Category Archives: Goals

Inoculate Against Letdown Depression

When I was a kid my dad took me bird hunting.

I was pretty excited. Buying the gear was exciting.

Driving to the small motel in the small town was exciting.

Getting up super early and eating breakfast in the 24H diner was exciting.

Driving out to the field to hunt was exciting.

The actual hunting part?

Pretty boring.

We all spread out across a big field.

And then waited.

Despite all our preparation, the most important part of bird hunting is being patient.

If the birds don’t come, you have nothing to shoot at.

All that preparation, excitement, buildup for a pretty lame payoff.

I remember once commenting to my friend after a HUGE dinner party.

She’d spent a couple weeks preparing, worrying, looking up recipes.

But the actual eating part was over in about an hour.

Lots of preparation, but BOOM! It was over.

A lot of things are like this.

Problems develop when you expect the payoff to be TOO BIG and monumental.

As if it’s going to change everything.

When in reality, it’s the preparation, the building that is the best part.

This is why having HUGE goals WAY out there is better than ONLY having a couple of short term ones.

Many people fall into the trap of thinking they “only” need that one “thing” and then FINALLY, everything will somehow “click” into place.

Unfortunately, when (or if) it does “click” into place, it’s only for a little bit.

And if you somehow convince yourself that getting that “thing” is going to solve your problems FOR GOOD, then you might have a lot of “post success letdown.”

Olympic athletes that win gold medals, championship sports teams, even soldiers returning from war or active duty experience this.

They focus on that BIG GOAL so much, that when it happens, they don’t know what to do. Because they’ve focused on that BIG GOAL so much, they didn’t notice that increase in energy, focus, intensity and all other things that are necessary for a fulfilling life along the way.

And when that BIG GOAL is achieved, all that energy that got them there is GONE.

It’s very easy to feel empty after that.

So at the very least, you’ve got have another goal in your back pocket ready to go when that goal in front of you is realized.

OR, make sure to create a MASSIVE ONE that is literally bigger than life.

Bigger than YOUR life.

That way, you’ll always have forward drive, forward momentum, and all of the other good stuff that makes life worth living.

Most people don’t have goals. And those that do tend to have goals that they didn’t choose, but were given to them by others.

It’s your life, and your choice.

Build it YOUR way.

Get Started:

Mind Persuasion Ebooks

Build Your Castle

Occasionally, I’ll re-read a novel I’ve read a long time ago.

I can’t do this with every book, only a few.

The ones I really get into, the characters I identify with or would like to identify with.

It’s interesting to read an epic in different points in your life.

Your response to it, and how you imagine yourself within it is much different from a Junior High School perspective than as an adult.

That’s one of the reasons classics are classics. They appeal across all times, ages, and levels of life experience.

Especially super old stories like mythology or Aesop’s fables.

They touch on the common truths of human existence. What it’s like to struggle. To fail. To succeed.

Many times two people are playing eye contact games across a crowded room.

And they are each thinking the same thing.

“I like that person. I’d like to talk to them. But I’m nervous to make the first move. If they walked over here and started talking with me, that would certainly be cool.”

Most of the time, though, nobody makes a move, and both people go home wondering “what if.”

Most people spend their entire lives like that. Waiting for some external “spark” to get them going.

Even in common stories, there’s always some external “event” that FORCES the hero onto his or her journey.

Rarely does some normal person wake up, and decide that they are going to create a brand new life.

But if you WANT a brand new life, that’s what you’ve got to do.

Remember, stories are the way we WISH life was, not the way it really is.

If they made books and movies about the way our lives REALLY were, they’d be pretty boring.

Even those “reality” shows are highly scripted. Sure, the stuff people are saying and doing are “in the moment.”

But those people are carefully selected in hopes they’ll be MAXIMUM fireworks. And they film a whole week and only edit together the best hour.

Sure, it’s great to get “discovered.” To get “picked,” but it’s not always the best strategy.

Generally speaking, in the real world, people who succeed the most are the people that get out there and make things happen.

Not those who wait for things to happen.

But you don’t have to kill dragons every day. Not even close. All you need is a huge goal, WAY OUT in your future.

