Setting a timeline to achieve your goals - a simple way to supercharge your efforts!

Creating a Timeline to Complete Your Goals
Have you set a timeline to complete your goals? If you have been struggling to reach your goals you might find it helpful to develop a timeline that charts exactly when you will complete each step along the path to your goal.

Creating a timeline for completing your goals is a powerful way to keep your focus on what is important right now – and it is not as hard as you might think! Follow the steps I share below and you too can develop a bullet-proof plan to reach your goals.

Too many people resist setting time-based goals because they feel that life should simply flow and that everything happens in it’s own time and at it’s own pace. But the reality is that those people never seem to actually reach the goals that they set for themselves. They end up waiting for the universe to deliver their desires. Waiting, and waiting, and waiting some more.

You don’t want to wait for your desires, do you? I didn’t think so!

By creating a timeline for completing your goals you eliminate those problems. A timeline keeps you on track and lets you stay focused on doing the ‘next thing’. The ‘next thing’ is what separates dreamers from achievers. If you know the next step along your path, and you know when you want to reach that next step in relation to your big goal, it becomes easier to manage your efforts.

Know Your End Result
Start by being crystal clear about your end result. It is hard to complete a goal if you don’t know what that goal looks like. Know exactly what you want to achieve. Then decide when you want to achieve that goal by.  Actually look at your calendar and pick a date that you want to be successful by.

So now you know exactly what you want and you know exactly when you want to have it by. That’s a great start! Just doing those two things – getting clear about your goal and setting a completion date – put you miles ahead of everyone else struggling to achieve their goals.

Break It Down
Your next step is to look at your desired end result and to identify the stepping stones along the path to your goal. Depending on your goal, you can do this one of two ways. Some goals have a linear progression of actions and achievements that you can chart, sort of like steps on a staircase. First you have to reach step one, then step two, then step three and so on. For example, if your goal is to get a college degree there are requirements and steps you have to take along the way. You have to complete some courses before taking others. Your skill builds as you move toward your desired end result. Lots of goals are like this.

Other goals, like losing weight, are more cumulative. In other words, once you identify the actions you need to take, you keep doing the same thing over and over until you reach your goal. Goals like these can be broken down into increments. If your goal is to lose 50 pounds by December 31, you could break your goal down into monthly mini-goals.

Create Your Timeline
However you break down your goal, go ahead and create an actual timeline on a piece of paper that maps out your journey. Draw a line across the paper. Label the left end of your line ‘NOW” and label the right end of your line with your desired end result. “Lost 50 pounds” or “Master’s Degree” or “New Car”. Whatever your goal is.

So now you have a line that stretches from ‘now’ to the completion of your goal. All that is left is to plug in the steps along the way. Each point on your timeline becomes a mini goal that you work towards.

Look at your desired end result and decide how you can break your big goal down into mini-goals and put those mini goals on your timeline. Now simply begin working toward the first point on your timeline. When you reach it, begin working toward the second and so on. Before you know it you will be on the verge of seeing your goal realized.

Once you set a timeline to complete your goals you will see a dramatic shift in the way you approach your goals. As you meet each step or point on your timeline, your steady progress reinforces your desire to succeed and you find yourself taking more and more right actions. Completing your goals becomes certain!

Go ahead and map out your own timeline for completing your goals. It is a simple process that can make achieving your goals far more likely!

Change your life by loving your life... Right now!

Do you love your life right now? Or are there parts of your life that you want to change? Creating change, learning how to change your life in empowering ways, is the common thread that ties all of our goals and desires together. Yours, mine, everyone’s. We all want things to get better… we all want our lives to be full and happy.

But we also all share another common thread, one that holds us back, one that keeps us from realizing our dreams and goals. That thread is called discontent. Now at first you might think that discontent would be a motivator, that being unhappy with the way things are would drive you to make the changes you want in your life.

But that is not true at all! In order to change your life, you must love your life the way it is right now – challenges and all. Being discontent, unhappy, dissatisfied, or mad at the world for handing you such a crummy life only keeps you stuck in that frame of mind. When you experience life as a victim, you give away your power to control your own life. The same thing happens when you blame life or your boss or anything else outside of yourself for your problems. You give away your power.

But that all changes when you love your life the way it is right now. The good, the bad, the ugly, all of it. How do you do this? By deciding to. You can make a conscious decision to love your life right now – in spite of your problems, in spite of all your challenges, and in spite of whatever negativity you see in your life right now!

