WIZE TIME MANAGEMENT

New Year – New You – How?

It can be simple or it can be complicated.

Which would you like it to be?

Yes, it is up to you.

Nothing in this world is complicated – nothing – except those things which people make complicated. 

Man-Made Complications can be:

• an excuse – “My life is so complicated, no one can figure it out.”
• a fantasy – “I’m so special, there are no answers for me”
• appearance of false self-importance – “I’m so superior intellectually no one else can understand what I know”
• keep people out or away – “If you don’t understand, then you can’t be a part of my world.”
• get rich – “I know something you don’t.  If you want to know, you’ll have to pay me a lot of money to fix you”

How do I know?  Experience. 

Experience has taught me that life is actually quite simple. Human thought makes it complicated.

Humans see themselves as the most intelligent of beasts, however, that notion can also separate us and create an atmosphere in which it is possible for some but not all.

Anything is possible for everyone.  It depends on how we’ve been programmed.  And programmed we’ve all been by our parents, relatives, friends, academia, society, books, tv, internet, and a host of other sources impacting your life.

The great thing about people is that they can re-program themselves if they give up notions.  Step-by-step, as a process, it can be done successfully.

If you are a subscriber, you have found that the free goal setting you received when you signed up to this blog has allowed you to achieve some of your goals.  Why?  What is a goal? 

A goal is simply an attempt to change your life.  Sometimes it works, and sometimes it doesn’t.  Why?  Because you find that you really didn’t want what you thought you wanted and couldn’t stick with the program.  Lack of “stickability” tells you the goal you set out to accomplish was not something you really, really want.

New you – what is that?  It’s simply a goal.  Do you want it?

If you do, then use the goal accomplishing system you’ve received and begin – slowly, progressively, daily.

Lorraine Arams
http://www.wizetime.com

How can you ever possible measure something you’ve never seen?

This would seem to be a logical question.  However, in the previous post about specificity, you can easily see that any goal is actually measurable when you are clear about exactly what you want.

I used a car example.  Once you know all the details of the car, you can go online and find out what a car with those specific attributes will cost.  That’s your measurable – the cost of the car.  You know that when you have saved that much money, you can buy the car and your goal of owning that car is done – you’ve achieved it!  One of the steps will be easy to determine:  how much will you have to save each month and for how many months in order to attain that goal?

It’s the same with any goal you set.  Once the specifics have been worked out, the measurable can usually be quite easy to determine.

Do you think you can do it? Of course – it all starts with the details in the first part of SMART goal setting.

Lorraine Arams

http://www.wizeimte.com

Did you ever wonder why your goals need to have specificity to them?

The SMART system suggests that goals should be specific, measurable, attainable, realistic, and time-based.

Why isn’t it good enough just to say,

• “I want a new car”
• “I want more money”
• “I am working to a degree”

For some people, it might quite clear why specificity is a good idea but for others, the reason may not stand out immediately.

I didn’t at first.  I thought what’s wrong with just wanting a new car or more money.  Of course, there was nothing wrong with it except there is no real definition – could I see “more money” – how much more and for what?

Owning It

One of the most important aspects of goal setting is “owning the goal”.  In other words, you can see it in your mind’s eye and  you can feel the feeling of owning it, doing it or experiencing it.  How can anyone stir up pictures and emotions without a specific description?

Writing down the specifics of the goal makes it more concrete.  What does the goal look like when it is completed?

For instance, if it’s a new car, what color is it? What make is it? How much does it cost?  What does the interior look like?  What model year is it?  What extras does it have?  Does it have air conditioning?  What kind of tires does it require?  What’s the size of the engine and how much will it cost to fill up the tank?  Where will you keep it?  How will the car be used? What is the highest speed it will travel?  Does it have 4-wheel drive?

If the description is such that you can read it to yourself or someone else and actually “see it” and “feel it”, then you have been successful in being specific about your goal.

Once the goal is specific, the other factors are quite easy to fill in.  It is this first criteria which is the most challenging and most important of all.

Try it – see if you can make your goal so very specific that you can actually “see it” and “feel it”.

Lorraine Arams

http://www.wizetime.com

Do you really have to write down your goals?

I have two answers to that question:  Yes and no though I personally believe that every goal should be written down in one format or another.  Some people, however, are really, really good at keeping things in their head and following through – short term.

How do you know if you should write down a goal or not?

It’s very simple.  Is your goal a short-term goal?  What I mean by short term is a week or a month.  Short goals are generally urgent.  For instance, you have want to get a good mark in a course and need to do well on a paper which is due at the end of the month.  Or you need to have a report done by the end of the week for your boss – the deadline is set and there are no alternatives.

These are still goals, albeit short-term and related to an activity already underway such as passing a course or holding down a job.

Most of these goals can be added to your schedule for a short duration and, for those people who keep a running tally in their heads, well, these goals won’t take up too much space!

However, for long-term goals, that is, those goals which will take you a little longer than a week or a month, yes, it is very important that you do write it down.  The steps will become part of your schedule for a very long time to come.  It’s so easy to forget what your original intention was and get sidetracked.

What most people do not realize is that goal achievement is a process.  It’s not just a matter of deciding what they are, writing them down, putting a deadline on achieving them and that’s it.  If only it were that simple!

