Best Advice Ever | Jim Rohn

(Starts at 15 seconds)

Jim Rohn (September 17, 1930 - December 5, 2009) was an American entrepreneur, author and motivational speaker. His rags to riches story played a large part in his work, which influenced others in the personal development industry.

"Always do more than you get paid for, to make an investment in your future."
"If it's raining you can't fix the roof.  If it isn't raining, it doesn't need to be fixed."
"Review your performance."
"Face all your fears: that's how you can conquer them."
"Exercise your willpower to change your direction."
"Pick a new destination and start going that way."
"Use your willpower to start the process."
"Admit your mistakes!" 
"Refine your goals."
"Believe in yourself. There isn't a skill you can't learn..."
"Ask for wisdom ... that creates answers."
"Don't wish it was easier: wish you were better."
"Invest your profits."
"Protect your family.  These are troublesome times."
"Conserve your time."
"Live with intensity.  Invest more of you in whatever you do."
"Put everything you've got into everything you do, and then ask for more vitality, more strength and more vigour."
"Find your place... if you've got a lousy job, do the best you can: that is your best way out."
"If you work on your gifts they will make room for you, they will make a place for you."
"Demand integrity from yourself."
"Welcome the disciplines... Disciplines create the reality."
"Fight for what's right!" 
"I fought a good fight... and I kept the faith!"

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My Favorite Questions for Making Tough Decisions | Steve Pavlina

Sometime you’ll encounter tough decisions that can leave you wallowing in indecision, such as whether to change jobs or careers, end a relationship, move to a new city, or pursue a new lifestyle direction. There are many processes you can use to make intelligent decisions, but all of them have shortcomings when you’re dealing with imperfect information. Sometimes all it takes to gain sufficient clarity though is to ask the right questions. A good question can shift your perspective about your decision and make the wise path obvious.

When I face tough decisions, here are some of my favorite questions to ask:

Will this help me grow?

Since growth is one of my highest personal values, I favor decisions where I can expect to learn and growth. If I see little or no growth on a particular path, I’ll tend to lean against it.
This heuristic gives me a bias to embrace the new, as opposed to repeating something I’ve already done. It’s one reason I usually don’t repeat workshops. Even though it’s more work, I favor doing new workshops because a new workshop pushes me to learn and grow a lot more than repeating a past workshop does.

Asking this question helped me join Toastmasters in 2004, and I remained a member until 2010. I felt a bit anxious about getting involved with the group since I didn’t think it would be a comfortable experience to practice public speaking. But I went to my first meeting and joined a club because I figured that it would be a growth experience, and it certainly was. When the growth aspect faded and the experience became overly familiar, I quit Toastmasters and shifted my attention elsewhere.

There are many situations where fear and hesitation might hold me back, and then my mind wanders towards justification. I can’t because I’m too busy. The timing isn’t right. I’m not feeling my best. Yes… but will it be a growth experience? If a decision will help me grow, then I’m inclined to lean into it.

Sometimes my answer to this question takes the form of a grudging dammit, yes. Part of me doesn’t want it to be a yes, especially when the decision involves facing a fear, a lack of skill, or a lot of extra work, but it’s a good step to at least admit that if I move forward and say yes, I know it will be a growth experience.

Would my best self do this?

Asking this question gave me clarity when I was trying to decide whether or not to uncopyright all my blog posts back in 2010. I had created a tremendous body of intellectual property, and I owned it 100%. But I often wondered what would happen if I let go of that ownership and donated it to the public domain. It seemed like a huge leap, and there was no good way to predict the outcome.

When I asked if my best self would do this, the answer was clear. If uncopyrighting my work would help more people than keeping it copyrighted, my best self would pull the trigger and do it.

My best self is brave, generous, and creative. He could handle the consequences of giving so much away and letting the world run with it. He trusts that it would work out. He knows he can always create more. He doesn’t want to depend on ownership of intellectual property for his sense of security. For him it’s enough to feel secure in who he is. Even if things didn’t turn out so well, he could handle that too. He’s strong enough to deal with the consequences.
Asking this question removed enough doubt to make it so. Would my best self do this? Of course he would.

