Goals – How Can I Really Achieve What I Want to in Life?

I am constantly asking myself the questions, “How can I…?”  How can I improve this or that?  How can I monetize this idea?  How can I convert this thought to something easier to understand?  The ‘how can I’ question is a very powerful stimulator for your subconscious mind.  I’ve recommended to my audiences (blogs, books and conferences) that when you have a problem trying to solve a problem, ask yourself, ‘how can I’ just before you got to sleep.  Let your subconscious mind think about solutions.

I write my ‘life’s goals’ and my ‘daily goals’ every day.  I want to connect between the written word on a page of paper through my hand and up to my brain through my eyes.  It is a powerful way to supercharge your subconscious mind to take action.  97% of people do not write their goals – they think about them at best.  3% of the people in the United States actually take the time to write their goals – whether it be daily, weekly, monthly or annually.  Over 90% of those people who routinely achieve their goals have them written down.

I’ve been studying the subconscious mind for a long time.  I know that it takes a special kind of language to communicate directly to your subconscious mind.  The standard 3-P’s – personal, present tense and positive are the minimum requirements to convert conscious thoughts directly to your subconscious mind. Your subconscious mind does not understand the future.  Saying that ‘you will’ do something cannot connect to the controller of your life.  Your subconscious mind does not understand ‘negative’ words.  If you say, “I am not going to eat dessert today!” your subconscious mind hears “I am going to eat dessert today!

There are other details about wants, needs, desires and expectations that convert differently in your subconscious mind.  Additionally, promises convey a stronger impetus to get something done.  Adding the words ‘no matter what’ also increases the intensity to achieve a particular task.  Your subconscious mind does not know the difference between real or imagined.  This is the primary mechanism that you can use to erase a lot of personal baggage – negativity, failures, etc.  Your subconscious mind also understands pictures more than words.  That is why visualizing is one of the best tools to use to achieve your goals.

I just finished writing a goal book – goal setting and achieving.  I am in the process of reading it in order to convert the written book into an audio book.  By doing so I achieve two objectives – another product to sell (the audio book) and I get a better quality of editing done.  When you read something out loud you can hear exactly what you wrote. Sometimes you can read and see the words, but the nuances aren’t noticed till you actually say them out loud.

Even though I’ve completed my book, I’m going to add one additional chapter at the end to supercharge goal achievement.  I was running this afternoon and finished up around 3:00 p.m. (yes, it was a very delightful afternoon with the temperature in the Houston area at 100 degrees).  I was focused all morning on ‘how can I make this (goal setting and achievement) more functional for some one?’  I’ve had various iterations of that basic question that I’ve been cogitating on for the past couple of days.  During my run my brain came up with the idea about incorporating everything into one package – a personal book, so to speak.

What if you could take your life’s goals and write each one on a piece of paper.  At the top of the page would be a specific goal.  Let’s use something easy for a life goal – I am at my ideal weight.  Notice, I used personal (I) and present tense (am) and the actual goal itself.  I want that goal to connect directly to my subconscious mind.  I don’t want something to divert, obscure or reduce the importance of this goal to my personal control mechanism – my subconscious mind.

OK, I have the goal written at the top of the page.  I now need to add some pictures – visualizations of whatever can reinforce that goal.  I could have pictures of me when I was much younger, leaner and sexier.  Or, I could have some pictures of a physique that I prefer to have.  I can cut and paste several pictures in the center of this piece of paper.  I can add or subtract as better pictures come along.

At the bottom of the page I have two sections – the ‘why’ section and an ‘affirmation’ section.  You have to know why you want something – it’s important to convey that reason to your subconscious mind.  The why for many of us is difficult because your subconscious mind can grab a hold of something you are not even aware of and it will continue to thwart your achievement of that goal.  For instance, let’s say that you want to be rich.  That’s a nice goal.  But, if the underlying reason why you want to be rich is that you don’t want to retire and be poor – your subconscious mind thinks you want to be poor and it will help you to become poor in your retirement.

At the bottom of the page I would write the reason I want to be at my ideal weight – healthier, live longer, live better, lessen my risk of various diseases, able to do things with my grandkids – you can see where this is going.  Have a good solid reason or reasons why you want this particular goal that you defined at the top of the page.  Then, right below your ‘why’ statement, write at least three affirmations – one in which you use the ‘I’ term; one in which you use your first name ‘Red’; and, one in which your use your whole name ‘Red O’Laughlin.’  Those affirmations written in three different ‘personal’ forms attack your subconscious mind and give it slightly different interpretations.

I have preached about having balance in your life.  My life’s goals are broken into physical, mental, spiritual, time management, relational and finance.  If you were to take each of your life’s goals and create an individual page that represents the ‘what’ and ‘why’, along with visual stimulations and affirmations, you could reflect on each of your goals as often as you want.  It takes me more than a few minutes each day to actually write my life’s goals and think about each one as I’m writing them.  If I had a book (that could be changed as often as I want to change it) then I can see my goal, see a visual picture to reinforce that goal, remind myself why I want to achieve it and give my subconscious mind a tweak with a few affirmations.

