Goals – Supercharge Your Goal Setting By Operating at the Right Brain Wave State

Your brain operates at different levels throughout the day.  Brain waves are electrical waves that can be measured.  There are four distinct brain wave patterns – Beta, Alpha, Theta and Delta.  You can operate in a reasonably wide range within each of these levels.  The Beta level is the level you recognize the most – it is your normal awake cycle.  You see and communicate in the Beta level.  If you are debating someone, you are operating at a higher level in the Beta state. If you are just listening to a television show, you are operating in a lower Beta state.  When you are talking to someone, you are operating in the middle of your Beta state.  In the Beta state, your conscious mind is actively engaged in what you are doing.

Alpha State

The next most active brain wave is the Alpha state.  You pass into and out of the Alpha stage several times a day.  When you are not engaged actively in work, talk, reading, viewing, etc, you are in the Alpha state.  When you relax after completing a task, you typically fall into the Alpha state.  When you consciously control your breathing and begin to meditate, you are in the Alpha state.  The Alpha state opens your subconscious mind to instant access.

Theta State

Theta state is the next level of brain wave activity.  People daydreaming are in the Theta state.  You are in the Theta state when you are on ‘auto–pilot‘ driving you car on the freeway – you probably can’t remember passing a particular landmark that you see every day.  It works with freeway driving since the scenery doesn’t change very much.  You would not typically expect to transition into the Theta state when driving on a back country road where the scenery changes often.  The Theta state is an excellent opportunity to let your subconscious mind determine solutions to your problems.

I was always amazed at how many problems I was able to solve when I drove, but I never realized it at the time.  Over time I learned that my best ideas came from driving, but I was never cognizant of the freeway versus residential driving until lately.  I use extended freeway driving for thinking and learning.  I pose various questions to my subconscious mind and allow it to provide solutions.  I pose a problem to my subconscious mind in the form of a ‘how’ to or ‘what’ question and let it offer suggestions.  For example, “How can I focus better on the things I need to accomplish to meet my immediate goals?”  Or, “What do I need to do today or tomorrow to begin making progress on my goal?”  Additionally, I use this same time for learning by listening to self-improvement CDs.

Theta state can be achieved when running long distances or any other time that your mind is totally relaxed – in the sauna, during a massage, taking a nap, etc.  The Theta state is your most positive mental state because your thought process is without any guilt or censorship attached to it.

Delta State

Your brain waves are the slowest when you are in deep sleep – Delta state.  At the end of a tough day you are tired and tense.  As you relax you enter the low Beta state.  In the low Beta state your subconscious mind is open for programming – continued reinforcement of what you already know, or new programming.  Watching television, reading a book or surfing the Internet prior to going to sleep floods your highly susceptible subconscious mind with thoughts, issues, comments, concerns, problems, etc.  What you focus on you become!  If the majority of things you think about before going to sleep are negative, then you will maintain or reinforce negativity in your life.  Most of the negativity in your environment come from the television – that’s a clue – turn it off.

When you close your eyes as you prepare to go to sleep, you begin your transition from a low Beta state back briefly to the Alpha state and then quickly through the Beta state again and then into the Theta state.  This is an excellent time to imagine or visualize your goals.  It is an excellent time to identify the biggest problem you have that is holding you back from achieving your dreams, and concentrate on it with a ‘how’ or ‘what’ question.  Don’t solve it consciously.  Let your subconscious mind reflect on it as you sleep.  You may or may not wake up with solutions, but you are getting solutions to your problems running around in your brain.  Shortly you will get the best answer your subconscious mind can come up with – and, you will have support of your subconscious mind to help you solve that problem since your subconscious mind actually determined the solution to your problem.