This still wasn’t an easy decision, but at least I knew that if I could do it, it would bring me further into alignment with my best self. If I held back, I’d be keeping myself out of alignment with him.

Do I want the memory?

Every decision ultimately becomes a memory, and the sum of your decisions will eventually become a string of memories. So which memories do you want?

Do you want the memories of maintaining your current social media habits for the next 10 years? (It’s extremely rare to find someone who can honestly answer yes to this.)

Do you want the memories of keeping your current job for another year? What about your current relationship situation?

Do you want the memories of taking that trip, or would you rather have the memories of not taking it?

This is a really powerful question, and some people have gained immediate clarity the first time they’ve asked it.

Of all the social media interactions and online commentary you’ve posted over the past decade, what do you remember? I remember very little of it. It’s all just a blur. My mind seems to value those memories so little that it didn’t store them in any meaningful detail.

This question helped me lean into lots of delightful travel experiences. Every year I travel to places that I’ve never been before, and one reason is that I love acquiring the memories that come from travel.

When you look back upon the past year, what do you remember? Do you like those memories? Could you have created better memories?

When I think about the past year, I remember eating lots of yummy meals at this small restaurant called Verde Vegan in Acapulco. I remember walking around the streets of London in the rain. I remember going to the top of a volcano, visiting a coffee plantation, and seeing several waterfalls in a rainforest in Costa Rica. I remember sipping espresso on a cobblestone sidewalk in Italy, walking around Villa Borghese park, staring up at the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, and taking silly photos at the Mouth of Truth. I remember lots of fun times while spending 30 days at Disneyland. I remember seeing many plays at the Fringe Festival in Winnipeg and eating samosas with tamarind sauce. I remember sharing laughs and insights at last year’s workshops and going out to dinner with the attendees afterwards. And I remember doing all of these things with my girlfriend.

Most of my best memories are not about working at my desk. They come from having interesting experiences. Is it the same for you?

I’ve taken action on a lot of stretch ideas – and sometimes just plain silly ones – after asking myself if I wanted the memory. One of the silliest was last year’s decision to spend 30 days in a row going to Disneyland. That’s a lot of time to spend on such an experience, and I certainly could have used that time in other ways, but I realized if that I did it, I’d end up with some wonderful memories, plus the overall memory of taking action on a stretch experience.

I rarely regret taking action in a new direction.Usually I regret holding back. I think that’s true of most people. We tend to regret the opportunities we missed as opposed to those we pursued, even if we didn’t get the results we hoped for. We regret not trying even more than trying and failing. Failing is okay. Not trying just sucks.

You could ask yourself which path you’re more likely to regret, but regret is just one type of memory. So when you ask this memory question, it already covers potential regret.

How will this sculpt my character as a man?

I’m sharing this question the way I ask it, so feel free to modify it to fit your gender, or use a gender-neutral substitute like, How will this sculpt my character as a human being?

This was an especially powerful question to ask when I was in my 20s, and I was thinking about what kind of man I wanted to become. This question stemmed from a realization I had while sitting in jail for a few days when I was 19 years old. I saw myself becoming someone much darker than I wanted to be, and that realization woke me up. I realized that in order to change the man I was becoming, I had to start making different decisions.

The decisions you make ultimately define your character and personality. Making a decision is like chiseling out the sculpture of who you’re becoming. Most decisions only chisel out small details. Some decisions define significant aspects of the final piece. The decisions I made while sitting in jail were some of my life’s biggest.

If you’d visited my website between 2004 and 2008, you would have seen a lot of ads. At the peak I was earning $12-13K per month in passive income from having advertising on the site. In late 2008 though, I removed all the ads, which immediately shut off that income.
One reason I made this choice is that I saw it as a character decision. I didn’t feel congruent with distracting my readers with third-party advertising when they came to my website to read about personal growth. I faced a choice, and each option would sculpt my character differently.

