It seems almost too simple to make a big deal out of, but the first step in learning how to set goals is determining exactly what it is you want to achieve.

You have to know where you want to end up in order to figure out how you’re going to get there. Makes sense, doesn’t it? But you’d be amazed at the number of people who try and achieve goals that are really nothing more than a vague idea. Consider these and think about how often you’ve heard someone say them, or maybe have even said them yourself:

I want to be rich.
I want to fall in love.
I want to lose weight.

Sound familiar? They’re a good place to start, but until you put some defining characteristics to them, they’re not really goals are they? You have to define what the concepts “rich,” “in love” and “lose weight” actually mean to you before you can create clear goals around them.

So if we were defining a goal for wanting to be rich, you might ask yourself the following questions:

How rich do I want to be?
Do I want to be a millionaire? A billionaire?
Or would I be rich if I just had enough of a cushion to make sure the bills get paid and there’s a steady flow of cash coming in?
There’s no right answer. Only an answer that’s right for you. And once you know what that answer is, then you can set a clear goal around achieving the amount of money that will meet your definition of “rich”.

Once you know exactly what you want to achieve, then you can go on to the second step in defining clear goals: setting a timeline. We’ll talk about that tomorrow.

It’s one thing to set goals for yourself, but it’s another thing entirely to define clear goals to make sure you accomplish what you set out to achieve. A lack of clarity about your goals can leave you feeling confused about the end result, and put you on a one-way track to being stuck in the mud. Having a clear goal, on the other hand, can give you a sense of purpose and a huge boost in momentum.

Here are five things to think about when you’re defining your goals:

1. Know exactly what it is you want to achieve.
2. Decide on a time frame for achieving it.
3. Make sure your goal is realistic. (So says the queen of unrealistic goals!)
4. See the details. A vague idea is not gonna get you where you want to go.
5. Did you leave room for change? (If you said no, you might wanna think that.)

Over the course of the next few days we’ll talk about each of these five areas in more detail. In the meantime, think about where you are at this midpoint of the year.

Are you where you want to be so far this year? Would redefining your goals help you achieve them more easily?

Meditation has always been associated with feelings of peacefulness and well-being, and I don’t know about you but I can always use more of those feelings in my life. Experts say that taking even just ten or fifteen minutes a day to slow down and meditate can have great benefits. Here are a few ways that taking time to meditate can affect our lives:

1. Mediation makes a great stress reliever. If you can manage to relax and be peaceful for just fifteen minutes a day, the effects will be noticeable.

2. Meditation also can improve your physical health. Several studies have shown that meditation can improve overall health because lowering stress also helps to lower blood pressure and reduce the risk of heart disease.

3. Meditation helps you control your thoughts. A lot of stress comes from being unable to control our thoughts. Taking time to meditate helps to stop negative thoughts in their tracks.

4. Meditation also helps bring feeling of happiness and gratitude. By taking the time to reflect on all the good things in your life, you draw even more good things to you, which results in even more feelings of happiness and gratitude.

5. Meditation helps improve your concentration. When you can achieve peace of mind during meditation it will have an effect on how you live because when your mind is less stressed out, it is better able to concentrate on the important things in life.

These are just a few of the ways that meditating can help to reduce stress and improve your life. It may take some practice to develop the habit but allowing yourself fifteen minutes peace and relaxation is worth adding it to your daily routine.

One of the first steps in conquering fear is to understand exactly what it is, and the effect it has on us. While fear can be defined in many ways, the most straightforward explanation is that it is an emotional reaction to impending danger or unfamiliar situations. We experience this reaction on both psychological and physical levels at the same time. For example, you might feel anxious, overwhelmed, or even terrified at the same time your heart is pounding and you have a hard time catching your breath. If you’re anything like me, your stomach gets all tangled up in knots, and you start feeling cold and clammy as well.