And every day, simply take small steps in that direction.

Because you build a massive life the same way you build a massive castle.

One brick at a time.

Get Stated:

Mind Persuasion Ebooks

Are You Scared Of Setting Goals?

Make It Because Of You

Most people know that goals are important.

Yet at the same time, most people don’t have goals.

One of the reasons is that most people are terrified of failure.

AND people like an unknown, potentially bright future.

Being an entrepreneur is often thought to be a skill only a few lucky people have.

But the real truth is that EVERYBODY is an entrepreneur. It’s really just a matter of degree.

What does an entrepreneur do? They look at what they have. They imagine what they can do with that. Then they try to make something better out of what they have. If they are in business, they take raw skills, raw equipment, raw ideas, and turn them into products and services. If they produce something people want, they get more money out of the system than they get in.

On the one hand, it makes perfect sense. But on the other hand, it’s like magic.

Consider one experiment an economist did. He had a large class of college kids. In each chair, he placed an object. A random object worth a couple dollars. He had everybody look at this random object, and measure their current state of “happiness,” on a scale of one to ten. Then he calculated the “total happiness” by multiplying each person’s score, times the number of people.

Then he let people trade. Their “stuff” for other people’s “stuff.” They had fun trading, and most people ended up with something better than what they started with.

Why?

Because everybody’s “junk” is somebody else’s “treasure.”

And after the experiment, he did the same thing. Measured their individual “happiness” and the “total happiness.”

And guess what? As you’d expect, the total happiness INCREASED. By a lot.

Nothing new was introduced into the room. Same people. Same amount of stuff. More happiness.

The reason we “like” having “vague” goals is that it allows us to imagine some awesome future way out there.

Once we set a goal (we imagine) we think we’re stuck. Especially if we fail.

The problem is that if we only have a vague set of goals, it’s hard to get motivated. It’s easy to fall into the trap of thinking that it will happen “to” us, instead of “because of” us.

Luckily, there are three simple cures for this.

One is to make your goal super big. Concrete, and well defined, but super big.

Two is to add on the simple statement, “or better” at the end. That won’t lock you in to anything.

Three is to allow yourself to redefine your goal as you get more information.

This way, you get the best of both worlds.

You get to dream big, AND you get to be motivated by something big, so you’ll be motivated to take action.

Get Started:

Mind Persuasion

Are You Waiting For Meaning?

Choose Your Own Direction

Once I was dating this girl. We’d been together about a year.

It was pretty clear that the magic was starting to fade. Every time we’d get together, we’d just kind of go through the motions. Eventually we parted ways, both realizing that was best.

Sometimes on the weekends I’ll go to the local mall. If there’s decent movie to see, and I happen to be in the middle of a good book, I’ll get there a couple hours before the show starts.

Hang out in a coffee shop and read. Catch the show. Do some window shopping, then head out.

Sometimes when I’ve got a couple hours to kill before a meeting or event, I’ll go downtown and wander around.

Most people find that it’s pretty easy to feel lost. That life doesn’t have a point. That there’s no meaning.

But here’s the thing. Most people are waiting for somebody else to give the meaning. Some external “thing” that defines their lives. Some people happen to “meet” the right person, and it works out. Then they happen to “find” the right job, which turns into a career. Then you can feel like you’re onto something.

But for more and more of us, that doesn’t really “happen” any more.

The world is different. The economy is different.

Which means it’s up to YOU.

Only YOU can define what your life is for. Only YOU can give your life direction. Only YOU can choose where you are going in your life.

Most people have very vague wishes of things they’d like to have “happen” in their lives.

Very, very few take the time to take those vague wishes, and turn them into concrete goals, backed by concrete plans.

In reality, it doesn’t take long to do that. We humans come preprogrammed with very STRONG desires.

Money. Security. Companionship. Recognition. Self-fulfillment.

It’s up to YOU to take those vague instincts, and turn them into action plans. How long will that take? If you’re serious, not very long.

And once you get started on your action plan, you’ll simply redefine them as you go along. The more things you try, the more feedback you’ll get, and the more enlightened you’ll become on how to get there.

Only THEN will your life have real meaning. A meaning few ever feel.