You see, when you come from a place of love, you are free to focus on the important things, you are free to focus on solutions rather than being stuck on the problems in your life. Unlike being unhappy with your life, being loving toward yourself is empowering and lets you move forward.

This is because we all have the tendency to continue being whatever we are being right now. If you are being unhappy with your life right now, you will probably continue being unhappy with your life for the foreseeable future… unless you change your outlook and start showing up in your life with an attitude of love and gratitude.

Loving your life the way it is now, doesn’t mean ignoring your problems, it means looking at them from a new perspective. Anything that you look at with love will look dramatically different from something that you look at with discontent or unhappiness.

Try this in your own life and see if it doesn’t make a huge difference in the way you see things. Not only will you find it easier to reach your goals when you are loving life, you will have a much clearer vision of exactly what you want your life to be like!

Choosing your goals isn't always easy!

You would think that choosing your goals would be easy, right? After all, you know what you want. You know what you want your life to look like.

The problem is that most of us have many, many wants and desires, and it can be hard to decide which ones to work on. We want so much, in so many areas of our lives, that it can feel overwhelming!

Some people get stuck right here in the goal setting process, because with so many desires they wind up feeling helpless and don’t make progress toward any of their desires. Other people try to do everything at once – they try to transform their entire life overnight – and they wind up crashing and burning because they spread themselves to thin.

Choosing your goals, deciding which of your wants and desires to focus on right now, doesn’t have to be a painful process. Not if you approach the process with your end result in mind.

What is your end result? Your end result is what you want your life to look and feel like tomorrow and the next day and every day after that. Imagine your life so complete in every way that you can’t think of a single desire… that is your desired end result!

So to get there, to reach the life that you envision for yourself, you must start somewhere. I always recommend that you begin with the goal that, when you reach it, will make the biggest difference in your life. The goal that you feel the strongest about.

The goals that you choose to reach first will be the goals that you have the strongest reason WHY for. Because ‘why’ you want to reach a goal has a tremendous affect on whether or not you actually reach that goal. A strong reason ‘why’ you want to achieve your goal will always motivate you to do more, to take more action, and to keep going when life throws challenges in your path.

Don’t allow yourself to get stuck when choosing your goals. Here is a simple goal setting exercise that will help you. Make a list of those things that you want to achieve, then next to each one write the reasons why you want to reach that goal. Ask yourself what reaching that goal will mean in your life. Do this for each of the things that you wrote down. Which of your goals resonates with you the most deeply? Which are you the most passionate about reaching?

Those are the goals you should be making plans to achieve first!

Of course, choosing your goals is just the first step, but as the saying goes, “A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.”  Take that step today! Choose your goals and start creating the life that you truly want!

Don't wish for inspiration, find it within yourself!

Would you like to be inspired to reach new heights in your personal and professional life?

Would you like to have the energy and focus necessary to have your next breakthrough?

You can, and inspiration is the key that will get you there.

It is amazing what inspiration can do. Inspiration has been credited with being the catalyst of the world’s greatest works of art, of fantastic feats of building, of deep acts of love, and much, much more.

You can see inspiration at work in your own life too.  Have you ever been inspired to cook a great meal? Or to do your very best at a certain task? I’m sure you have. You might even have been inspired to make a change in your life, or to totally transform your life. The truth is that inspiration is at the root of all that you do.

But inspiration can seem fleeting, especially when your day to day struggles and problems keep getting in the way of your dreams. At times it can seem that you are actually uninspired!

At those times, you don’t do the things you know you need to do. You don’t do the important things – the things that would move you closer to your goals.

You see, all of your goals and big dreams will only be realized when you are inspired to take actions. The problem is that most people sit around waiting for inspiration to show up on their doorstep.

This never works. In fact, it causes more harm than good!

Here is what I have learned: Inspiration is the spark that ignites your passion and your drive. It comes from within you and pushes you toward a specific path.

Think about your biggest goal, your biggest dream. What inspired you to want that particular dream? That feeling, the one you get when you think about your big dream, that is your inspiration at work. That feeling never goes away as long as you hold that dream as something you desire.

It only seems like you are uninspired at times because you are overcome with all of the other parts of your life, all demanding your attention at the same time.

That spark of inspiration that you felt gets lost in the shuffle. But it is not really lost!

All you need to do to feel that spark of inspiration again is to reconnect with your goal or dream. Take a moment to pause and allow yourself to see the ‘big picture’. Remind yourself of your commitment to your dreams. Reaffirm your belief in yourself. Let yourself FEEL your desire to have that goal become a reality.