If I also knew what my passions in life were also, I could marry passion statements and measurements of those passion statements to have a full package – the whole story of what I expect in life.  Many people have a dream board or goal board – this is a dream book or goal book for your personal future.

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

Subconscious Mind – The Double-Edge Sword of Success or Demise

Our subconscious mind is the most powerful weapon you have in your arsenal to succeed or fail in life.  It is a true double-edged sword.  A double-edged sword can help or hurt the sword holder.  A single-edged sword is generally used for slashing and cutting – there is only one direction in which to cut or to slash.  The double-edged sword can be swung with equal devastation from one side to the other.  Theoretically, it could do twice the damage compared to the single-edged sword.

Most people don’t realize the power their subconscious mind has over their life.  They think that their conscious mind is in charge.  The best description that I have heard comparing the two comes from Vincent Pocente.  He tells a story in which your conscious brain is equivalent to a mouse sitting on the back of an elephant, which represents your subconscious mind.  The mouse is trying to tell the elephant where to go and how to get there.  The elephant does not understand the mouse’s language, nor can it even feel the mouse running around on its back.

You know what you want, what you desire and what you need.  These words describe the language of your conscious mind.  However, your conscious mind does not control you future.  You future is controlled by expectations – not wants, desires and needs.  Your future is controlled by your subconscious mind.  Your subconscious mind has been filled with every thought, word, feeling, vision and aroma since you were born.  It has an enormous storage capability – and, a colossal retrieval capacity.  Given enough time it can retrieve just about anything you ever put into it.

How is it a double-edged sword?  If you use it to help you get ahead, to achieve goals, to develop your self-esteem, to protect you from additional failure, etc., it is the productive edge of the sword – cutting and slashing away the obstacles preventing you from attaining what you seek – and, there are a lot of barriers, impediments, obstructions, hurdles and complications to get through to declare victory.  If you use it as most people do – they ignore it and allow it to run their lives of autopilot, then you get status quo or less in life and maybe a cozy comfort zone for most of their lives.

The prime directive of your subconscious mind is to defend you against failure and embarrassment.  It will do everything it can to uphold that directive.  Let’s pick something simple – you want to learn to play an instrument or learn a new language.  You begin and find it difficult.  You have never done something like this before and your subconscious cannot decide if this is good or bad for you.  There is not enough historical data to make a decision to support or thwart you.  As you progress you build a history.  If the history is success – you learned to play an instrument well, or learned to be proficient in a foreign language; your subconscious will continue to help you with additional instruments or languages.  You have built a history of success.  But, if you gave it up because it was too hard or any other reason, you are creating a history of failure.

Most of us have been programmed since birth by our parents, siblings, relatives, friends, schools, work-mates, television, newspapers, magazines, etc. to fail.  Not intentionally, but we have been programmed to fail.  The average eighteen year old has been told NO at least 80,000 times.  Your subconscious doesn’t have to experience failure to store failure in its data banks.  Your parents can tell you that you will fail if you do that – that statement is equal to you doing it and failing.  You can see someone else fail and it can be imprinted into your neurons that you will fail if you do the same thing.  Once you start sliding down the negative side of the mountain it is difficult to climb back up and cover up those failure moments.

From a double-edged perspective, we might begin to improve our self-esteem or our self-image by saying affirmations aloud.  That’s good.  Your subconscious mind has rules that you might not know about.  It doesn’t understand negative or future.  It operates in the present.  If you say, I’m not going to eat dessert – your subconscious mind hears, I’m going to eat dessert – you’ve done it before and it makes sense, so let’s support you eating dessert.  The negative in your thought or statement was cutting your progress, like the back edge of the blade.  When you add a disaffirmation to your affirmation, you achieve nearly the same thing – I would eat less, but…  Your subconscious is confused because it doesn’t understand the connection word ‘but.’  Every time during the day you think you can’t do something, you are right – you can’t do it and you have reinforced failure into your subconscious mind – you can’t do it.

You have to understand what rules to play by when you are attempting to reprogram your subconscious mind.  The rules are simple and easy to do, but if you waver, the blade comes back and whacks off any progress you might have made.  Get rid of the negative environment around you – your friends, if necessary – television – and any other sources of negativity.  Begin talking to yourself with empowering and positive affirmations – I believe, I accept, I know, I am learning, I am becoming, I have, I possess, I own, I am thankful, I appreciate, etc.  Let’s assume that your subconscious is a large crater filled with your years of failure – real or imagined.  Each affirmation is equivalent to a small stone thrown into the middle of the crater.  It takes a while to fill it up.  Once the crater in front of you is filled in and level, then you can begin building the positive mound of energy that you can draw on to succeed at anything you choose in life.

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