The first option was to continue enjoying the easy passive income from advertising for many more years. By today it would probably have been about a million dollars extra if I’d kept having advertising. This would also mean many years of sculpting myself into a man who accepts a misalignment with his values in order to make money, which would only make it more likely that I’d continue making similar decisions down the road.

The second option was to remove the ads and look for more aligned ways to earn income. This would mean pursuing a path of greater congruence, even if it might be less profitable. It would also be a harder path to take because the advertising income was very easy to maintain. This path would definitely be more work.

I chose the second path because I believed it would sculpt my character in a more positive direction. It would be more difficult in the short term, but I liked the idea of shedding misaligned income sources in order to do the harder work of creating aligned sources. The year after I made this decision, I created and delivered my first three-day workshop. Fast forward to today, and now I’ve done 16 of them. While the workshops weren’t as lucrative as 
I expect the ads would have been, they’ve paid off in many other ways that I value much more than money. For instance, I met my girlfriend Rachelle at that first workshop, and a key strength of our relationship has been our values alignment, such as the fact that we’re both long-term vegans. And we love traveling and having fun lifestyle adventures together as well.

If you accept a misalignment in your life, you’ll attract more of the same. If you go for congruence, you’ll also attract more of the same. So think carefully about how each decision will sculpt your character.

I’m glad that I made the decision to remove those ads in 2008. Getting that incongruence out of the way helped me feel much closer and more connected with my readers. Since then I have met – and hugged – hundreds of them in person. The ads didn’t feel heart-aligned, so by getting those out of the way, I removed a barrier that might have otherwise weakened this relationship.

I could name many more instances where this character question has helped me make tricky decisions. This question nudges me to face more fears, to pursue new experiences, and to delve deeper into personal growth explorations than I otherwise would. I don’t always get it right, but I get it right more often when I ask this question.

Could I reverse or undo this decision?

Last week I decided to get a new home office chair to replace my really old beat up one. As I began browsing online, I thought that maybe I should get a really nice one this time instead of just another cheap sub-$100 chair from Office Depot, especially since one of my health goals for this year is to work on improving my posture. After doing some research, I narrowed the decision down to two choices: the Herman Miller Embody and the Steelcase Gesture. I’ve never owned a chair that had a name before.

Both chairs costs more than $1000. Both have radically different designs. I couldn’t find any stores in Vegas that actually carry them, so I couldn’t try them out first. Online reviews were helpful, but I could find really detailed, in-depth reviews that ranked either chair above the other. And wherever one chair got lots of four- and five-star reviews, I could always find other people rating it one and two stars. It seemed to come down to a matter of personal preference.

Instead of wallowing in indecision or not getting a chair at all, I went with the one I expected to like best – the Steelcase Gesture – even though I had to order it sight unseen and hope for the best when it arrives. What helped was knowing that the decision is reversible. If I don’t like it, I can pack it back up and return it. Or worst case I can always sell it. I might waste some time and money if I made a bad decision, but the long-term consequence is minimal, and the damage is largely reversible.

Some decisions are permanent, and you can’t simply undo them. If you quit your job or leave your relationship, you may not be able to go back if you later change your mind. But for many decisions, there’s a built-in undo. You can often return items you purchased. You can move back to your old city. You can buy back similar possessions to replace those you gave away. You can switch back to your old diet and exercise routines.

If a decision is reversible and/or the negative consequences of a mistake are low, then I’ll tend to lean towards the new experience. At the very least, I might learn something from it.

Can I test this decision?

If you can’t undo a decision, maybe you can test it somehow. Could you dip your toes into each path to gain more clarity about the options? Could you collect some real world experience before you have to commit?

This mindset was especially helpful in 2009 when trying to figure out whether Erin and I should stay together. By entering a polyamorous phase for several months, it was possible to test the waters by exploring other connections without ending the marriage. That provided tremendous clarity that the grass would indeed be greener on the other side. It still wasn’t an easy decision, but it became easier by testing.

