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Family & Youth Forum |
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May What's Inside Grief: A Normal Response to Loss The Leadership Center for Youth--Sulphur Open House
Mission |
Goal Digging WORK THOUGHTS by Candis Carr, EdD, Associate Executive Director
Yes, but we also set goals to enjoy what is at the end of our imaginary rainbows – those specific treasures valued by us, our family, and society. Fortunately, there is a magic formula (of sorts) for getting what we want.
To begin, recall the classics Okay, are you willing to experience success? Start by moving your goals from inside your head to visible words on paper. Write as fast as you can and be specific. When defeating thoughts try to stop you, set them aside. Continue writing for as long as you can. Don’t hold back. Want to endow a university or a hospital? Build a new home? Become a better parent? Get a patent? Lose 50 pounds? Rebuild your neighborhood? Whatever you imagine you want to achieve…write it down. Next, put the list somewhere private. In time you will want to go back and amaze yourself with how much you have accomplished. Writing goals on paper invites the reticular activating system (RAS) to get busy. And get busy, it will!
The RAS is a group of cells at the
base of your brain stem responsible for sorting and evaluating
incoming data. The RAS sends urgent data to the active part of your
brain and non-urgent data to your unconscious. (An example of the
RAS in action is the common experience of hearing your name spoken
across a crowded room when you can barely hear the conversation of
the person standing next to you.) Once set in motion, your brain
will also begin sending you new material… innovative,
energizing ideas for planning and expanding your original ambitions.
Wow!
This really works. Endless examples exist, but consider someone famous. Lou Holtz, the renowned football coach, made his list in 1966 when he was 28 years old. It contained 170 possible personal and professional goals, and at the time he composed it, he had no job, no money, and his wife was eight months pregnant with their third child! He has achieved 81 of those original goals, which included having dinner at the White House, meeting the pope, becoming head coach at Notre Dame, winning a national championship, making a hole in one, and jumping out of an airplane! So give yourself permission to go for it! Don’t use what must be the saddest line in the world… “Oh, come on now…be realistic!” Instead, grab some paper and start writing. For more information about setting goals, email candis@fyca.org or call us at 337-436-9533. |
Have you observed that when life is
the toughest, people often perform at their best? In fact,
someone has said, “The major reason for setting a goal is for
what it makes of you to accomplish it. What it makes of you will
always be the far greater value than what you get.”
on setting goals: Napoleon Hill’s Think and Grow Rich; Claude
Bristol’s The Magic of Believing; James Allen’s As a Man
Thinketh; and David Schwartz’s The Magic of Thinking Big.
Every author proposes the same beginning point for success: “The
first and essential step in reaching your goal is to write it down.”
It’s not real until it’s on paper. 