Do You Have Dreams Or Goals?

“Whatever you do, or dream you can, begin it. Boldness has genius and power and magic in it.”

by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

“The rung of a ladder was never meant to rest upon, but only to hold a man’s foot long enough to enable him to put the other somewhat higher.”

by Thomas Henry Huxley

In the chapter on basics of decisions we mentioned that without determination and action all we have is a dream.  We’ll expand that today and show you the secret for achieveing your dreams.

Most successful people started with nothing but a dream. They focused on it and slowly developed ways to achieve it. The only outcome could be success. As Sara Jo Schwartz says: “Without dreams, life just happens to us.” So there’s nothing wrong about dreams, in fact, they show us the destination for our life journey. The problem starts if you don’t do anything about it.  If you want to be a football star, you can’t ponder about it while sitting on the couch and watching games on TV. That won’t do anything to move you toward your dream. You need to firmly and fearlessly decide that you want it (decision) and get out and start training (action). There are a lot of obstacles you will encounter on the way to your dream. Some of them will be reasonable, but some will be produced by your fear, and often unreasonable fear. Once you face these obstacles you will see that they weren’t actual obstacles, but minor inconveniences, and that they melt away as you get more close to them.

When a dream is approached more scientifically on your part, it can become a goal. Diana Robinson has a wonderful saying: “A dream is a goal without legs. It is a wonderful thing to have, can be the guiding passion of your life, but unless you clarify it and give it the legs to move toward you, getting there is going to be very much a matter of luck.” If you analyze your dream, you will start to see ways to achieve it. A “way” is your subconscious mind saying “You can do it!“. The more ways you discover, more likely it is your dream/goal will come true. Dreaming of becoming a supermodel while being short and chubby cannot be easily converted to a goal (although it’s not impossible!). It has to be realistic, which means you have to have at least some potential to achieve it.

Some authors, most notably Brian Tracy, suggest that goals need to be SMART - Specific, Measurable, Action-oriented,  Realistic and Time-specific. A good SMART goal would be: I will lose 6 pounds in the next 60 days by jogging each day for 45 minutes. To add more affirmation to it, write it in present tense: I am losing 6 pounds in the next 60 days by jogging each day for 45 minutes. You will immediately realize it’s very specific, measurable and definitely achievable. In the beginning try to stick to short-term, achievable goals under your control. As you progress, start on your lifelong dream. Examine it, answer a lot of “when, who, where, why, how” questions, get specific about it and you’ll transition it to a goal and eventually achieve it. Sometimes you won’t see a way to do something – don’t be discouraged. If you start focusing, deciding and taking action, ways will show up. Ready, Fire, and only then Aim.

Goals are natural succession to dreams. We’ll talk about goal setting and chopping big ones in the next entry.

What dreams are you going to turn into goals this month?

Decide To Be Decisive!

Nothing is more difficult, and therefore more precious, than to be able to decide.

by Napoleon Bonaparte

In the previous entry we reviewed basics of the thinking process. In the future we’ll discuss it in more detail, but today we’ll focus on decisions and how they affect our actions.
A lot of authors have been quoting decision as a universal power to achieving anything. As we established, before anything can be done we have to put some thought in it. After we are certain we want something and think of a way to do/get it, next logical step is to do it. But often, we find ourselves to be procrastinating, although we are very aware that the longer we delay the inevitable, the harder it will get. We always seem to find excuses. For instance, my personal favorite is “I don’t have time right now”. Well guess what: there will never be enough time to do everything we want/need, so now is as good time as any. Without decision, our thoughts cannot transform into actions, so nothing gets done.

Anthony Robbins in his book “Awaken The Giant Within” says that all of our decisions are based on two outcomes – avoiding pain or inducing pleasure. Pain comes in many forms – as guilt, fear, loss, mishap and sometimes indeed as physical pain. We can consider everything that doesn’t bring us pain to be pleasurable. This is a simple view on things, since often our actions are more complex.

If you merely say “I want a new house” while sitting on a couch watching TV, then it is simply a dream, a wish, very vague as well. You have to think of the best way to achieve something, decide firmly what and how will you do and then go out and actually do it. Focus on this decision, give clarity to your intention. The more clarity you have in front of you on the way to an achievement, the easier will the path be.