Some long-term couples go through a trial separation first in order to test what their lives might be like if they were to separate and divorce. A good book for structuring such an arrangement is Should I Stay or Go? : How Controlled Separation Can Save Your Marriage. That book takes a pretty formal approach, which Erin and I didn’t really follow, but the general idea of testing the waters first is certainly helpful in these types of situations.

Testing a decision can help you tip one way or the other, so you don’t remain endlessly stuck in ambivalence, where you’re constantly waffling about which direction to go.

* * *

Try asking some or all of these questions the next time you face a tricky decision. I think you’ll find them useful tools for increasing clarity and making better choices. When I’ve shared some of these questions with other people, their number one favorite is usually the memory one, so that may be a good one to start with.

Please let me know what you think below.

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How to motivate yourself - Self motivation | Eric Falconer

Staying motivated is a struggle — our drive is constantly assaulted by negative thoughts and anxiety about the future. Everyone faces doubt and depression. What separates the highly successful is the ability to keep moving forward.

There is no simple solution for a lack of motivation. Even after beating it, the problem reappears at the first sign of failure. The key is understanding your thoughts and how they drive your emotions. By learning how to nurture motivating thoughts, neutralize negative ones, and focus on the task at hand, you can pull yourself out of a slump before it gains momentum.

Reasons We Lose Motivation

There are 3 primary reasons we lose motivation.

1. Lack of confidence – If you don’t believe you can succeed, what’s the point in trying?
2. Lack of focus – If you don’t know what you want, do you really want anything?
3. Lack of direction – If you don’t know what to do, how can you be motivated to do it?

How to Boost Confidence

The first motivation killer is a lack of confidence. When this happens to me, it’s usually because I’m focusing entirely on what I want and neglecting what I already have. When you only think about what you want, your mind creates explanations for why you aren’t getting it. This creates negative thoughts. Past failures, bad breaks, and personal weaknesses dominate your mind. You become jealous of your competitors and start making excuses for why you can’t succeed. In this state, you tend to make a bad impression, assume the worst about others, and lose self confidence.

The way to get out of this thought pattern is to focus on gratitude. Set aside time to focus on everything positive in your life. Make a mental list of your strengths, past successes, and current advantages. We tend to take our strengths for granted and dwell on our failures. By making an effort to feel grateful, you’ll realize how competent and successful you already are. This will rejuvenate your confidence and get you motivated to build on your current success.

It might sound strange that repeating things you already know can improve your mindset, but it’s amazingly effective. The mind distorts reality to confirm what it wants to believe. The more negatively you think, the more examples your mind will discover to confirm that belief. When you truly believe that you deserve success, your mind will generate ways to achieve it. The best way to bring success to yourself is to genuinely desire to create value for the rest of the world.

Developing Tangible Focus

The second motivation killer is a lack of focus. How often do you focus on what you don’t want, rather than on a concrete goal? We normally think in terms of fear. I’m afraid of being poor. I’m afraid no one will respect me. I’m afraid of being alone. The problem with this type of thinking is that fear alone isn’t actionable. Instead of doing something about our fear, it feeds on itself and drains our motivation.

If you’re caught up in fear based thinking, the first step is focusing that energy on a well defined goal. By defining a goal, you automatically define a set of actions. If you have a fear of poverty, create a plan to increase your income. It could be going back to school, obtaining a higher paying job, or developing a profitable website. The key is moving from an intangible desire to concrete, measurable steps.

By focusing your mind on a positive goal instead of an ambiguous fear, you put your brain to work. It instantly begins devising a plan for success. Instead of worrying about the future you start to do something about it. This is the first step in motivating yourself to take action. When know what you want, you become motivated to take action.

