8 Top Goal Setting Strategies

How To Get Your Unconscious Mind
To Focus On Your Goals

EIGHT TOP GOAL SETTING STRATEGIES.

By now you have learned how to set goals and, in particular, to set smart goals .

You may also have downloaded the smart goals worksheet to make thinking through your smart goal an easy thing to do.

Of course achieving goals is not just about setting them! No matter how detailed your thinking your goal now requires focus and action.

Here are eight proven but simple, goal setting strategies used by high achievers specifically for this reason.

Their primary purpose is to educate your unconscious mind about your goals and to get it to come on board!

(It is your unconscious mind that drives most of your behaviour day to day and therefore the results you get).

Goal Setting Strategy #1.Visualise

It's important to know that your brain doesn't distinguish between what you imagine and what is real.

As a result when you imagine achieving your goals you are telling your brain you are achieving your goal.

Visualisation, the process of using your imagination to 'see' what it is you want has been called the most underused 'power' tool available to us.

We all know how to use our imagination – we just don't necessarily know how to do it to increase the likelihood of achieving our goals.

When you visualise, you are simply creating pictures in your own mind of doing, having or being whatever it is you desire. These pictures will generate powerful thoughts and feelings in you. These powerful positive feelings, in turn, help you create and attract whatever it is you want to be, have, or do.

Take time each day to imagine what it will be like for you when you have achieved the goal or goals you want now.

Use all your senses.

See what your life will be like. Colour in the pictures in your mind, make them big and bright.

Hear what you will hear.

Feel how you will feel.

Imagine tasting and smelling your goals if appropriate (for example if you want to open your own restaurant, or you want to have your own vegetable garden…).

Engage all your senses and enjoy the feelings that go with focussing your mind on your future and harnessing the power of visualisation to make that future happen.


Goal Setting Strategy # 2. Make a Vision Board

A vision board (also known as a treasure map or collage) is a tangible tool used to help you 'visualise' your goals more clearly.

It is essentially a collage of pictures and words perhaps pinned to a notice board, glued to a large piece of paper,created as a screensaver or in some other format.

The pictures and words represent all the goals that you have.

For example if you want a job earning $50,000 a year then you would draw, write or print that figure and place it on your vision board.

If you can specify exactly the kind of job you want to attract into your life so much the better...

A vision board is an incredibly powerful tool to keep you focussed and attract the results you want into your life. Take these simple steps to make your own.

Goal Setting Strategy # 3. Make a Mind Movie

A mind movie is the equivalent of a vision board on steroids - all the same benefits plus a lot more.

Essentially it's a movie that you create to represent exactly what you want to achieve in life.

Once it is complete you can watch it over and over again easily programming the future of your dreams into your unconscious mind.

You can find out more here.


Goal Setting Strategy #4 - Believe

"Trust in God, but tie up your camels".

In simple terms believe that you will achieve your goals and then do whatever it takes.

It has been shown that many high achievers share a number of

common beliefs when they set their goals. You may find it useful to try believing these same things too.

Holding positive beliefs or affirmations also helps achieve goals.

For example if you want more money in your life you may wish to tell yourself:

'I am a money magnet' or

'I deserve to have more money in my life'

Start with this list of powerful affirmations .There is something here for everyone.

Goal Setting Strategy #5 - Make Believe...

Have you ever gone into a shop and tried on clothes or shoes pretending that you could afford them?

Or taken the car of your dreams for a test drive, pretending you could afford it?

Have you ever pretended you were someone else?

If you have done anything like this, then you have practised make believe or as it is sometimes called " acted as if".

'Acting as if' is when you pretend you have achieved your goal and are already where you want to be.

In practical terms this means thinking as if, feeling as if and behaving as if, you have already achieved your goal. Thinking and feeling comes first, behaving comes second.

Oprah Winfrey tells the story of how she overcame her terror in her first appearance as a TV news anchor by acting as if she was the famous presenter Barbara Walters. She said she dressed like her, spoke like her, sat like her...overcame her nerves and was successful in the process.

When you change how you think, feel and behave, you reprogramme your unconscious mind. You send different messages to your brain about what to focus on and what to think about.

In turn the reticular activating system in your brain starts to help you notice more of the exact things you need to achieve your goals.

You can 'act as if' you are your boss, if that is the job you want.

You can 'act as if' you know a lot about a certain city if that is where you fancy living.

Buy the sports magazine all about skiing if that is what you want to learn, and so on...


Goal Setting Strategy #6 -Create The Environment

If your goal is to get fit, you need to go to the gym, or perhaps find yourself a walking route, or go to a swimming pool…. Nothing is going to change if you stay at home.

Likewise if you want to give up smoking, it will be difficult if you plan to spend lots of time within the same four walls as friends who are all smokers.

'Creating the environment' is a strategy which encourages you to move away from environments that keep you stuck and move into the environments that will best help you achieve your goals.

You can remind yourself of 'where' you need to be if you pop pictures of the appropriate locations onto your vision board!

Goal Setting Strategy #7 - Seek out Role Models

Do you know anyone who has lost the weight you want to lose and who has kept that weight off?

Do you know anyone who was in a dead end job a while ago and is now in the job of his or her dreams?

Do you know anyone whose marriage was on the rocks and who managed to turn it around?

Whatever your goal, one of the fastest ways of achieving it is to find someone who has already been successful in that area and model them. It's not true to think you have to start from scratch.

Identify people who might be role models for you. People who have already achieved what you want to achieve. Read about them. Call them. Talk to them.

Most people are only too delighted to share their stories and tips.

Goal Setting Strategy #8 - Take Action

"Trust in God", yes, "but tie up your camels".

The second part of this saying is so true. You cannot achieve your goals unless you also take action. And in some instances massive action may be required.

How much action is required? The answer - when you reach your goal that was enough!

Once you have a clear goal in mind, you make a decision whether to put in the work involved or not. The verb 'to decide' comes from the Latin word meaning 'to cut off' i.e. So when you set a goal and truly decide you are going to achieve it, you are effectively cutting yourself off from any other possible outcome.

Whether you achieve your goal or not, in the final analysis, will be a reflection of the decisions you made, the beliefs you held and the action steps you took.

Use the above goal setting strategies and you will be amazed at the results you will achieve.

Each goal setting strategy on its own has been proven time and time again to be highly effective.

Taken together, the influence they should turbo charge your success!

Here's What To Do Next:

Ask yourself 'How can I personally apply these strategies to get my unconscious mind to help me achieve my new goals?'

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