Delta state is typically achieved in cycles of 90 minutes.  You are in deep sleep.  It is not uncommon to transition back and forth between the Delta state and Theta state as you are sleeping.  The last thing I read every night is a chapter or two on personal development or self-improvement.  As I’m lying still with my eyes closed I tell myself that I sleep (present tense) deeply and always awaken relaxed and refreshed.  I go through a quick routine of affirmations and visualizations for reinforcement.  I also think about the one or two things I must get done tomorrow, but I think about them in the context that I am enjoying the fact that I have finished those actions.  Again, your subconscious mind only understands present tense, positive and personal statements.  Statements incorporating ‘will’ and ‘not’ are not processed by your subconscious mind.

Summary

In summary, you can use your brain wave patterns to supercharge goal achievement.  You need to spend your time focusing on your goals in the Alpha, Beta and Theta states to optimize your achievement.  The ‘snooze’ minutes might be your most productive part of your day if you plan to use that time to focus on solving the problems that are stopping you from achieving your dreams.  Let a nine-minute dream work for your.  Be productive while you snooze.

Choices have consequences.  Your Prosperity Professor, Red O’Laughlin

Goals – A 5K Race Reminded Me of Goal Setting

I recently ran a 5K race with my grandson.  We arrived early and wandered around looking for people we knew.  I had a chance to observe and hear comments from a number of people – mainly strangers.  Some I talked to, but most I just listened as I walked by them.  About half-way through the race my mind started to align many of the things I heard and saw.  All of them fit perfectly into the general topic of goal setting.

Everyone there had a goal of running or walking a 5K race – the end goal for this example.  For most of them it was reasonably easy – my observation was that most had run or walked a 5K (3.1 mile) race before.  Their subconscious minds supported their decision to run this race because they had demonstrated an ability to run one or more previously, or they had sufficient training to complete the race.  For those who had already completed a 5K race, their goal was probably to do better than the last time.  For the new-comers, it was to just finish the race.

I observed many teams of runners – grouped into various company groups and other less apparent affiliation.  Team work can be very valuable – that extra support leading up to and during the race is critical to completing the goals that you set.  When you incorporate others into your goal setting, you feel more strongly that you must make your goal – and your subconscious mind doesn’t want you embarrassed, so you do things you might now have done if you didn’t have others working with you or depending on you.

I mentioned training earlier.  Most runners want to do better on each race they enter.  Training is necessary to do better.  The same is true in goal setting.  Having milestones along the way give us a progress report of how we are doing.  Those milestones are very similar to the training sessions a runner does in preparation for a race.  Each milestone gets you closer to your goal.  Maybe one day you run at a certain pace for a certain number of miles.  Another day you might run sprints – another day you might run longer distances to build your endurance.  Some practice at different times of the day so that they will be better prepared for the actual race conditions.

As I was running I could hear other runners talking to each other.  Many times it was coaching someone to hang in there – or, to run to a specific tree or light post or other landmark.  They had supporters urging them not to give up just yet – to continue running to a specific point in the race.  Similarly, in goal setting, you have the milestones that I mentioned earlier.  Depending on the race conditions, you adjust your milestones accordingly.  Milestones for goals are adjusted the same way – as you approach your milestone you have more information that you did before you set the milestone.  Therefore, you have the ability to stop short or continue on past that particular milestone and begin working on the next one.

There was a water stop at two places in the race.  It gave the runners a chance to stop briefly and recharge their bodies and spirits.  In goal setting sometimes we need a break to reassess or to reflect on the big picture – what we really wanted to accomplish.  These short breaks are very powerful in keeping us focused on our goals.  The water gave them more strength to continue just when they needed it.  If you needed more than one cup of water, you could easily ask for more.  Likewise, when the stresses of everyday life intrude into your busy schedule, a five minute meditation or controlled breathing exercise can be just what you need.  Adding an extra minute or two, or incorporating some stretching reinvigorates your mental attitude to focus again on you end goal.

