Going for Your Goals: The Positives of It All

Last week we started using the power of imagination to visualize our future and what we want out of life. This can actually be harder than it sounds. Imagination requires us to let go of our inhibitions and take on a childlike way of imagination.

Imagining what we want our future to be without any limitiations creates positive feelings. Positive feelings lead to positive thinking, positive thinking leads to positive attitudes, positive attitudes leads to positive goal planning, positive goal planning leads to positive actions, positive actions leads to the creation of our own future.

In Brian Tracy's book, "Goals: How to Get Everything You Want" he asks us to take a hard look at what we want for our future in our family life, financial situation, and our ideal fitness and health by asking us some great questions. Here are some of those questions to think about. Take some time to write down your answers:

Five years from now where do you want to be:

1. Financial:
1. How much money will you be earning?
2. How much money will you have in the bank?
3. What type of lifestyle are you leading?
4. How much are you going to be worth when you retire?
2. Family:
1. What type of family life are you living?
2. Who are you with or who aren't you with?
3. What type of living standards do you have?
3. Fitness and Health
1. How do you look and feel?
2. Are you at your ideal weight?
3. How much do you workout each week?
4. How are your eating habits?
5. What is your overall level of health?

What changes do you need to make today to get where you want to be five years from now? What excuses do you need to stop making to start those changes?

There's an old saying, "the road to hell is paved with good intentions". If all we do is plan on someday taking action to lose weight, get out of a bad relationship, start a business, write a book, etc, but never start to do it then in five years we will be where we are now. Successful people are action oriented. They think of an idea and start taking action on it to make it come to fruition. We can all be successful! We all have it within us to do the same and start taking action!

Here's a fun and worthwhile exercise: Create Your Perfect Calendar! Think about where you want to be in five years and imagine that you have no limitations on anything:

• What do you want to do on the weekends? On vacations?
• Where do you want to go?
• How often do you want to take time off in a week, month, and year?
• Is your work schedule based on work you enjoy doing?

When we can imagine our future in a positve way it helps us to start taking those steps today to create that future for ourselves. We become happier when we have a purpose and set goals for ourselves because we're working towards our future we've imagined. Working towards something we don't really want creates negativity and unhappiness because we are not being true to our core values.

Next time we'll explore more on our core values. For now continue to write down all your thoughts and answers; when you look back in a few months it will help you stay focused on your goals, and also help you see the progress you've made.

Remember, my friends, imagination is a powerful tool that will open up the world to you.