Don’t let your goals and dreams get pushed into a corner of your mind. Keep them front and center!

Do that and you will experience breakthrough after breakthrough. Hitting the next level in your personal or professional life will become a routine experience.  All because YOU allowed the spark of inspiration within you to grow and show you the way.

You already possess all of the inspiration you need to succeed in life. You just have to nurture it and let it guide you.

Jerry Hicks has passed on.

My heart skipped a beat when I read the little blurb on my computer screen. Jerry Hicks had died? I had to read it twice.

I couldn’t believe it. My first thought was, “Oh no, we have lost a wonderful soul, a great thought leader.”

As one third of Abraham-Hicks, Jerry, along with his wife Esther have spent years traveling the country, spreading their message of hope and inspiration, and sharing with people how the law of attraction can help them get more of what they want in life.

They have touched the lives of millions of people from all over the world.

It turns out that Jerry had been battling cancer, but eventually the disease overtook him and Jerry has now transitioned to the next stage of his journey.

He will be deeply missed!

Esther Hicks posted this message on the Abraham-Hicks blog:

Dear, dear Friends,Our sweet Jerry made his transition into Nonphysical last Friday. How sweet the Vortex is feeling to him today!

Jerry said to me when we came together over 30 years ago that given the difference in our ages that it was likely “that I will cut out on you early,” to which I replied, “I don’t mind.” His joy of life and continual new discovery of purpose kept his life feeling fresh and we shared such joyous eagerness for life.

Over the years, Abraham has consistently insisted that there is no death. Again and again they have reminded us that there is only life and more life and more life. It has taken me some time to understand this, and I honestly must say I have not yet fully come to terms with it, but I do believe that in what we are calling Jerry’s death he is discovering the next logical step of life that Abraham has always been talking about. And at times I am catching a glimpse of the bigness of what Jerry is feeling and while I am still pretty mad at him for not sticking around longer to surprise and delight me in all the ways he has been doing throughout our 30 years together I accept fully that the next logical step of joyous life for Jerry was to be found in his re-emergence into Nonphysical.

Since 1985 it has been Jerry and Esther and Abraham and I believe with everything that I am that that has not changed. I know that Jerry will continue to be the third powerful point of the triad of Energy that makes up the Abraham experience and I am certain that his new vantage point will be, as it has always been, of advantage to us all.

I know for sure that Jerry will help me, in time, release my own personal resistance to physical death, because I will not be able to maintain that resistance and also play easily with him. And my desire to continue not only my Abraham experience but also my Jerry experience I am certain he will be the catalyst to help me do what Abraham has been trying to help us all do all along.

Once again, Jerry is out there leading the way for me. But the difference this time is that I must find the way. I am not there yet, but it is my absolute promise to myself that I will find the way, because it is the most natural thing in the world to do and because Jerry has provided for me the reason to do it.

I am eager about what is ahead and while I cannot begin to explain or even imagine the details of how it is all going to play out, I am certain that it will be fun.

I am such a fortunate girl, to have been able to play with Jerry and Abraham and all of you for so many wonderful years and I am so eager to continue doing more of the same for many more years to come. I feel certain right now that not only has nothing gone wrong, but things are going especially right. It will be different, for sure, but it will also be very, very good.

I’m feeling such love for you all, and for Abraham and most of all for Jerry. And as I have said to him a thousand or more times through the years, “Well isn’t life just a kick in the pants?”

Love,
Esther

You can read more and also find an appreciation page where you can leave comments for Esther here.

Jerry’s passing touched me, I always admired him. He seemed bright, inquisitive, and articulate, and next to Esther, Jerry Hicks was tops at explaining the principles of the law of attraction.

You know what I remember the most about Jerry? That he always seemed happy. He was always smiling, always radiating the love and pride that he felt about Esther. It was a beautiful thing.

I will miss Jerry. Losing him is almost like losing a dear friend. Donna and I have been reading and listening to Abraham-Hicks stuff for quite a few years now. We were even fortunate enough to see them live on one of their stops in our state.

I think the reason I connect with Jerry so much is that, like myself, he was a seeker. I hope that on this next stage of his journey he finds some of the answers he has been looking for.

Although, I suspect that whatever awaits us after our time here is finished, will only lead us deeper and deeper into the mystery of life.

Farewell Jerry!

Want to reach your goals? Start showing up for your own success.