Developing Direction

The final piece in the motivational puzzle is direction. If focus means having an ultimate goal, direction is having a day-to-day strategy to achieve it. A lack of direction kills motivation because without an obvious next action we succumb to procrastination. An example of this is a person who wants to have a popular blog, but who spends more time reading posts about blogging than actually writing articles.

The key to finding direction is identifying the activities that lead to success. For every goal, there are activities that pay off and those that don’t. Make a list of all your activities and arrange them based on results. Then make a make an action plan that focuses on the activities that lead to big returns. To continue the example from above, a blogger’s list would look something like this:

1. Write content
2. Research relevant topics
3. Network with other bloggers
4. Optimize design and ad placements
5. Answer comments and email
6. Read other blogs

Keeping track of your most important tasks will direct your energy towards success. Without a constant reminder, it’s easy to waste entire days on filler activities like reading RSS feeds, email, and random web surfing.

When my motivation starts to wane, I regain direction by creating a plan that contains two positive actions. The first one should be a small task you’ve been meaning to do, while the second should be a long-term goal. I immediately do the smaller task. This creates positive momentum. After that I take the first step towards achieving the long-term goal. Doing this periodically is great for getting out of a slump, creating positive reinforcement, and getting long-term plans moving.

It’s inevitable that you’ll encounter periods of low energy, bad luck, and even the occasional failure. If you don’t discipline your mind, these minor speed bumps can turn into mental monsters. By being on guard against the top 3 motivation killers you can preserve your motivation and propel yourself to success. 

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Let me know what you think below!

The Power of Clarity | Steve Pavlina

H.L. Hunt, a man who rose from a bankrupt cotton farmer in the 1930s to a multi-billionaire when he died in 1974, was once asked during a TV interview what advice he could give to others who wanted to be financially successful. He said only two things are required. First, you must decide exactly what it is you want to accomplish. Most people never do that in their entire lives. And secondly, you must determine what price you’ll have to pay to get it, and then resolve to pay that price.

Clear Goals Are Essential

Clear goals and objectives are essential to the success of any business, and this is no less true of building your own career. If you don’t take the time to get really clear about exactly what it is you’re trying to accomplish, then you’re forever doomed to spend your life achieving the goals of those who do. In the absence of a clear direction for your life, you will either meander aimlessly or you will build a career that you don’t feel good about. You may make some money, and you may do some interesting work, but the end result will not resemble anything you ever made a conscious decision to build, and ultimately you will be left with the sinking feeling that maybe you took a wrong turn somewhere along the way. Do you ever look at your career and think to yourself, “How on earth did I get here?”

If setting goals is so critically important, then why is it that so few people take the time to define exactly where they want to go? Part of the reason is a lack of knowledge about how to set clear goals. You can go through years of schooling and never receive any instruction on goal setting at all. A failure to understand the immense importance of establishing clear goals is also common. But those who truly know what they want often outperform everyone else by an enormous degree.

A frequent deterrent to goal setting is the fear of making a mistake. Teddy Roosevelt once said, “In any moment of decision, the best thing you can do is the right thing, the next best thing is the wrong thing, and the worst thing you can do is nothing.” Setting virtually any goal at all is better than drifting aimlessly with no clear direction. The best way I know to guarantee failure is to avoid making clear, committed decisions. Every day is already a mistake if you don’t know where you’re going. You’re probably spending most of your time working to achieve other people’s goals. The local fast food restaurant, TV advertisers, and the stockholders of the businesses you patronize are all very happy for that. If you don’t decide what you really want, then you’ve decided to hand your future over to the whims of others, and that’s always a mistake. By taking hold of the reins yourself and deciding where you’d like to go, you gain a tremendous sense of control that most people never experience in their entire lives.

Many people assume that because they have a direction, they must therefore have goals, but this is not the case and merely creates the illusion of progress. “Making more money” and “building a business” are not goals. A goal is a specific, clearly defined, measurable state. An example of the difference between a direction and a goal is the difference between the compass direction of northeast and the top of the Eiffel Tower in France. One is merely a direction; the other is a definite location.

