Benefits of Goals:

• Motivate you

• Give you focus

• Clarify what you want

• Increase your self-confidence

• Enable you to take responsibility for your life

• Allow you to live your life consciously, on purpose, rather than drifting aimlessly at the mercy of external forces

• Increase your organisational skills, increase productivity and effectiveness

• Strengthen your commitment and personal integrity

• Develop muscle at overcoming obstacles and setbacks in life

• Like attracts like – you will attract better-quality like-minded people

• Goal-setters never fail – they learn new ways of doing things

• People who don’t set goals never realise how great they can be

A good goal involves:

• End result

• Action

• Completion date

Goals must be stated positively – the brain doesn’t do negatives, sarcasm or irony. It will give you what you tell it. Goals can be personal, professional, physical, sports, educational, financial, spiritual, relationships, self-developmental, career, or recreational. Goals should be regularly checked, tweaked adjusted, updated, and most importantly, worked on.

Implications of having none:

If you have none, you will be directed by external circumstances or more forceful people. You will move. It may as well be in a direction towards something you want.

How your brain supports your goals:

Your brain is a very sophisticated instrument and thrives on having problems to solve and challenges to overcome. Having goals is programming your brain for success. It helps to align your subconscious and conscious reasoning mind to work in tandem. This is a much more powerful force than two minds pulling in opposite directions.

The science behind it:

The Reticular Activating System: The brain receives about 100 trillion bits of info at any one time. It would be utterly overwhelmed if we had to pay attention to it all, so the brain filters what’s important. How does it know what’s important? We tell it. What we talk about, listen to, think about, watch or read tells it what we consider important. So become aware of what you’re telling your brain both overtly and unconsciously. Your brain doesn't like to disappoint you.

 The RAS

• Sorts and evaluates incoming data – it filters out irrelevant stuff and only brings to your attention what you focus on – good, bad and indifferent.

• Receives information you have labelled ‘important’.

Notice if you buy a something with a particular colour or detail, how you suddenly become aware of how many other people have something similar? That's your RAS lifting filters to what you've suddenly focused your attention on.

What do you want?

Identify your goal – create a neural pathway. Write it down – have the idea, think about it, formulate the words, write them down, mentally experience them – these create different layers of neural pathways. The more often you think about, envision, or work on your goal, strengthens that neural pathway, and manifestly increases your chances of success. Brian Tracy, one of America’s most successful business sales trainers and speakers, points out: “Goals that are not in writing are not goals at all. They are merely wishes or fantasies.”

Check your goals against the Well-Formed Outcome or SMART Goals checklist to make sure this goal is right for you right now. Create an Action Plan and work it!