedule, be strict in what you do and don't think more inputs to a goal will get you there faster. Often less is more and it is important to minimize the tasks required - performing only what is necessary. But more important is ensuring you act on your plan once you have cleared your schedule accordingly. This is where tools such as neuro linguistic programming (NLP)are useful where old habits and perceptions need to be broken and new ones re-established.

Lastly, goals are often achieved to gain a positive experience or to lose a negative experience. Either way not achieving a goal should not be an option but so many of us set goals that are not achieved. Worst still this becomes a habit and leads to underachievement and future stress due to the fact that you recognize you are not achieving what you want. The solution...don't focus on the goal, just focus on the actions you have identified you must undertake. If it helps create personal principles underlying these eg wanting to get to work early could be attached to a principle around starting the day fresh and wanting to maximise each hour of your life for personal development...something like that but it must work for you. The benefit is that you are more likely to respect yourself for undertaking these actions and not be tempted to continually change or adjust the goal because you are focused on the actions. Focusing on the goal, particularly one in the far future, will lead you to change more often as you become impatient and if you don't achieve then your stress levels and life enjoyment will suffer.

Benefiting from the poor decisions (mistakes) you make

Okay so I used the word 'mistake'...if I had used 'errors' instead I would have been told there is no such thing as an 'error', rather an unwanted/unexpected 'result'.

However back to the heart of the matter how do you benefit, from a personal development point of view, from decisions that do not produce the intended results? Or should I be asking 'do you benefit' from decisions that do not produce the intended results?

Decision making is the basis of our we live our lives, determines the path in life we take, the quality of life we have, and the goals we achieve. But more important then the actual decision made is 'how' we made the decision and 'what' made us choose one decision out of many we could have made? How often do we regret the decision we had made, not only during the next minute, hour or day but years in the future. In relationships, investing, career, business and health...the decisions you make are extremely important.

Now there are many drivers of decision making and the purpose of this piece is not to look at that in too much detail. I will add it is important to recognise that physiology, emotional well-being and living conditions can all impact short term decision making that may or may not be aligned with your inherent life values and motivations. However whilst you cannot guarantee your decision will not always produce the intended result, it is important to learn from what you get but do not want. Why? Because if you continue to follow the same decision making path it is common sense that tells us that the results may again and again not be what you wish for.

So the question you have to ask yourself is whether you are learning from the decisions you make that do not produce the intended results? Are you achieving your goals at work, in your business, your investments and in your relationship and if not are you reviewing the decisions you are making within each to determine how you can improve the decisions you are making? What is it you need to do to improve your decision making? There are a number of things that can contribute to this process - improve your skills or knowledge in a particular area, contemplate whether the 'rules of thumb' you recognise as true are in fact not correct, update your internal 'meta-level' framework and do the opposite of what you are doing to get the result you want.

To truly benefit from poor decisions can be challenging as it may mean altering the principles by which you have been living your life. There is nothing wrong with this as continual personal development should be the goal of every human on this earth. But it can be difficult and life and business coaches with backgrounds in NLP and psychology can make a difference.

It's how you adapt to a situation or event that is important

The natural tendancy we have in life, when facing or experiencing a particular situation, is to live in the present and exhibit an emotion based on this. Whether that be making or losing money from an investment, starting or finishing a relationship, being accepted for a new job or being fired, or even landing in a strange country and feeling out of place - the natural reaction is based on that exact moment in time. If it's determined to be positive your emotion will be as such and if negative likewise.

However little do we realize that the current point in time is just the current point in time and there will be thousands of those moments in the future. What we also ignore is that it's how we react in each momemt that will determine the events and thus emotional reaction in those future moments. When we experience the good times then for many of us it is 'good times forever' and no planning is made for the correction (that occurs as equilibrium in life)or we choose not to accept it. When the less than good times roll around then often it is all about self sympathy and stress rather than planning and putting in place a foundation to take advantage of the future up cycle.

Therefore this leads to the conclusion that it is more important in what you do to move from one present point in time to the next present point in time rather than where you actually are. Let me explain..

If you are in a great situation presently it is not enough to congratulate yourself on where you are - though I would most definitely do that. It is imperative that you take the actions necessary to help ensure that your future life maintains this standard based on your values and purpose at that time. Likewise if you are in a unattractive or undesired situation in the present it is not about only reflecting on where you are today but more important that you identify and act on those steps you must take to move to a desired future point. The reason I say this is that current experiences are not always within your control...but what you do to move forward are and there is no excuse if you do not act.

Conclusion....don't get arrogant in the good times or depressed in the bad, but rather focus on the steps you must take to help ensure as best as possible that your future 'living in the present' experiences are what you truly want.

Live your life by following a successful receipe...

Okay so I was going to have the title as 'why life is the same as baking a cake'...or something along those lines. Then I thought 'too cliche'.

But the message I wanted to communicate is along the same lines. I could keep it real simple by saying 'you get out what you put in' but it's not as simple as that. Achieving what you 'want' in life is not simply about effort. It's about a focused and directed effort that has been refined from past experiences, failures and research. Living a life you 'want' can be tough because it isn't as if your wants remain static...once you achieve one thing then you move onto your next goal. This is usually automatic for achievers in that not having a goal, even though you've reached all in the past, is worst then the difficulties faced in achieving a current goal.

But the fact of the matter is that none of us is owned anything in life and you have to be prepared to take the good with the bad. It doesn't matter how much you think you deserve something or wish for something to happen....even if you think something is 100% guaranteed to happen for you the fact is if it doesn't it doesn't - no matter how much you thought it would.

Neurolinguistic programming or NLP talks about 'toward' and 'away' motivations - either you do something to obtain something or do something to stop something from happening. Now in current economic times we are all being tested; financially challenging, jobs and careers not as secure...this could be leading to relationship and health issues etc etc. However it is what you do now that will make the difference and not a time to give up. To lead the life you want you have to take a path you think is correct, judge the results and if not as you want, make adjustments and try again. This is repeated as long as it takes. It's not about following the same process or 'receipe' but harder but doing things a little different, adding something/taking something away. You can also look at the 'receipe' of another person who has what you want - this is again another theme of neurolinguistic programming or NLP; modelling your actions on another.

Bottom line is that you cannot get out of bed each morning expecting something to happen because you 'deserve it or think it will happen because it did in the past'. Each action has to be attached to a result and you have to be prepared to change your actions if necessary - most important thing is not to ever stop because it might only need one more adjustment for everything to fall into place