SETTING GOALS CAN CHANGE YOUR LIFE

Your Divine Plan: Every person has inner dreams and desires. You do too. In the Meditations of Light series “Discovering Your Divine Plan,” your innermost thoughts will be revealed to you on what you have to do and why. Your Divine Plan contains the many things you were born to do and to accomplish in this lifetime. Look at your natural talents and skills, what comes easily to you and what you enjoy doing to identify your Divine Plan. Meditate on what brings you happiness and joy.

When you see the outcomes and details of your Divine Plan, it is time to develop goals for your life. As you set goals for yourself, you are entering a process for personal planning and growth. The process of setting goals helps you know precisely where you want to go and how to get there. You will understand where you have to concentrate your efforts. Your goals will motivate you and build your sense of self-esteem. They will help you organize your time and focus your efforts, knowledge and energy to make the most of your life.

What is Your “Big Picture?”: Start with the big picture of what you want to do with your life. See where you want to be in 25 years. Then look backwards. What do you have to do at 15 years, 10 years, 5 years, and 1 year to make those dreams come true? What can you work on in the next few months and the next few days to make those dreams a reality? Make a daily to-do list of things you can do today to work towards your lifetime goals. At the early stage, you may want to read books or gain knowledge in some other way in order to know more specifically what the best ways are to accomplish your goals.

List the personal benefits each of your goals will give you. List why you want to achieve this goal.

Make sure your goals are working for something you really want, something that resonates deep within yourself. Think about what you are shown in the Meditations of Light. Don’t do something just because your parents, spouse or boss want you to do it. Don’t create a goal that looks good to other people but doesn’t come from your inner self. Reflect on your values. What is most important for you in this life? What are the most worthy things you want to accomplish? What will help you become a better person? What can you do to make the world a better place?

Write Your Goals in These Areas: Write down the goals you have in the following areas of your life:

As you write your goals, put them in the positive instead of the negative. Put in your mind what you want, not what you don’t want. And state your goal in the present tense. For example, write, “I am playing the piano well” instead of “I want to stop making so many mistakes when I play the piano.”

Analyze How to Reach Your Goals: Examine each and every goal. Beside each one, write down what steps you will have to take to reach your goals. Be as complete as possible. Focus on what you want to accomplish, and write each goal out in complete detail. You are giving your inner self a detailed set of instructions to work on. The more information you give your inner self, the more easily your inner self can manifest that. Think about what you want, imagine it in great detail. What does it look like? Look all around you. What do you see? Who do you see? What are they doing and saying? What else do you hear? What do you smell? What colors are there? How do you feel? Visualize everything as completely as you can. Visualize your goal as if it were already complete.

Analyze your current situation. What are your strengths in reaching this goal? Your weaknesses? Who can you include in your goal who can help you reach it? What people, groups and organizations can play a specific role in reaching your goal? What do you have to give to achieve this goal in terms of additional knowledge you need to acquire, time, money, energy and sacrifices you will have to make? Write all these down so you can see the entire picture.

Be Specific But Open-Minded: Put a timeline and specific amounts with your goals. List these in chronological order with target dates and what is to be accomplished. Your inner self and the Divine will help make things happen more quickly if you do this. You can take satisfaction in accomplishing your goals as you measure them and see them materializing.

Be open, however, to something even more wonderful, although different, being brought to you. You don’t know all the people and situations involved. Be open to the people who may come to you, the helpers and partners who may appear, the new ideas that may come to you, and the different ways that your Divine Plan may work out.

Be open too when something out of your control happens and you are unable to achieve your goals either on time or at all. There could be bad weather, you could get an injury, you may not have seen the problems that an obstacle would create, or you could have just plain bad luck.

Sometimes you may realize the a goal must be revised or even discarded. Perhaps your goal was unrealistic, you didn’t recognize the barriers that were in your way, or you didn’t realize how much skill you would need to develop in order to achieve your goal. That’s ok. Changing a goal is not a failure; it is an opportunity for you to recognize it is time to grow in a different direction. Consider it a victory that you had the insight to realize something was different and that your goal was no longer appropriate.

Understand too that your goals will change as you get older. What seemed important when you were younger no longer holds the same attraction. Your knowledge and experience will give you wisdom, and your goals can change to accommodate your new insights.

Review Your Goals Often: When you write down your goals in detail and review them often, you are more likely to accomplish them. Talk to yourself either out loud or silently to remind yourself of your goals. Put your written goals in places you can see them often - on the bathroom mirror, on the refrigerator, on your office wall. Have another list of your goals and actions to reach your goals in a file on your desk at home and at work.

Review your goals and actions to reach your goals several times a day. When you wake up in the morning, read your list of positive goals. Visualize accomplishing them, complete with colors, sounds, and smells. Each night before you go to sleep, review your goals again and meditate on completing them. Use your favorite “Discovering Your Divine Plan” meditation to take you more deeply into your Higher Self for more information.

Act “As If” You Had Reached Your Goals: Realize that you must adopt the lifestyle of a person who is already living the goals that you want to achieve. If you want success as an athlete, you have to live the lifestyle of an athlete. That means you have to practice your sport often. You have to use positive thinking and imagine winning games. If you want to be a writer, you must write almost every day. If you want to drop off weight, you must live the lifestyle of a slender person, eating mostly fruits and vegetables and exercising regularly.

Begin to walk, talk and act as though you are already experiencing the success you seek. Your inner self will then help that happen as you live “as if” you are already there.

It may be wise to concentrate on just one idea, one goal, or one objective at a time. This way, you can stay focused on one thing until it is completed.

Every time you make a decision during the day, ask yourself this question: “Does doing this get me closer to my goals or take me further away/” If it gets you closer, then make the decision to do it. If the answer is that it takes you further away, it is better to do something else.

Celebrate Accomplishing Your Goals!: Cross off each action item as you complete it. Celebrate your achievements by doing something unusual and kind to yourself. Do something fun! You deserve it!