When you set a new goal for yourself, such as a sales target and make a commitment to achieve it, you can count on a variety of interruptions or distractions — something creeping up — that will impede your progress if you allow this to occur. It’s important to use positive wording when devising your goals, use positive language when referring to them, and maintain a positive outlook so that doubt has nary a foothold.
The Human Predicament
No matter what goal you’re seeking, whether it’s something that will take you a day, a week, a month, or many years, along the way all kinds of reasons will begin to appear as to why you will not be successful, why you shouldn’t proceed, why the goal is not worthy and why it’s hopeless to continue.
Undoubtedly you’ve heard that the mind contains both conscious and subconscious realms. The subconscious realm ingests information about your life and concludes that however things are is how they ought to be.
- If you smoke, your subconscious is convinced that you want to continue to smoke.
- If you weigh a certain amount, it concludes that you wish to weigh that amount.
- If you’re fearful of speaking in public, it concludes that you wish to avoid public presentations.
When you have a goal to improve yourself or better your life, even though on a conscious level you may truly desire to move, your subconscious concludes that yup, despite what he’s currently saying, he wants to stay right here.
Your Subconscious in High Gear
Everyone’s subconscious, including yours, in every situation, automatically concludes that the status quo should continue. In acknowledgment of the relentlessness of your subconscious, the need to form positively worded goals becomes paramount.
If you choose to avoid something, as in the goal, “I seek to quit smoking permanently by the end of this month,” the subconscious surveys the situation, sees that smoking is still part of the goal (even if it’s to quit smoking) and summarily concludes that what you actually want to do is continue smoking!
When there’s one week to go before the end of the month, and for three weeks you’ve been doing marvelously, guess what? Your subconscious isn’t sure if you mean business, so to give you another chance to keep smoking it “decides” to test your mettle. It starts installing trip wires all around your life. If you walk into a room and people are smoking, all of a sudden you think to yourself how good it would be to take a quick drag.
So, it’s vital to steep yourself in the positive.
- positive thoughts,
- positive deeds,
- positive outlook,
- positive words,
- positive everything!
When you maintain a positive mental outlook, as Norman Vincent Peale said more than sixty years ago, you benefit from the power of positive thinking. Your subconscious is no match for your ability to muster powerful career and life-enhancing positive thoughts!
Jeff Davidson, at www.BreathingSpace.com, is "The Work-Life Balance Expert®" and the leading personal brand in speaking, writing, and reflecting on work-life balance issues. He has spoken to Fortune 50 companies such as IBM, Cardinal Health Group, and Lockheed, and to American Express, Wells Fargo, and Westinghouse.
Jeff is the author many books including Simpler Living, Breathing Space, and The 60 Second Self-Starter, his 3800+ published articles, and his 92 audios. Jeff’s books are published in 18 languages including Arabic, Chinese, Japanese, Malay, Turkish, and Russian; and have been featured in 68 of the top 75 American newspapers.
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