Many of the runners were able to eat a snack just before getting onto the course.  That gave them the ability to charge up their system for the last assault on their destination.  A final potty stop also helped to rid them of unnecessary body stresses that could arise during the race.  These last minute actions made it easier to step into the street and know they were ready to accept the challenge of running 5K and finishing.

In the old days I found it easy to run 5K without much preparation – years and years of running just made it easy to do.  My grandson, daughter and I have run many 5K races over the years.  Two years ago I changed my running habit from long distances to sprints.  Last year I did sprints 3-5 times a week – primarily for cardiovascular improvement.  I’ve been doing the same this year.  I learned a good lesson this year.  Past success doesn’t always mean I am as prepared as I thought I would be.  This race was much more difficult for me – not to finish, because I knew I could finish it.  But, it was more difficult because I was not as prepared as I should have been – my endurance was lacking.

Our goals change as we get older.  Many times they are similar to previous goals, but they might be more complex, more demanding, more time critical, etc.  We think because we have completed these types of goals many times in the past that we can just wait till the last moment and jump on it and get it done – like getting income tax done in a timely manner.  Then we find out that new issues have crept into our lives that we did not see – and they caused us to not make our due date, or not deliver the end result with the previous quality that we have delivered in the past.

I did not plan for this race well and I could tell.  I did finish the race slightly ahead of my planned time, but I could tell my body was not prepared to the experience.  I learned a valuable lesson that will make me better prepared for the next race.  Of, by the way, my grandson beat me this time – we seem to fluctuate of who wins which race.  The next one is mine to win.

Choices have consequences.  Your Prosperity Professor, Red O’Laughlin

Prosperity – Prosperity is a Lot Like Rubik’s Cube

Rubik’s Cube will celebrate its 30th anniversary this year – 2010.  There are a lot of toys that stay around for years and years – new generations of kids buy the ‘gold standards’ of toys – those that work and bring enjoyment to all who use or play with them.  Rubik’s Cube is a little different than most toys – a lot of adults bought them also.  The inventor, Erno Rubik, was a sculptor and professor or architecture.

I had a couple Rubik’s Cubes many years ago when they first came out.  I bought one (or two) for my kids when they were growing up.  A few years ago I bought a 25th anniversary Rubik’s Cube.  Back then I never mastered it, but it was fun and occupied a lot of my time.  My son showed me a combination and I worked with those simple instructions and was able to convert any color of my choosing to appear all on one side – one sixth of the puzzle solved.  I worked to see how fast I could solve it – and then, worked to see how fast I could solve each of the colors – one after another.  I enjoyed the challenge.  But, I could never master the whole cube.

I was thinking about it today while driving back home and told my wife that it would make a good blog tonight.  Prosperity is a lot like a Rubik’s Cube.  How might you ask?  There is a formula to solve Rubik’s Cube.  I looked it up on YouTube the other day and watched and wrote the moves.  It’s pretty complex and takes lots of practice.  Prosperity does not come over night without any instruction or practice – just like Rubik’s Cube.  If we were given a Rubik’s Cube and told to ‘mess it up’ for a few minutes, and then solve it, we could not do it – that’s the vast, vast majority of us.  We don’t have the skills, time or inclination to do it.

Prosperity is similar.  We’ve spent most of our lives messing it up and we want to fix it in a few moments.  The Rubik’s Cube has many different possibilities to start from – just like us – we all have different backgrounds and experiences in our lives.  Regardless, the Rubik’s Cube can be solved by starting with a particular objective in mind – to align certain colors in specific locations on each side.  That, in and of itself, does not take a lot of training, but it does take time and practice.

Prosperity can be started by anyone at any point in time.  You should know where you are to start, but it is not necessary.  Time and discipline is required to begin and stay focused on your immediate objectives.  In a while – weeks or months for some, and years for others, the basic framework is set – just like the Rubik’s Cube.  Once you have the corner colors matching the center color on each side, then you begin the repetitive operations that will bring any color to a middle location on the side and leave the rest of the cube exactly as it was before you began those iterations.