A lot of the fear that we experience as adults can have its roots in childhood experiences. Mental and physical abuse, or unrealistic expectations put on us as children can cause us to develop fears that stick with us through adulthood. Unless we can overcome them, they can — and will — have a significant impact on our lives, especially when it comes to self confidence and the ability to live up to our full potential.

So just how to we overcome our fear change and the unknown that it brings?

One strategy you can use to help overcome fear is to learn to recognized when you are feeling fearful. When you know that what you are experiencing is fear, you are more apt to try and discover what’s causing it. You may need to take a close look at your life experiences in order to find the underlying cause, and that can be a pretty terrifying process on its own.

You really do need to figure out what causes you to feel fearful though, because once you’ve accepted your fear and you know what causes it, you’re ready for the grand finale — facing your fear.

What’s that saying… feel the fear and do it anyways… or something along those lines?

Push yourself outside your comfort zone, and confront your fear head-on. You can stretch your boundaries a little at a time. You don’t have to conquer your fears all in one go. But by taking the steps to overcome your fear of the unknown, you will open yourself up to new experiences and feelings with a sense of freedom you would never otherwise have.

Photo Credit: sxc.hu

As a creative person I’ve always Detested — with a capital ‘D’ — any type of structured environment. Schedules and I do not get along, and haven’t been on speaking terms for years. Ditto with the alarm clock. I truly cherish my freedom to be able to go where I want, when I want, and to be able to write when the mood strikes.

However, as a creative person working at making a living as a creative person, I also know that I need some sense of structure and routine in my working life at the very least. Case in point — almost three months between blog posts. (Being a diabetic means I also have to have some semblance of routine in the rest of my life too if I want to keep it under control. But that’s a story for another day.)

So anyway, back to the story here… This morning when I was trying to decide what to write I went searching for a quote to sum up how I feel about creating a work routine that works for me. I was really shocked to find a whole raft of thoughts that portray routine in a really negative way. For example:

“Habit and routine have an unbelievable power to waste and destroy.” Henri de Lubac

“Habit is the beneficent harness of routine which enables silly men to live respectfully and unhappy men to live calmly” – George Eliot

“Routine is not organization, any more than paralysis is order.” – Arthur Helps

“The less routine the more life.” – Amos Bronson Alcott

“As long as habit and routine dictate the pattern of living, new dimensions of the soul will not emerge.” – Henry Van Dyke

That last one by Van Dyke really resonates with me. I’ve had some friends who schedule every minute of every day, and day in and day out never change their routine at all. They call it good time management. I call it no time to live, but they’re my friends and I love ‘em so I put up with having to make appointments to spend time with them. But I can certainly see the point that is being made here.

As a person who hates being labelled and stuffed into a box — whether of my own or anyone else’s making — being so bound by a routine that there’s no room for change would be a fate worse than death.

But I know that in order to be a good writer, I have to have some type of routine that requires me to spend time with my butt in the chair with a pen in my hand. So I guess the challenge is to find that happy medium that gets the job done and falls somewhere between the no-room-to-live, destroyer of creativity brand of routine and having no routine at all. I’ve come to the conclusion this is another one of those things that there’s no right or wrong answer for — it’s another one of those life choices that is unique to each one of us.

For me, I’m thinkin’ my routine will look something like this: write and work out in the morning, do client work in the afternoon, and spend the rest of the day doing whatever the heck I want.

Oh, and I did find my quote finally:

“Most of life is routine – dull and grubby, but routine is the momentum that keeps a man going. If you wait for inspiration you’ll be standing on the corner after the parade is a mile down the street.” – Ben Nicholas

So what about you? Where do you fall on the routine spectrum? Please leave a comment and share your thoughts.

I’m really glad that the theme for this months NaBloPoMo is “routine” because it’s painfully obvious that I need one. Whether I can find 31 days worth of ideas on the topic or not, I can say that I will definitely be creating a routine for blogging every day. And since I have more than one blog to take care of and get whipped back into shape it’s something that’s long over due.

So, it’s the first day of the second half of the year, my playtime is definitely over, and it’s time to put the butt in the chair and write if I hope to meet even half the goals I’ve set for myself this year.