Goal setting has become more and more common, and while this is good because it means that more and more people are taking an active role in their personal success, unfortunately for many of those people, actually reaching goals hasn’t gotten any easier.

That is because success of any kind, whether it is reaching your goals or just finding happiness in life, depends a great deal on you showing up and being present in your life.

If you are still struggling, still trying to reach your goals, but still hitting roadblocks, you are probably getting frustrated. That frustration is keeping you from success. It’s a vicious cycle, but one that you can break free of.

It starts by showing up for your own success.

Sometimes, and I have been guilty of this myself, it is easy to get caught up in the day to day drudgery of your current life. You get so busy dealing with problems and going through the same mess over and over, that you find yourself slipping further from your goals rather than making progress. Things seem to keep going downhill no matter what you do.

Opportunities slip by you. You feel disconnected from your goals and dreams.

To change that, to start living the full and exciting life you know you deserve, you simply have to open up your mind and decide to be present.

Being present means taking an active role in your life, rather than drifting along on autopilot.  It means being consciously aware of what is really going on in your life. It means participating.

Most of the time, the success you want doesn’t come from a single, big scary action that you have to take. It comes from the small, daily habits that you perform. The ones you don’t think about. Those are the ones that will change your life. Those are the ones that will make a difference.

But if you are not present, if you are not conscious of those things you do, chances are pretty good that you will miss out on a lot that life has to offer. It is like going through life with blinders on.

To be more present in your life will take a conscious effort, at least at first. But the more you open yourself up and allow yourself to participate in your life rather than watch it roll by, the more you will gain in the long run.

If you are serious about learning how to reach your goals, then being present in your life and taking an active role in your own success will help you in ways that you can’t even imagine!

How to Reach Your Goals

Reaching your goals – how fast you reach them, and how completely they manifest in your life – depends a lot upon your decision making skills. Every step of your journey from where you are to where you want to be, (your goals), is filled with decisions of every size and level of importance.

Goal setting and goal achievement doesn’t have to be hard or complicated. Once you understand what it takes to go from setting a goal to actually achieving your goal, you will see that a lot of it revolves around the decisions you make all day, every day.

The better you become at making good decisions the sooner your dreams and goals will materialize in your life!

Your goal setting checklist!

Learning how to set goals – real goal setting that produces rapid results – isn’t difficult, it only seems that way – mostly because it is so easy to confuse ‘setting your goals’ with ‘achieving your goals’.

It is easy to confuse the action with the result.

Achieving your goal is a result, a result of all the actions you took that moved you in the direction of that goal. Sometimes it only takes a few actions to reach a goal, other times it takes many actions – sometimes repeated over and over – to achieve your goal.

But no matter how big your goal is or how many actions it will take to reach it, the very first action that you have to take is to SET A GOAL.

Setting your goal is an action. It is the most important action because if you mess up here, you will probably struggle to reach your goals.

In order to improve your life, in order to manifest or create those things that you want, you have to set strong, powerful goals. Nothing in your life will change until you decide to change it by setting goals and then taking action to reach those goals.

Here is a goal setting checklist to help you get the most out of your effort:

1. Know what you want.

Do you know what you want? Are you sure?

The more you know about your goal or dream, the more details and the more specific you are about it, the better your chances are of actually getting what you want. You wouldn’t walk into the supermarket and let some stranger fill your shopping cart with random items, would you? No, you pick and choose those things that you want. Your life is the same way. You have to pick and choose exactly what you want.

2. Commit to reaching your goal.

Are you committed to reaching your goal?

When you are fully committed to creating a change in your life, you tap into great reservoirs of strength that lie hidden within you, just waiting for you to use.  You find yourself willing to go the extra step, to do more, to risk more, to grow more. But this only happens if you commit yourself.   Don’t set goals that you are not committed to achieving. You will only waste your time and energy and find yourself frustrated and stuck.

3. Be willing to take action every day.

Are you willing to take real action every day?

Action is the engine that powers the creation process. The more specific actions that you take towards your goal, the faster you will get there. Reaching a goal is a journey, each step carries you closer and closer to your desired result. The more actions you take and the more often that you take them, the faster and easier it becomes to reach your goal. If you only work on your goals on the weekends, or only when you feel like it, or only when the sun is shining, it will take you infinitely longer to see your goals realized. Taking action every day though, will build momentum, which will increase your effectiveness and allow you to get the rapid results that you want.

How are you doing on your goals?

Are you clear on what you want? Are you committed to achieving your goals? Are you willing to take action every day?