Why?

Most people are terrified. Most people think that if they choose one big goal for their lives, they may fail. Which means their life is meaningless.

But the paradox is that the only way for your life to NOT be meaningless is to choose your life. Live your life. Leave your mark.

Stop waiting, and start acting.

These will help:

Mind Persuasion

Jump Without Fear

Know Where You’re Going

When I was younger I had this girlfriend.

Often times we’d go out, but neither of us really had a plan. So we’d end up driving around, only to end up at some cafe or restaurant.

Of course, just being together was enough, but sometimes it felt pretty silly.

“What do you want to do?”

“I dunno, what do you want to do?”

The first time I went bungee jumping I was pretty terrified. Leaning over the edge was pretty scary.

The second time was a lot of fun, since I knew what to expect. I actually looked forward to doing something that almost made me pass out from fright earlier.

Whenever you want to do something scary or important, it’s natural to feel inner conflict.

Even if you’re really sure you want to buy something, part of you wonders if maybe you should wait until something better comes along.

In economics, they call these “opportunity costs.” If you do X, you CAN’T do Y.

One the deadliest things to have, both from an internal perspective, and an outward demonstration, is incongruence.

If you are an athlete, and you’re trying to “fake somebody out” but you’re not good at it, it won’t work. It’s clear to them you’re only “faking” left. They can read you like a book.

If you’re interacting socially, being incongruent can be the kiss of death. On the outside, you may appear to be friendly, but you’re sending out a creepy vibe.

Studies have shown that incongruence is the most devastating trait to have in sales and social relationships.

Clearly, it’s also a HUGE impediment to any kind of success. You’ll never get out there and do what needs to be done if you’re conflicted on the inside. Even when you DO take action, it will be half-hearted at best.

How do you get congruent?

One way is to make sure your goals are VERY clearly defined. Know what you’re getting. Know what you’re going to HAVE TO give up. Have a pretty clear idea of what it will take to get there.

The reason my second bungee jumping trip was fun was that I KNEW it was going to be fun. I had experience that I wouldn’t end up as a splat on the pavement.

But you can also do this by taking plenty of time to visualize your WELL DEFINED GOAL.

The bigger and brighter it becomes, in your mind, the more certainty and inner congruence you’ll develop.

Spend plenty of time DEFINING your goal, and plenty of time CHARGING your goal with your emotions.

These will help:

Mind Persuasion

Avoid The Two Tragedies of Life

They Both Suck

One thing your brain is good at is categorizing things.

Scientists have discovered that primitive cultures have an inherent knowledge of different plant species.

They intuitively know which plants, even when they see them the first time, whether they’ll be good for medicine, or eating, or clothing.

Surprisingly, these instinctive categories match up pretty closely with scientific categories.

One of the Meta Programs, those semi-permanent filters we carry around with us, is to sort by similarity, or sort by differences.

Like if you looked at a bunch of shapes, you might automatically see how they were similar to each other, or different from each other.

Knowing how you do this can help. Sometimes sorting by similarity is helpful, sometimes sorting by difference is helpful.

If you always choose “bad” relationship partners, for example, you might be sorting for something similar when you should be sorting for something different.

They say insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result.

One way to get out of any rut is to make a pretty big change. Nothing HUGE, like moving to new city, but rearranging all your furniture, or changing your schedule around.

This can kind of shake up the way you look at things, so you’ll see things a bit differently. Start noticing things that are helpful, and suddenly not notice those things that aren’t helpful.

Often times we think we want something, but only part of us does. Or we want only part of what we think we want.

Whenever we’re attempting to manifest something, we often overlook two crucial areas.

One is what we’ll have to give up if we get it. The other is what we’ll have to accept if we get it.

They say there are two tragedies in life. One is not getting what you want. The other is getting it.

Why is this?

Well, if you never get what you want, or never even try, that clearly sucks.

But if you DO get what you want, what then? Sit around and watch TV? Hang out down at the bar and watch TV there?

The truth is that the pursuit of goals is where you’re most happy. When you’re taking action, measuring your results, and getting closer and closer.