We begin making iterative changes in our lives, but our baseline changes as we go – and most of the time it is regressing – not staying the same, or advancing along with us.  Our subconscious minds perceive this as failure, and support to continue wanes – it is too hard to do.  Worst yet, after a couple of failures, we don’t even try again – it’s been tried and didn’t work.  Rubik’s Cube is the same.  You think you are almost there and make a turn and a twist and all of a sudden you find that it didn’t work and the cube is worse off than when you started – and you don’t know how to repair the damage.

Rubik’s Cube requires action – it won’t fix itself.  Our prosperous futures require action – something done continually to make a difference – a positive difference in our lives.  If we have the formula and slowly begin adhering to the requirements and constraints of that formula, we will be successful and solve the Rubik’s Cube.  The same will happen in your quest for prosperity.  You need a proven formula that works.  Fortunately there is more than one formula that works to achieve prosperity.  But, you have wisely select one formula and stick with it – and stay with it for the required period of time.  You have to realize that constraints will be part of the solution and failure comes with a price – the price is to learn what didn’t work, why it didn’t work, and don’t do it again.  Failure is a great learning tool when used properly.

Our subconscious minds don’t forget anything, but our conscious minds constantly ‘drop sync’ with important things in our lives.  If you solve the Rubik’s Cube and then throw away the formula, what is the chance that you can solve it again in ten years?  Probably not good!  It has to be practiced all the time.  Achieving success with the Rubik’s Cube and achieving success with your achievement of personal prosperity are the same – you have to continue doing what you did correctly in order to maintain the success and prosperity in your lives.

Choices have consequences.  Your Prosperity Professor, Red O’Laughlin

Happiness – 21 Tips to be Happier Every Day of Your Life

1.  Desire to be happy.  Expect to be happy. 

2.  Make smiling a habit.

3.  Be grateful for everything you have today. 

4.  Write a list of ten times in your life that you were really happy.  Describe the details of the situation – who was there to share the moment with you – what was the weather like – was there an aroma in the air – why was it so special. 

5.  Watch something funny – a movie, YouTube has many of them.  Laugh aloud and often.

6.  When something goes wrong, think of what caused it to go wrong – don’t dwell on it, but determine to not let it happen again – find a solution that works and implement it the next time you see disaster coming down the road.

7.  Listen to relaxing and enjoyable music.  Dance if you want.  Sing if you want.

8.  Set aside ten minutes each day to read an inspiring article.

9.  Control your thoughts.  Cancel out negativity. 

10.  Stay away from unhappy people.  Don’t watch disturbing programs on television. 

11.  Focus on today.  Release yesterday – capture the solutions to your mistakes, but don’t dwell on them.  Don’t worry about tomorrow.  Be optimistic about tomorrow instead.

12.  Avoid instant gratification.  Even thought this sounds counterproductive if you want happiness, avoid fleeting desires of immediate satisfaction. 

13.  Do a random act of kindness for a stranger every day.

14.  Plan you happiness.  Schedule it into your day.

15.  Reflect on your accomplishments. 

16.  Maintain your health.  Good health goes with happiness.  Poor health covers your happiness with a veil of disappointment.

17.  Do something good for you each day.

18.  Determine what makes you happy and think about them often.

19.  Learn stress relief techniques to overcome and reduce the stress in your life.

20.  Learn anger management techniques for those occasions when you might need them.

21.  Share your happiness with others.

Choices have consequences.  Your Prosperity Professor, Red O’Laughlin

Prosperity – Focus Beyond to Achieve What You Want

Have you ever achieved something out of the blue?  Unless it was an inheritance (or a birthday present), you probably have not.  If you wanted to lose weight, you had to focus on losing weight.  If you wanted an ‘A’ in a particular course, you had to study, to focus your energies to get that ‘A.’  You still have to focus on keeping weight off once you reach that goal.  Once you get your “A” you can relax on that one.  Some goals have automatic follow-on requirements.