Great! Then you are on your way to becoming a master goal setter. As you get better at setting goals, you will get better at achieving goals and the better you will be able to create the life and the lifestyle that you truly desire.

To reach your goals you have to stop wishing!

Do you want to reach your goals? Are you serious about reaching your goals?

Then stop wishing for success. Stop wishing for your dreams to come true.

You might think this is strange advice for a success coach to offer, but the truth is, of all the challenges and obstacles that I help people overcome on the way to reaching their goals and dreams, WISHING is the one that causes the most trouble and the most headaches.

Why?

Because wishes have very little power. Wishes won’t change your life.

But we like to believe in the power of wishes and we are taught how to wish at a very young age.

• We wish upon a star.
• We make wishes when we blow out our birthday candles.
• We throw coins in wishing wells and fountains.
• There is even a bone inside a turkey that we call the wishbone and we use it to compete with someone else to see who’s wish will come true.

There are plenty of others too.

Now, don’t get me wrong – I love wishes and I’m big on dreams…

But wishing by itself won’t get you very far when it comes to actually reaching your dreams and achieving your goals.

Your biggest breakthrough will only come when you stop wishing for success and instead you take that wish and turn it into a concrete goal. A goal that you can then take action on and move toward.

What would happen if you turned your wishes into goals? What would happen if you took your biggest wish and made it your intention to make it real?

What would happen if, instead of saying, “I wish I was wealthy” you said something like, “I am becoming wealthy”?

By changing your wishes into declarations you profoundly affect your connection with your desired outcome. You are more likely to take action. You are more likely to follow through. You will get real results!

So go ahead and wish all you want, but if you truly desire a wish to come true, you have to transform that wish into a goal. Once you do that you unlock you full power to manifest that goal fully and completely.

That’s what brings you ultimate success in life!

Is perfection holding you back?

If you want to know how to reach your goals faster, you should read this entire post, because I will share with you a principle of self-growth that can dramatically affect the results you are getting. This principle will help you make giant leaps forward if you embrace it. It can help you reach your goals quicker. It will even allow you to have more time and energy for other things in your life.

I’m talking about the principle of continual improvement.

The principle of continual improvement is one of my favorite success strategies simply because it takes your ordinary results and grows them bigger and bigger.

Essentially, the idea behind continual improvement is that you make every day just a little bit better than the day before. Just a tiny improvement each and every day toward your goal is all it takes. It doesn’t matter what your goals are, if you take a step forward every day, eventually you will reach them.

Imagine what your life would look like a year from now if you could grow just 1% each day. How many of your goals would you already have achieved?

But there is one thing that stops us from taking full advantage of the principle of continual improvement, and that is the pursuit of perfection.

Even if you don’t consider yourself to be a ‘perfectionist’, you might be letting perfection ruin your chances of getting what you really want.

You might be like me, I don’t consider myself a perfectionist by any means, yet when it comes to some things that are important for me to finish, I spend way to much time and energy trying to get something ‘just right’. For instance, I buy some of the graphics I use on the web, but I also make some of my own. In my mind, I do this because I think I can just whip something up quickly, but usually I find myself hours later still playing with pixels, trying to get something to line up just right or trying various color combinations. Do you know how many millions of colors are available on your computer? It can drive you crazy.

Perfection, or being perfect, is largely an unattainable goal. Sure there are some things that you can be perfect at. You can have perfect attendance at school, for example. For the most part though, perfection is subjective and we humans are always striving to set the bar higher and higher.

When it comes to doing what is necessary to reach your goals, perfection is not always the answer. If you are stalled on one of the steps to your dream, if you are waiting for the right time or the right opportunity to come along, if you are feeling stuck because you can’t reach that level of perfection you desire…

You will find the answer in the adage, ‘Seek progress, not perfection’.

Progress is all you need to reach any of your goals. Don’t let yourself get sidetracked by the pursuit of perfection. Just keep making progress, day by day.

When your main focus in on improving – even just a little bit – each day, you WILL grow, you WILL get better, and eventually you will find yourself face to face with your goal!

“Seek progress, not perfection”, doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t do your best, it means knowing when to say, “This is good enough.” It means knowing when to move on to the next step.

To keep growing and to keep moving forward!

When you commit to making continual improvement in your life, you will see your results begin to pile on top of each other and nothing will stand between you and your biggest dreams.

So, where in your life have you let perfection slow you down?

Please share your comments below and let us know whether progress or perfection is working for you and which helps you reach your goals.