Define Goals in Binary Terms

One critical aspect of goals is that they must be defined in binary terms. At any point in time, if I were to ask you if you had achieved your goal yet, you must be able to give me a definitive “yes” or “no” answer; “maybe” is not an option. You cannot say with absolute certainty if you’ve fully completed the outcome of “making more money,” but you can give me a definitive binary answer as to whether or not you are currently standing on top of the Eiffel Tower. An example of a clear business goal would be that your gross income for the month of April this year is $5000 or more. That is something you can calculate precisely, and at the end of the month, you can give a definitive answer as to whether or not your goal has been achieved. That is the level of clarity you need in order to form a goal that your mind can lock onto and move towards rapidly.

Be Detailed

Be as detailed as possible when setting goals. Give specific numbers, dates, and times. Make sure that each of your goals is measurable. Either you achieved it, or you didn’t. Define your goals as if you already know what’s going to happen. It’s been said that the best way to predict the future is to create it.

Commit Goals to Writing

Goals must be in writing in the form of positive, present-tense, personal affirmations. A goal that is not committed to writing is just a fantasy. Set goals for what you want, not for what you don’t want. Your subconscious mind can lock onto a clearly defined goal only if the goal is defined in positive terms. If you put your focus on what you don’t want instead of what you do, you’re likely to attract exactly what it is you’re trying to avoid. Phrase your goals as if they are already achieved. Instead of saying, “I will earn $100,000 this year,” phrase it in the present tense: “I earn $100,000 this year.” If you phrase your goals in future terms, you are sending a message to your subconscious mind to forever keep that outcome in the future, just beyond your grasp. Avoid wishy-washy words like “probably,” “should,” “could,” “would,” “might,” or “may” when forming your goals. Such words foster doubt as to whether you can really achieve what you are after. And finally, make your goals personal. You cannot set goals for other people, such as, “A publisher will publish my software by the end of the year.” Phrase it like this instead: “I sign a North American retail publishing contract this year that earns me at least $100,000 by the end of the year.”

Objectify Subjective Goals

What if you need to set subjective goals, such as improving your own level of self-discipline? How do you phrase such goals in binary terms? To solve this problem, I use a rating scale of 1 to 10. For instance, if you want to improve your self-discipline, ask yourself on a scale of 1 to 10, how do you rate your current level of self-discipline? Then set a goal to achieve a certain specific rating by a certain date. This allows you to measure your progress and know with a high degree of certainty whether or not you’ve actually achieved your goal.

Goal Setting Is an Activity

Setting clear goals is not a passive act. It doesn’t happen automatically. You must take direct conscious action in order to make it so. Everything counts, and nothing is neutral. You are either moving towards your goals, or you’re moving away from them. If you do nothing or if you act without clarity, then you are almost certainly a victim of “being outgoaled.” In other words you are spending your time working on other people’s goals without even knowing it. You are happily working to enrich your landlord, other businesses, advertisers, stockholders, etc. Each day you spend working without a sense of clarity about where you’re headed is a step backwards for you. If you don’t actively tend your garden, then weeds will grow automatically. Weeds don’t need to be watered or fertilized. They just grow by themselves in the absence of an attentive gardener. Similarly, in the absence of conscious and directed action on your part, your work and your life will automatically become full of weeds. You don’t need to do anything at all to make this happen. And when you finally get around to taking a serious look at where you are and where you want to go, the first thing you’ll have to do is pull out all those weeds.

Reading this article will do absolutely nothing for you unless you turn it into some form of physical action. The best thinking unfortunately gives you zero results. In reality, you won’t even be paid a penny for your thoughts. You can have the most creative idea in the world, but ideas themselves are utterly worthless. You only get results from the physical actions you take, never for the ideas you have. In order to get any kind of tangible results at all, you must act on an idea. You must communicate it, build it, implement it, and make it real.