How’s your year going? Are you where you want to be after the first six months?

Affirmations get a really bad rap for exactly that reason — they don’t always give us the results we think they should.

Most of the time, however, it’s not the fault of the affirmation process. If we’re not getting the results we want, it’s usually because of the words we’re using to frame our affirmations.

I’m certainly guilty of it, and more often that I’m comfortable admitting to. I’m still learning to really think before I think, and too many times catch myself on the verge of thoughts like “I’m so stupid” or “I’m so fat.” A big one I’m working at reframing now is “I’m so tired” when what I really want to tell myself is “I have plenty of energy to get through the day.”

I’m definitely getting better at making sure only positive thoughts get past the filters, but I gotta say … it’s hard work!

But enough about me.

Here’s a few things I’ve learned about using affirmations that you may find help you to get better results with yours:

1. Affirmations that are not personal to you won’t work very well for you. They need to be expressed in the first person so that your subconscious mind recognizes that this is something it is supposed to go to work on. Always start them with “I” or “My” instead of “you”.

2. Affirmations need to be stated in the “Now”. When I first started, I would always start my statements with “I will”. I’ve since learned that “I am” works much better because the subconscious recognizes “I am” as something being done now, not in the future.

3. Affirmations expressed as a negative will not get you the results you’re looking for. The subconscious doesn’t recognize “not” so instead of acting as an affirmation of changing behaviour, a statement of “I am not” or “I will not” instead serves as a reinforcement for the behaviour that you are trying to change.

There are so many things you can do with affirmations if you word them in the most positive way possible. I’ve had good results since rewriting all of my daily statements along these guidelines. I hope that they work as well for you too.

Do you use affirmations? Feel free to share your thoughts in the comments.

I often get the sense that when someone decides to embark on a path to personal growth, they think it’s going to be a walk in the park. You know the kind I mean … all nicely laid out paths, clear and obstacle free. No trees to climb over or rocks to scramble around. Granted, if you can maintain a “walk in the park” attitude while you’re ripping your life apart and remaking it, more power to ya! You are definitely more mentally strong than I am.

For myself, (and I suspect for a lot of people) the process of growing and changing comes with more trials and obstacles than we bargained for. The cool thing I’ve found, though, is that it’s in dealing with these obstacles that you experience the most growth. And how you deal with them really does go a long way to determining how successful you will be in making the changes that you want to make.

Obstacle number one to be dealt with is usually your own mind. The imagination can be a powerful thing when it comes to change. Your mind can either be your worst enemy or your best friend. Allowing the negative side to dominate and fill your conscious mind with thoughts of doubt and failure will have you creating obstacles and reasons to fail.

Along with the negative voices in your own mind, the negative voices of other people around you are also an obstacle to your success on the personal growth trail. The lack of support from friends and family members who are supposed to be supporting you in your dreams and goals can be a real downer. And ditching them is often easier said than done.

Another thing that needs to be ditched is the attachment to past failures. Negative events and memories from your past can become insurmountable obstacles to your future success if you let them. Learning to let go will be a great adventure in growth, but it is so worth it to release all that baggage and really let yourself be free.

So just how do you overcome these obstacles? And yes, they can all be overcome. That’s half the journey!

There are so many ways to get past these, and what works for me may not work for you. You can read books, listen to tapes, to to seminars, and try all the do-it-yourself personal development methods out there. You can also hire a life coach, or go to a therapist if that way suits you better.

Whatever tools you decide to use to overcome your obstacles, the first two steps I would suggest you take are to learn to develop a positive mindset for yourself, and to surround yourself with supportive people who share your goals and aspirations. Visualizing your own success will go a long way to making it a reality, and having a support network around you will give you the kick in the butt you’ll need to stay motivated when the going gets a little rough.

What do you do to help get you past the obstacles in your personal growth?