Think about this. You’ve got this HUGE goal out there. You figure it may take a couple of years. So you start taking action. Then you start getting closer. Then you come to a FANTASTIC realization.

That original goal is simply to big enough. The closer you get, the bigger you make it, and the further you push it out there.

If you haven’t chosen something BIG, or haven’t started moving toward it, you should.

It’s pretty exciting when you do.

These will help:

Mind Persuasion

How To Quit Giving Up

Transform Wishes Into Goals

If you’re like me, you’ve started and stopped a lot of projects in your life.

When I was a kid I had a friend who built all kinds of models. Planes, cars, buildings.

I convinced my mom to buy me one, and I gave up after a couple of days.

I have a friend who’s always starting new hobbies. Ham radio, remote controlled helicopters, learning the bass. Yet he always loses his excitement (much to his wife’s frustration) as soon as his new toy comes in the mail.

He’s got a huge antenna up on his roof. I don’t think he’s used it more than a few times.

When people set goals, often times they aren’t really goals. They are wishes. Then we get started, and realize how much work is involved. Sure, we’d love to get them if somebody would just give them to us.

But when we realize how much work is involved, it kinds of puts things into perspective.

Then there’s that “opportunity cost” that most people don’t like to consider.

After all, we only have so much time and money. If we are going to spend an hour or two a day becoming a world class martial artist, you can’t really spend another hour or two a day learning to be a world class pianist.

That’s why it’s really a good idea to choose ONE major goal for each area of your life. Financial, career, hobby, relationship, etc.

And along the way, you’ll branch off, learn new things, redefine your ultimate goal. This is what makes life worth living. The pursuit of things that are important to YOU.

Even then it’s difficult. Any goal requires being able to measure your progress. Otherwise you don’t know if you’re REALLY moving forward, or just kidding yourself.

That’s why a very IMPORTANT area of life is your health.

Not only is it the most crucial part, but it’s the EASIEST to measure.

Even if you get out and walk every day, you can measure the time. The distance. The frequency.

And once you PROVE to yourself that you can get real results (instead of imaginary results), it makes all those other goals much more believable.

They slowly transform from wishes, to goals, to daily actions, to consistent achievements.

It all starts with making the decision to move your body. Somehow. Someway. On a regular basis.

Get Started:

Fitness Accelerator

How To Maximize Your Travels

The Road Is Essential

When I was a kid I loved building things.

Well, not really. I love nailing boards together. I ended up with a bunch of weird looking shapes that didn’t do much.

Once I got the bright idea to make a HUGE kite, so I found the biggest boards in the garage.

I nailed them together in a big cross (bigger than me) and found an old bed sheet, and nailed it to the boards.

Then I got some string and tried to fly it. My brother looked at me on the way to the park, and did the classic facepalm.

Building it was fun, but flying it was another story.

Long time ago I had a situation where I had long spans of time with nothing to do. This was back in the day before MP3s became popular. I had a regular tape player in my car. I would go to this store that rented books on tape.

Great for learning.

I’d rent these self-help tapes, and just listen to them as I drove around. Sometimes while walking around.

I’d tried a couple of times to listen while sitting and taking notes, but it just didn’t work. My mind would wander too much.

I’m sure you’ve heard the expression, “The Road is better than the Inn,” right?

Well sometimes you don’t even need an Inn! Just a decent road and something to do along the way.

Only if you live your life like that, you might not end up anywhere good.

See, the problem with not having an end is you end up just running around in circles.

Which is fine, if you’re just killing time or having fun nailing stuff together.

But the real progress comes in the unexpected places when you HAVE a destination.

Especially if it’s a BIG goal, that’s a LONG way off.

If you’ve got kids, or if you remember being a kid, going on a road trip was half the fun. Staying at the cheap motels, eating in the crap diners.

Sure, you had fun at the destination, but you were expecting that.

It’s those unexpected stops along the way that make those moments you’ll remember forever.

Where are you going in your life? Have you chosen your destination yet?

Is it BIG enough?

Does it make your eyes go wide with anticipation? Does it cause you to stop and daydream about it when you’re sitting in traffic?

It should.

Once you’ve chosen, then get moving.

These will help:

Mind Persuasion

Have You Started To Build Your Life?

