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Each week receive exciting news, tips, articles and advice on how to be the successful person you've always wanted to be.
"Self Improvement Front Line" will guide you along the path to achieving all your goals in life with regular sections on all the important facets of your personal development.
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Newsletter 007
In "Self Improvement Front Line" this week:
* 6 Factors of Successful Goal setting
* The 3 Most Prominent Personal Growth Barriers
* Why Missing My Targets Was Not So Bad
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6 Factors of Successful Goal Setting
There are many methods for goal setting, some more successful
than others but it is important to understand that whatever
your goal may be it is highly likely that someone else has
already achieved what you are setting out to do, or at least
something very similar.
So it is possible, you just need to formulate your plan.
Take time to research the subject concerned. Visit your local
library, buy magazines and surf the net to find out as much as
you can. Then concentrate on clearly writing out your plan:
You should have a structured approach and your plan should
feature the following areas:
- Accurate Description – You must write down clearly what you
want to achieve. For example, if you want to start a business
what sort of business is it? Do you want to work alone or
with a partner? Do you want to work from home and for how
many hours? Be precise about the details or else it will simply
not happen.
- Priorities – You must be sure what your priorities are. Be
careful not to set targets that are unrealistic in the context
of your life.
- Obstacles – Examine what may stand in the way of you achieving
your aims. How can you overcome any obstacles? Be as honest and
thorough as you can even if it means confronting areas of your
own personality or your own abilities.
- Timescale – Your objectives must be timed so be clear in
stating when you intend to achieve them. This may be weeks but
it could be years. Be honest and realistic in defining your
timescales.
- Measures – You must have a way of measuring your progress
towards your goal. You must regularly review how far you have
gone and ensure that it is a written record of some form.
Maybe you could keep a journal or a diary. Set targets for
set periods of days, months, years etc and monitor your
progress.
- Motivation – You must understand your motives for setting
the goal. What are your reasons for doing what you are doing?
Be prepared to accept that what you want may change. So be
flexible and make alterations to your goals if need be. Don’t
let the pursuit of your goals become a chore.
And one other tip - write your goals in the present tense rather
than the future.
Use sentences like: “I am running my own successful business
from home”; “I live in a large 5 bedroom house with a swimming
pool and a paddock and stables for my two horses”; “I am a
confident and happy person.”
That way your mind will accept more readily what it is you want
to achieve and the steps you need to take to do so.
So start planning!
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The 3 Most Prominent Personal Growth Barriers
Author: Deon Du Plessis
What’s the deal with all this personal growth and self
development business? Why bother in the first place? Charles
Atlas who earned himself the title as the ‘the world's most
perfectly developed man’ had this to say: ‘Truest SUCCESS is
but the development of self.’
It’s so easy to treat personal development as ‘optional’ and so
few people ever take the time to actively improve themselves.
Your personal growth and self development is arguably one of
the most important thing you can do with your time. You can
even argue that to actualize your true potential is the purpose
of being here. In many ways all your actions are geared towards
‘self improvement’. Everything you do, you do with a positive
intent. This, however is mostly unconscious and for the
majority of people it’s a case of pursuing ‘things’ and ‘stuff’
with the (all to common) assumption that when they get enough
stuff they will be happy.
You don’t have to search too far to find just how wrong this
theory really is. Every day we read about ‘extremely
successful’ people who end up in rehab or who kill themselves.
Why? To return to Charles Atlas – true success is but the
development of your ‘self’. At no point in your life can you
just stop and say ‘now I am successful – I think I’ll take the
next 10 years off’. Unfortunately this is ‘the dream’ that so
many people aspire to.
The key to a lifetime of happiness lies in personal growth.
Real and lasting fulfillment in life comes from consistently
improving the quality of your life. Life is dynamic and it has
to keep moving. Like in nature, everything that does not grow,
dies! You will either grow or die, and although you probably
won’t die a physical death, you most certainly will suffer a
psychological death. Depression is but one example of the
effects of failing to grow as a person. If you are not growing
you will feel like you are dying.
Every day life hands us opportunities to grow. They are mostly
disguised as problems and unfortunately most people curse them
instead of seeing the wonderful opportunities that they
present. Earl Schoff once said ‘Don’t wish for less problems.
Wish that you were better’. This is where personal growth comes
to play and you must do it on purpose and with an active state
of mind.
So why do people fail to actively participate in their own
personal growth? Well, there are certain personal growth
barriers that prevent them from actively progressing in any
area of your life. The key word being ‘actively’. The three
biggest personal growth barriers are three interrelated
behaviours that tend to keep us immobilized and locked up in
inaction. The result being the failure to progress with our
lives.
