Achieving your goals in 2014

“There is no passion to be found playing small, in settling for a life that is less than the one you are capable of living” Nelson Mandela

Are you living the life that you are capable of? Or are you playing small and tiptoeing through life, hoping to make it safely to death? Now that’s a scary thought!

Dreams to reality

People over sixty (and that includes me) may have either lost their dreams or don’t dream any more and it’s often because that is what we tell people ourselves. “I’m too old to dream” or “life has passed me by” or “dreaming is for the young” What? What a load of rubbish is what I would answer to that. Yet I have heard this cry from many people over sixty.

Where are the dreamers? Are you out there? I would really love to hear what the modern sixties are saying and what a fabulous forum to be asking this question of!

Turning your dreams into reality requires a specific process. I first started setting and achieving my goals many years ago after having what I felt was a major epiphany in my life. Like many others my life has been filled with highs and lows. Losing my mother and two sisters very close together. Discovering after twenty-eight years of (what I thought was a loving) marriage, my husband (now ex!!) was living a double life with another woman for four years. Sinking in to a depression and having a minor heart attack, you could call lows as well. I still have a great sense of humour though yay!

But, what about the highs? There are many, and they rate far higher than the lows including watching my three children growing up to be fine upstanding adults, wonderful caring human beings and being so proud of who each of them are today. Like the birth of my three absolutely, exceptionally beautiful grandchildren whom I absolutely adore and I know well that I am exceptionally blessed to be an active part of their lives. Travelling to many beautiful places throughout the world and developing my business and living my dream that allows me to help others to believe in and achieve their dreams.

The epiphany that I had many years ago was this: “I am worthy of living a wonderfully abundant and loving life”

So it began here, my days and nights were consumed with learning all I could about my dreams and goals and how to turn those “Dreams to Reality” and I’m delighted to share this with you. There is a process for achieving goals and if you would like to take this little exercise and share it with me I will show you very simply what that process is. Have fun with this exercise and do let me know your thoughts

Identify your goal

This is a biggie, I want you to ask yourself “What is my goal? What am I trying to achieve? What is my passion? Is this a worthwhile goal? ”

Write it down

Now take a pen and paper and write down at least 5 – 10 goals that you would like to achieve, don’t get bogged down with the “how”, that will be revealed. Just write them down and don’t be afraid to dream big. Be very specific don’t leave it ambiguous get your thinking crystal clear. When writing your goal, you can be as descriptive as you like, in fact the more descriptive the better, this gives you a feeling of ownership e.g. By June 2014 or earlier, I am so happy to be driving my brand new Red Toyota Prado that has five spoke wheels and cream leather trim etc.

Why

Ask yourself why you want this/these goals. Write down a paragraph on how you would feel if you were to achieve this goal. How would this change your life for the better?

Soft deadline

Give your goal a soft deadline, soft meaning slightly flexible. This creates a little more urgency than just leaving it out in the ether to float around, keeps your focus and commitment and puts the feeling of reality to your goal. It also fosters excitement and anticipation and above all the action to drive your goal. If you achieve it earlier, that’s brilliant. If later, who cares? You have achieved it!

Action

To achieve any sort of goal in this life, set action must be taken. The first thing you do is to ask yourself what daily steps you can be taking to bring you closer to your goal. Diarise it. Commit to your dreams and believe in them strongly, you can do this! Get passionate about your goals and watch opportunities begin to appear for the achievement of these goals

Remember without action it’s just a lofty dream.

Faith

You can dream and write it down and be very specific but if you don’t believe you can achieve it, odds are you won’t. You have to have faith in yourself, in your goals and in your commitment to your goals. What interferes with Faith? Simple it’s called Fear lets define F.e.a.r. False. Expectations. Appearing. Real. It is what many people allow to take over their lives and I have been one of them. This is a fascinating subject on it’s own and will be for another time.

Gratitude

Be thankful for your goal achievements everyday even before they come to fruition. Focus on your daily gratitude and you will achieve so much more than without it.

Your thoughts

Keep a close eye on what you are thinking, if you constantly think negatively, I can’t afford, poor me and about how much you don’t have, then that is exactly what you will attract. You see, what we think about we bring about. We get what we focus on.
What are you focussed on?

Goal achievers are people who do things in a certain way. Goal achievers take daily action towards their goals and the strong desire for their dreams/goals far outweigh the fear that can pop up once they properly set their goals. 2014 is just around the corner, wow how exciting, it’s an opportunity to start our goals fresh. I’m not talking New Years Resolutions here. I’ve never really seen them last beyond a week or two. I mean real goals and achievements. Together let’s set some goals. Are you in?

Lets reignite our passion and get all fired up about our lives, who wants to join me, are you coming along. We can let life just happen to us, or we can actually design what we want in our lives.

Now, “Starts at Sixty” fans get to it with the exercise I have set you and share your thoughts on this subject.