Process takes time.   Goals consists of things you’ve never achieved before.  You really don’t have a road map and need to build one as you go.  It takes time to research, talk to people, try things out, etc. And you’ll be encountering a lot of dead ends, detours, road blocks, ditches, washouts, treacherous conditions, and other factors as you travel down the road towards your goal.

I do not believe you can plan goals effectively in your head.  It’s so very important that goals and the achievement process are written down.

What do you write and how much?

You need all the standard stuff:  deadline, a way to measure it, a way of determining whether it is attainable or not, whether it is a reasonable goal for you, a complete description of what it will look like when you attain it,  whether or not it’s relevant to your life, how you feel when you do achieve it, why you want it and whether or not the goal is actually a goal you want or someone else wants you to achieve.

My favorite way to do this is as follows:

-  write like mad – one, two, fifteen – how ever many pages you want – in handwritten form or on the computer – whatever way you prefer

-  boil it all down to 60 words or less making sure you have all the key points in there

Why do I like this method so much?  Because by the time you have boiled the “dream” down to 60 words, you’ll really understand the goal and what you want to achieve.  You’ll “see” it in your mind’s eye.  One of two things will happen:

a)  you’ll decide you really want this goal

or

b)  it was a silly goal or something you really didn’t want after all and toss it -

either way, you’ve won.  If you want it, you’ll have the determination to see it through.  If you’ve decided against pursuing that goal, you will have saved yourself a lot of time, money and energy you can use elsewhere.

What next?

As I said before, it’s a process.  And processes require multiple steps.  It’s not always clear what the steps should be.

Also, as you move along towards your goal, you’ll discover that you’ll change your mind.  You’ll tweak some of the details or you’ll discover information which makes you rethink exactly what you want.   The more you work on your goal, the more precise your description will become.

If you have downloaded my free goal achievement system, I talk about the steps and how to keep building as you go along until you reach your goal.

Most importantly, when you reach it, you’ll know you’re there! Why?  Because you wrote it down!  You won’t have to wonder, “Is this what I wanted?” – you’ll know because you’ve worked with it throughout the adventure!

So, yes, I do believe it is critical to write down your goals, the steps, the planning, the changes, the “evolution” – it’s so much more fun when you can see it in writing and look back at what you did to get there.   What you have learned will serve you well achieving the next goal and the next.

If you would like the free tool I offer for achieving your goals, please visit my blog at http://www.wizetime.com.

Lorraine Arams

Do goals limit you?  Have you ever even thought about that question?

Last night, I took a break and watched some famous chefs telling people about great foods in US restaurants.  At one point, an interviewer asked one of these successful chefs about goal setting.

The chef replied something to the effect, “I don’t set goals.  They limit me too much”.  That got me thinking because I know that to be a great chef, a person needs to be very creative and continuously learning.

I had never thought about goals limiting an individual.  We’ve been taught that setting goals is imperative to success.

I thought about it.  In a way, it’s true.  To set goals and ride after them does limit a person from pursuing whatever “pops up”.  However, whatever pops up might send a person into a multitude of directions and they end up nowhere.

But what had made this person an acclaimed chef?  Was it a desire, a goal to be a great chef? 

It’s likely true that this chef had not set any formal goals because the main goal absorbed the whole being.  To be a great chef, of course, a lot of training is required from the right instructors at the right schools, work in the right kitchens, get known by other chefs, and then, eventually, create a definitive, winning style. 

Nonetheless, the goal had been set, informally - in the chef’s head at the beginning of the journey – destination:  great chef.

If you know anything about becoming a chef, you know that becoming a great one is all consuming – a person lives, breathes, thinks and is totally absorbed in food and food preparation – it’s a vocation almost – they’ll do it for free if they have to!  The dedication and hard work is far beyond any other profession on the planet!  It’s not surprising – look at all the pleasure they bring to other people and the satisfaction of becoming so good at what you do, you know in your whole being that you are consistently creating the best you can create!  They know too that not all great chefs become well-known or make millions of dollars but they do it for the love of it – true love – like few other professions can boast.

So . . . yes, this chef did set a goal – but not formally.  And this chef achieved that goal and continues to achieve it because it’s  forever evolving – some goals are like that – the goals never really end during a person’s life time.  And chefs never retire – they just keep on cooking all their lives!   But, without having set that initial goal to be a great chef, this person may have ended up being a plumber!

Does goal setting limit you?  Yes – it does – to achieving what you want. 

Is that a good thing?  It can be as long as you know what you want.  If you don’t know what you want, then setting goals can be as devastating as not setting them. 

Like the chef, when the right goal is set because that’s what you really, really want, then the momentum begins, the energy is directed – it’s like a car – when you know the route, you steer the car in that direction and propel it forward to your destination by stepping on the gas – the car doesn’t wonder all over the road, backstreets nor in the opposite direction.  There might be some stops along the way, some detours and some pot holes, but, you get there.  It’s the same with goals – set and go – expect things to get in your way but you know what you want at the start. 

Lorraine Arams
Struggling to achieve your goals? There’s a new
complimentary system for you at:
http://www.wizetime.com