One of the ‘light bulb’ moments I had during my weekend cleaning spree was that I need to be writing a whole lot more than what I have been. Research and writing are almost like an addiction for me. If I’m not doing one or the other, I’m just not happy. And I’ve not been doing enough of either in the last month or so.

I’ve been focused too much lately on the negative parts of my life, and it just ain’t working. There’s been too many days where I’ve worried over the bills (and how they’re gettin’ paid); where I should move to, and when I should move; and whether or not I’m even makin’ the right decisions — which usually leads to no decisions being made at all, and even less writing getting done.

So, on Saturday morning, I decided that it was time to quit makin’ everything harder than it has to be, and just get back to the basics of what makes me tick. And what makes me tick (from a workin’ standpoint at least) is researching, reading, writing, and golf (both the playing of and writing about). Since the golf course doesn’t open for another few weeks, there’s lots of time for the rest of the stuff on the list!

What I did was make a brand new plan and change all my goals. Up until now I’ve always had goals that were out of my control. I’d set targets to make X amount of money or get Y amount of subscribers in a certain period of time. And then I’d beat myself up when it didn’t happen, knowing full well that there was no way I could control whether I’d achieve those goals, since they were dependent on other people taking action.

When I finally clued in that the only goals I can realistically achieve are the ones where my actions control the success or failure rate, I rewrote everything in terms of specific, measurable and achievable outcomes. Every goal I have now for the next 90 days depends on me reaching certain numerical targets in terms of quantities of the content I create.

I also realized that for me, as long as I concentrate on the writing, the rest of my life will sort itself out pretty much on its own.

And that’s where you come in…

While I could be perfectly happy writing about topics that interest me (and there’s a lot of them), I’d really much rather spend my time researching and writing the topics that interest you. I’m making it my mission to provide you with the information and resources that you want to ensure your success in your quest for personal growth. And I don’t mean tell me what you want so that I can create products to sell to you (although for the sake of transparency and total honesty here, there might be the odd one because after all, I do have those pesky bills to pay). What I really really want to know is what topics you would like to see me research and write about for you here on this blog. What areas of personal growth can I help you with?

So please, don’t be shy. Leave a comment and let me know what type of content you want to see when you visit here. It’ll be a win-win situation for both of us… You get the information you’re looking for, and I get to spend my time writing something that you can use.

(How original, right?)

Okay, so it’s not a very original way to plunge back into the stream of daily blogging… but it’s true. Spring is a time for growth, and you can feel it in the air. It fairly shimmers with energy, the sun is a little warmer, the days a little brighter, and there’s a sense of optimism and hope that you don’t notice so much during the winter. I was out walking along the river on Friday and people smiled a little more, and were a little quicker to say hello than they were during the winter months.

The optimism and hope that come with spring also bring with them a chance for new beginnings. Just like the plants and trees grow new leaves and flowers in the spring, we can use this time to create new growth and change for ourselves.

Spring cleaning is a perfect example of that. In a physical sense it’s all about clearing out the old to make room for the new. And if you’re anything like me, most years spring cleaning is nothing more than a chore to be gotten through as quickly as possible.

But spring cleaning this year is taking on a whole new meaning for me as I find ways to use it to help me clear my mind and focus on the next steps in my own personal growth.

Here’s what I mean…

If you really focus on the task, on what you’ve collected, and what you’re getting rid of, and WHY, you’ll be amazed at how much mental clutter you clear along with the physical junk. I did this on the weekend, and the energy shift in my apartment was so noticeable that I was actually sick for two days.

Out of about eight boxes of stored up papers, books, and other stuff I tossed everything but a dozen antique cookbooks (I’ve got plans for these), a few old books that belonged to my dad, and some photos and writings from my university days. With each piece of the past that went into the recycling bin, my vision of what I want my future to look like became just a little more clear.

Over the course of my weekend cleaning spree, I opened up enough mental room to set some clear goals for the next three months, as well as to map out a writing plan that will enable me to achieve them. You’ll be the beneficiary of that plan, and I”ll tell you more about it tomorrow.