Personal Growth Barrier #1: Procrastination
Procrastination is the irrational delay of tasks, especially
important ones. On a conscious level you might want a specific
result and you know what course of action to take, but still
you remain immobilized. The failure to act is what keeps you
where you are. It is likely that what you are procrastinating
about is what you MUST do as this will help you grow in your
ability to take action and just do it. Keep in mind that you
only procrastinate about tasks that you value and at some level
you know you will benefit from it.
Personal Growth Barrier #2: Indecision
Every single action is preceded by a decision. The ancestor to
every action is a decision and the failure to act can be traced
back to the failure to make decisions. The ironic thing is that
not making a decision is a decision - isn’t it? Indecision is
like a disease that you have to eradicate from your life.
Indecision is simply the result of a fear of failure and by not
making a decision you can’t fail – right? Realize that nothing
in the future has happened yet and fearing the worse possible
outcome will almost certainly keep you from making the
decision. If you don’t make the decisions you won’t take the
actions and you will remain immobilized.
Personal Growth Barrier #3: Comfort Zones
Comfort zones are all those things that you are too familiar
with – and often to the point where you don’t even attempt
anything else. Inside your comfort zones everything is known
and you have this sense of certainty that you can comfortably
deal with anything that comes your way. You’ve done it before
and you feel ‘at ease’ with it. Stepping outside your comfort
zones challenge your beliefs and it challenges your
perceptions. Stepping outside your comfort zones however,
challenges you to grow as a person – you have to grow to get
comfortable outside your old comfort zone. Most of your
limitations are self imposed and controlled by what you believe
you can or cannot do, what you like or dislike, what you think
is right or wrong. You have to keep stretching your ‘self’
physically, emotionally, mentally and spiritually to avoid
standing still and remaining imprisoned by your comfort zones.
Oliver Wendell Holmes once said ‘Man's mind, once stretched to
new idea never goes back to it's original dimensions.’
All barriers are only that – they are barriers. It often
strikes me how these typical vehicle barriers at boarder check
points are so ‘flimsy’. They can hardly stop a bicycle, yet
they stop big sixteen wheelers. The barrier is more
psychological than actual. So are the barriers to your personal
growth. They can stop you, but they can’t keep you unless you
allow them to. Simply acknowledge them and then move on.
Personal growth is a choice and it’s an active process. To
ensure a happy and fulfilled life that is filled with joy and
appreciation you have to consistently grow and expand your
‘self’.
About The Author: To move past your barriers, sign up for Deon
Du Plessis’ revealing new Course (free) at
http://overcoming-procrastination.com/5.php and discover some
of his highly effective strategies for overcoming
procrastination and indecision.Website:
http://overcoming-procrastination.com/
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Why Missing My Targets Was Not So Bad
Well we're now just a few days into the New Year and the first
tentative steps are being taken towards achieving the goals we
have set for ourselves.
As someone who runs a business this includes moving towards
the targets I have set for the business.And in planning those
targets it meant taking a look back at what was achieved in
2007.
Now I set myself some pretty stiff objectives for my business
last year - starting to publish this weekly newsletter was just
one of them - and they certainly stretched me. In fact they
were too tough! And so some of them were not accomplished. But
really that's not a problem, just as long as I learn from my
mistakes and move on.
But sadly when we do set goals and then fail to achieve them
it can lead to negative thinking and the tendency to dwell on
our so-called failure. That should be avoided, but how?
Well one thing I did recently was sit down with a few large
sheets of paper and write down everything I had achieved
during the year. Well the list just went on and on and soon
instead of fretting about the missed targets I was praising
myself on all that I had achieved. It's something I do at
regular intervals as I review my business and personal goals.
That way I can highlight the successes and adjust as necessary,
and set out a plan for, the things that still need working on.
Writing that list of acievements really does work in providing
motivation for yourself. I've written before about the need to
always think positively. Instead of dwelling on what you
haven't got or what you haven't achieved focus on the positive
things in your life.
If you are short of money or have debts think about what you
can do to make money and about the things that you do have.
If you have health problems don't feel sorry for yourself but
focus on what you can do to improve the situation.
Whatever troubles you may have in your life, you have the power
to change by concentrating on positive steps to overcome them.
You must have goals and a way of measuring them.
And a great place to start is with a list like mine that
includes:
- Everything you have achieved.
- All the skills you have, no matter how small or insignificant
you might think they are.
- All the friends and loved ones you have that care about you.
- All the positive aspects of your health.
- All the possessions you have.
- All your happy memories.
Write down everything you can think of, no matter how small.
You will soon find that you have lots to be grateful for and
a huge amount that makes you the special and unique person
that you are.
Then highlight the key things on the list and build your goals
around them. Success won't be far away and your confidence and
self-esteem will grow too!
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