I-Believe Blog

Blow The Whistle, It's Half Time

Every now and again, you have to re-evaluate things. Most of us spend the New Year re-evaluating our careers, our relationships, our lives, and while we play around with those thoughts in our minds, we usually make a decision to change a few things.

We may decide that we would like to change our jobs, perhaps for more money, or work less hours. We may start that new diet and exercise regime that we have been meaning to do for the last few months. We may have a business idea that requires time and organisation to get it off the ground and up and running. The vast majority of us have made at least one New Year's Resolution and we have usually had some time away from the office to take some time out to just spend some time thinking.

Well, here is the first wake up call in 2008, we just struck half-time in the year, it's the sixth month in twelve and if you had goals, aspirations and plans to make some changes in your life this year, this month would be an excellent time to re-evaluate just how far you have come.

If you are not quite where you wanted to be up to this point, then re-evaluate your timing, change the date of reaching your goal, but don't change the goal. Make a journal, or use a Blog to track your progress over the next six months in more detail. This will leave a footprint for you to follow on how far you have progressed, not just towards your goal, but in your personal growth too. Blogs and journals SHOW you how much you have learned and developed, the changes are sometimes so subtle you will not notice them in yourself until you have something to reflect back upon. Start today.

Is Your Paradigm Holding You Back?

When it comes to setting goals, your paradigm can be the biggest single obstacle. Our paradigm is often formed as we grow from what we internalize through our education in schools, our parents, our friends, neighbours and families. Your paradigm is often very difficult to break free from and when it comes to setting goals for our life, we are restricted by our paradigm in being able to see what we really can achieve.

I believe there is a moment in our past when an event or an emotion blocked one of our dreams, for example maybe you had aspirations of being a stand up comic but your parents told you to stop being so silly and go and get a proper job instead. Or perhaps your mainstream school education programmed you to think that you must choose a career, go to university get good grades and then seek a job with a secure pension.

So when the time comes to sit down and create a vision of your future, set aside some quiet time, away from all distractions and free your mind from any thoughts that may be holding you back from dreaming BIGGER dreams, set bigger goals for yourself than ever before, goals need to stretch you and make you grow. If you play safe, you will just be treading water for a long time to come.

If you are willing to open your mind and accept that you are capable of having anything you want in life, you will begin to realise that there are no armed police standing outside your door keeping you in your current house, your job or your income. Your current life is who you were, not who you can be in the future, you are your own creator of your life, no-one has written your story yet, nothing is carved in stone, GOALS are always made of concrete, but the paths are made of sand.

Without Clear Vision You have Nothing but Confusion

When we ask ourselves the question, what does our car look like; we usually have a very clear picture in our minds of our car. We know what colour the outside is, the interior, the shape of the air freshener or fluffy dice and stickers in great detail. 

When we ask ourselves the question of what our pet looks like, we can see a clear picture of our dog, cat, parrot or whatever our pet is. It is so clear we can almost feel what it is like to stroke them. 

When we ask ourselves the question, what does our mind look like; we come across a problem, as we do not have a clear picture of what our mind looks like. We may know what it is like, open or closed, positive or negative, but the vast majority of people have not got a clue what their mind looks like. 

This you would imagine isn’t such a major problem until you think about it this way; if you do not know what it looks like, where would you go to fix it?

People often refer positively to my focus, my unyielding vision of what I am setting out to achieve in my life, but the reason I stay on track is because in front of my workspace is my Vision Board. 

I have made a clear picture of my mind and created a picture of it on my Vision Board. By doing so I can clearly see what my mind looks like, I can clearly see what goals I have set myself and I have a daily reminder of where I’m headed. 

You see if you do not have a clear vision of where you are going, you simply must have the polar opposite of a clear vision, which is confusion. So if you haven’t yet got round to making your Vision Board and you are not seeing the kind of results you’ve hoped for by now, start with the end in mind and put a vision of your mind on a Vision Board today.

You Have To Believe You Can

When You Want Something You've Never Had

"When you want something you've never had, you must do something you've never done ... set a goal." On the Home Page of the I Believe Site is that very same phrase. It is there to remind me that the same phrase was on a poster on the wall of my office every day for over a year before I actually started to do things differently. Sometimes you can read all the motivational posters, go to all the seminars, connect with the positive mentality and remember some of your favourite philosophies and quotes.

Goal setting is not a wish list, it's the chalk line you draw at the start of your race. It's the preparation for the journey you are about to undertake. It's not a pipe dream, a one day I'll get there or an "if only" paragraph, your goal must be the life you want to have and you must understand that once your chalk line is drawn and your finish line is clear then you must take the first steps across the chalk line into the unknown to begin your journey or it will simply never happen.