Dreams Walking In Broad Daylight

It’s always easier to go with the flow, than go against the flow.

If you are swimming, for example, swimming with the current is a lot easier than swimming against the current.

Often times beaches have “rip tides” which pull swimmers out to sea. The instinct is to swim back towards the beach, but this can get you killed.

Since you’re swimming against the tide, you’ll get pretty tired, and unless you swim on a regular basis, you won’t last long.

Instead, lifeguards say to swim parallel to the beach, until you are out of the “path” of the rip ride. Then you can swim much easier, even though you may be a bit further out.

When I was in college,we had to write three essays as part of this English class. Then we had to rewrite one of them, for our final grade.

Naturally, we would choose the best one, since that we’d already got a good start. This would make it much easier to get a good grade than if we tried to completely rewrite one that wasn’t so good.

Any time we do something that’s congruent with our nature, it’s easier than something that’s not.

What is in our nature? Being social. Interacting with others. Sleeping at night instead of during the day. Having urges to make more people. Having urges to make money or create wealth of some form.

Sure, there are exceptions. Some times we want to be alone, sleep all day, and stay away from the opposite sex.

But for most of our lives, we are striving to improve ourselves along these lines. We want better relationships. We want more income. We want more intimacy.

This is human nature. The human condition.

How you do that in your own life will be based on your own personality, likes and dislikes, history, beliefs, and about a kajillion other variables.

For most of human history, we never really had to think about this stuff. We just kind of did what was natural, and that was good enough.

But now we’ve got an incredible opportunity. To create things with much more specificity. Much more control. Much more creativity.

Every year there are more and more millionaires, some for the craziest reasons, some for pretty boring reasons.

But if you just kind “go with the flow,” it’s not likely to happen.

But when you choose it to happen, and plan it to happen, you can expect it to happen.

Because it will.

No matter what “it” is. Money. Relationships. A better career. Artistic expressions.

What will you create?

Learn How:

Goal Setting

Are You Pulling Yourself Apart?

Keep Everything And Move Forward

There’s a lot of squishy words that people throw around, and many of them are kind of hard to pin down.

One thing you learn in NLP is something called the “meta model.”

Basically, it’s asking questions to get more specific information.

Like if I said I had a delicious meal, that may seem pretty specific, but it’s really not.

What did I eat? How did I eat? Who did I eat with? Where did I eat? How often do I eat whatever it was I ate?

Now, if you were at some party and you started throwing these questions around, you’d find yourself alone in a hurry.

We humans LIKE using vague words, for many, many reasons. Feeling somebody ask you all these “meta model” questions feels like somebody’s digging through your brain, which these days is one of the few places we can be alone.

However, the meta model DOES have its place. Like if somebody is giving us directions. If they just said, “go up this street turn left a couple of times,” that wouldn’t help us much. We’d need to know exactly WHERE to turn and what to look for to let us know it’s the turning place.

(My buddy in high school wanted to design a residential neighborhood where all the streets were named things like, “The Big Rock,” or “The Ugly Tree,” just to make directions sound pretty funny.)

One of the ways the meta model can help is when we run into some meta-physical sounding terms.

Take “congruence” for example. Most people will agree that it’s a good thing, and that having more is better than having less.

But what specifically is it? And how specifically can you get more of it?

That’s the part they usually leave out.

It’s based on the idea from NLP that we all have “parts,” which of course, is a metaphor.

But we act as if there are separate parts in our heads. Part of us wants to lose weight, but part of us wants to eat ice cream. Part of us wants to make money, but part of us is terrified of rejection. Part of us would love a relationship, but part of us is terrified expressing our sexual desires, even subtly.

The process of becoming more congruent is when you take out all your “parts” and take a look at them.

That way, you can figure out what’s holding you back. For example, if you’d like to lose weight, but don’t want to give up eating ice cream, you can figure out what you like so much about eating ice cream.

Then it’s matter of finding something else, that satisfies those deeper desires, that’s more congruent with losing weight.

So instead of having two parts going in different directions, you’ll have ALL your parts going the same direction. Making it much easier to create what you want.

You’ll learn that, and more, in this course:

Goal Setting