Make decisions often – it exercises your “decision muscle” and makes it stronger. Once you decide to do something, stay committed to it. That doesn’t mean you have to be rigid – commit to a decision, but be flexible on means and approach. Today, right now, decide to do something you have been putting off for a while. Come on, do it now. Clean up your desktop, e-mail inbox or study room, repaint that wall, take your car to the mechanic… Step away from the computer and do it! You’ll feel more relaxed, happy and better in general after you get it done.

Tomorrow evening we’ll cover dreams and how to turn them into goals.

Are you procrastinating on something that should be done? What is your excuse?

Introducing The Power Of Thinking – How Thoughts Form Our Reality

“Nurture your mind with great thoughts, for you will never go any higher than you think.”

by Benjamin Disraeli

Today we will talk about the most important tool of your mind – power of thinking. If you look back on your past actions (decisions) – even the ones you made today – you will see that they were preceded with a thought. You wouldn’t even open the bedroom door without instructing your mind to get out of that comfortable bed. This process of consciously focusing on something is the most influential thing connected to your actions. There is no way you’re going to go running around the block without thinking about it. Granted, there are things in our daily routine that we do almost unconsciously, but those routines were once only a thought. Then, with repetition, we introduced it into our life and with time it became automatic (subconscious).

By using this process you can introduce anything in your life to become a reflex action. You have a hard time getting up in the morning? Set the alarm clock to wake you up at the same time every day, even on weekends. Force yourself to instantly get out of bed. This sets your internal clock to wake you up, and soon you will find you get up a  few minutes before the alarm rings.  (Of course, it helps if you don’t get wasted the night before or stay up waiting ’till 2 AM for your favorite show.  ) You’ll find this wake-up to be much more pleasant than the metal sound of your clock and soon you’ll be wondering why was it so difficult to get up in the first place.

Power of thinking is life changing by itself. Wipe that smirk off your face – it’s not that simple. You can’t think of money and expect it to magically appear. There are laws of physics which are in place and prevent these things. (It’s a good thing you can’t create money out of thin air – the value of that money would soon be deflated.) But if you think of how to get more money, you’ll use your reason and conclude you have to earn your money somehow. Next step would be analyzing how can you earn money – usually it involves selling goods or services. Maybe you have an old phone you don’t use anymore, maybe you don’t really need that PS3 you bought on impulse, you might have a piece of land you forgot all about, maybe you’re good at designing interiors, creating gardens, painting… Whatever you’re good at is probably something you love to do. So go out and do it, create something of value and sell it. Unfortunately for some, there is no “easy” money, harsh reality is that you will only get money for creating some value. If you don’t know how to do anything good, learn it. Read a book, attend classes, volunteer to work in that field…

By switching your thoughts from “I want that” to “How can I get that” you’ll make tremendous progress towards a better life. Every single one of us has this power of thinking – put it to use TODAY. It’s free. Don’t procrastinate, don’t make excuses, rather follow Nike’s advice – Just Do It.

Every modern author agrees on tremendous power of thought. What are your thoughts on thinking?

Change Your Way!

Everything has been figured out, except how to live.

by Jean-Paul Sartre

Welcome to the website that will change your life. You will learn to live your life to the fullest, break barriers, develop positive attitude and learn to become a decisive person.

After reading and listening to a lot of books by known and not-so-known authors on topics such as “self-help”, “life improvement”, “get rich”, “you are the best”, etc., I’ve come to a conclusion:

Everyone says the same thing all over again, and wraps it in “new”, “innovative”, “secret”, “mystery”, etc.

That doesn’t mean they’re talking crap, it’s just this recycling that gets to me. Life Tutorial will review all self-help authors in a professional way and get the most important parts out for you. It will be a long journey, but there are valuable lessons to be learned on the way. First topics will be reserved for laying out foundations upon which everything is built: thought and decision.

Correction: You will change your life. Have fun doing so.

Are you doing what you want right now? Give me your insights below.