If you want to retire at age 50, you know you had to have ‘x’ amount of money in your retirement fund.  Let’s say you need $5,000 a month to retire in today’s dollars.  That’s $60,000 a year.  To be conservative, you plan to live on 3% withdrawal from your retirement account – that gives you a margin to have your retirement account grow since you know you can earn more than 3% a year.

Three percent of two million dollars is $60,000.  You know how more years it is till you reach the age of 50.  You know how much money you have to invest and you know what kinds of investments are available.  You know a lot about what it takes to reach your goal.  If you focus on reaching that goal, you probably will.

You have to know what you want.  You have to know at least one path to get you there.  $60,000 a year is not financial independence.  If you are out of debt, and your home is paid for, and all you have are utility bills, food, gasoline, taxes, insurance, etc., you can probably maintain a nice living on $5,000 a month.  What happens when you turn 80 and you find out that it takes double or triple $5,000 a month to live?

At age 50 you might not – have any grandkids – yet.  However, as you continue down your career retirement decision, you might just decide to help them out with their college dreams.  That decision can impact your retirement fund.  Most people don’t invest in long-term care insurance.  After age 55 the premiums go up exponentially.  If you add an escalation factor to take care of the day cost for a room in an assisted living facility, the cost goes up noticeably as well.  Was that planned into your career retirement?

My kids still refer to my ‘worst case scenario’ routines that I used on them when they were growing up.  Achieving something is great.  How many people have lost half or more of their retirement funds just in the last ten years?  Focus on your dream, but focus far beyond it.  Some things – learning to swim, learning to fly, passing a course or getting a degree – have finite end dates that don’t impact your life negatively if you succeed (or not) and stop focusing in those areas.  Retirement is not one of them.

What’s the worst case scenario for you in your retirement life?  For a few it will be, ‘what cruises will we take this year?’  Most of us are not in that boat.  After age 50, most people can count of their health deteriorating.  If you lived an inactive lifestyle before you retire, you will probably continue down the same road.  Exercise has long been one of the main ingredients for a healthy, long life.  To me, my worst case scenario is having someone I don’t know change my diaper hours after it needs changing.  I want a good quality of life when I retire.

So, just having a set monthly income to retire at age 50 is not the only criteria to retire.  Having no debt and having your home paid for is a baseline assumption.  But, concentrating proactively on what actions you need to do routinely today to have the health you want in the future is a primary concern for my retirement.

Financial security of your nest egg is a major concern.  Part of your retirement plan should be to control your own money, not allow others to have that control.  That means you need the know more about finance and investing than you probably know today.  Real estate is another area of concern.  Just because you live in a nice area of town today doesn’t mean that the demographics will remain the same in 30 years.  What investments can you make to lessen the risk of having to move in 25 years?

Most retired people expect to have multiple streams of expenses during their retirement, but they don’t consider having multiple streams of income.  Certainly, income is being generated in their financial accounts, but I’m talking about doing those things you enjoy doing that will add additional dollars to your monthly life.  If you have a passion for tropical plants, why don’t invest in becoming a master gardener?  What about cake decorating or some other passion?  Anything that you have more than a casual interest in can be converted to dollars.

Think long-term, beyond the end of your important goal just to retire.  Focus on those things that you must do to get you there.  But, also focus on those things that can have catastrophic effects.  Take actions to minimize them.  You can’t stop an automobile accident from putting you into long-term rehabilitation, but you can focus on those things that you do control.

Talk to those who have been retired for 20+ years.  What did they plan on that worked – you need to know that?  What affected the quality of their life that could have been better planned?  Whatever plans you make should not be affected by what government could do to you.  Plan your retirement immune from government action as much as possible.  Remember, control what you can control and minimize the risk for everything else.

Choices have consequences.  Your Prosperity Professor, Red O’Laughlin