Clarity Is a Choice

If you’ve been running your career in an unfocused manner, just waking up each morning and seeing what happens, then it is absolutely crucial that you take the time to decide and write down exactly where it is you want to go. How much longer will you continue to climb the ladder of success, only to realize too late that it was leaning against the wrong building? Just pick a point in the future, whether it’s six months from now or five years from now, and spend a few hours writing out a clear description of where you want to be at that time. I know many people who aren’t sure where they want to go, so they avoid committing anything to writing in order to “keep their options open.” What would happen if you pursued that attitude to its logical conclusion? If you always kept your options open and never made any firm commitments, then you’d never get promoted, start your own business, get married, have a family, move to that new home, etc. except to the degree that someone else made that decision for you.

I used to have a friend like this, who still hasn’t decided what he wants to do with his life. He yields control of his life to others without even realizing it, simply because he’s unwilling to take the time to define a vision for his own life out of fear of making the wrong choice. His life is ruled by others who push their goals onto him, which he accepts by default. Ask yourself if you’re in the same boat. If a friend of yours became totally committed to getting you to change something in your life at random — your career, your living situation, your relationship, etc. — could s/he do it just by being absolutely certain and committed that it’s the right thing for you? Could a business associate come along and radically alter your plans for the week without you ever deciding consciously that such a change is consistent with your goals? We all suffer from problems like these to the degree that we fail to set clear goals for ourselves. There is a big difference between recognizing and acting on a true opportunity and being knocked off course without making a conscious decision to shift gears.

Waiting for something to inspire you and hoping that the perfect outcome will just fall into your lap is nothing but a fantasy. Clear decision making doesn’t happen passively; you actually have to physically put in the time to make it happen. If you don’t have clear goals simply because you don’t know what you want, then sit down and actively decide what you want. That sense of knowing what you want isn’t going to just come to you in a form of divine inspiration. Clarity is a choice, not an accident or a gift. Clarity doesn’t come to you — you have to go to it. Not setting goals is the same thing as deciding to be a slave to the goals of others.

Clear Goals Sharpen Present-Moment Decisions

Your reality will not match your vision exactly. That’s not the point. The point is for your vision to allow you to make clear daily decisions that keep you moving in the direction of your goals. When a commercial airliner flies from one city to another, it is off course over 90% of the time, but it keeps measuring its progress and adjusting its heading again and again. Goal setting works the same way. Maintain a clear list of goals not because that’s actually where you’ll end up but because it will give you tremendous certainty in deciding what you need to do today. When someone contacts you with an “opportunity” out of the blue, you’ll know whether it’s a real opportunity or a waste of time. The long view sharpens the short view.

As you begin moving towards your goals, you’ll gain new knowledge along the way, and you’ll have to adapt your plans as you go. You may also change your vision if you get partway there and decide it’s not quite what you really want. Ill-formed goals are still far superior to no goals at all.

I was once told by someone that I should end each day by crossing it off my calendar and saying out loud, “There goes another day of my life, never to return again.” Try this for yourself, and notice how much it sharpens your focus. When you end a day with the feeling that you would have lived it the same if you had the chance to repeat it, you gain a sense of gratitude that helps you focus on what’s really important to you. When you end the day with a feeling of regret or loss, you gain the awareness to try a different approach the next day.

You’ll see a measurable difference in your life the very first day you establish clear, committed goals, even if your first few attempts aren’t perfect. You’ll be able to make decisions much more rapidly because you’ll see how they’ll either move you towards or away from your goals. On the eve of his death, Walt Disney had a reporter crawl into bed with him so he could share his vision for Disney World, six years before its completion. When Disney World finally opened, another reporter commented to Walt’s brother, Roy, “It’s too bad Walt did not live to see this.” Roy replied, “Walt saw it first. That’s why we are seeing it now.” Clear goals allow you to achieve the first half of H.L. Hunt’s success formula. By deciding exactly what you want to accomplish, committing it to writing, and reviewing it on a daily basis, you bring your goals into reality with the power of your focus.

Source: http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/2005/03/the-power-of-clarity/