UNIVERSAL VISION

By Mike Rogers

This may not seem like it from the surface, but this article is a tip on how to “stay cool” in the hot Japanese summer….

Today, I’d like to take a moment to highly recommend a book that has helped me greatly since the first time I read it and that is Brian Tracy’s Goals!

Author of Goals! Brian Tracy (I also recommend another Tracy book, Focal Point)

In Goals, Tracy talks about how, if you are to succeed in life that you need to write down your goals in order to be able to achieve them. Sure! Everyone thinks, but I know few who actually do write them down. Trust that writing them down does help your sub-concious to actually remember and activate your  brain to achieve the goals you set forth for yourself.

I write down my goals everyday in the morning when I wake up and, not only does doing so help me to achieve them, it also helps me to relax and stay much more focused. Who doesn’t want to stay more focused in this day and age when our “in-box” includes, for most people, several e-mails accounts that are constantly filling up as the day goes by and consistently altering our priorities? Or an Internet world filled with Social Media like Facebook, Mixi (in Japan), Linkedin accounts to attend? Twitter and Pick, are no longer for just sending messages to your friends, but they too, have been co-opted into the business world and your boss orders you to use them or blogs and SNS to get the companies message out…

How in the world can anyone get ahead of the pile in the in-box?

The book promises that you will “Get everything you want, faster than you ever dreamed.” Sounds like grandiose claims but let me point out that, writing down your goals and purposes is like having a sort of road map to where you want to go. If you do not write down where you want to go then how will you know where you are going?

The publishers write:

Why do some people achieve all their goals while others simply dream of having a better life? Bestselling author Brian Tracy shows that the path from frustration to fulfillment has already been discovered. Hundreds of thousands–even millions–of men and women have started with nothing and achieved great success. Here Tracy presents the essential principles you need to know to make your dreams come true.

Tracy presents a simple, powerful, and effective system for setting and achieving goals–a method that has been used by more than one million people to achieve extraordinary things. In this revised and expanded second edition he has added three new chapters addressing areas in which goals can be most rewarding but also the toughest to set and keep: finances, family, and health.

Using the twenty-one strategies Tracy outlines, you’ll be able to accomplish any goals you set for yourself–no matter how big. You’ll discover how to determine your own strengths, what you truly value in life, and what you really want to accomplish in the years ahead. Tracy shows how to build your self-esteem and self-confidence, approach every problem or obstacle effectively, overcome difficulties, respond to challenges, and continue forward toward your goals, no matter what happens. Most importantly, you’ll learn a system for achievement that you will use for the rest of your life.

One of my goals are to become a multi-millionaire. Laughable? Maybe. But at least I have a road map and I am consciously working on that everyday…

But my evidence that Tracy’s philosophy and ideas in Goals! that writing down your goals are critical to achieving them, stands in something that, for me, is much more important than the Rat Race and making money: it’s being the best dad I can be.

It used to be my #1 priority was, “To make $15,000 a month…” then, one day, when I got a flash of irritation at something my son did, then thought about that flash later on, I realized that the most important thing for me was not money. By far the most important thing for me was to be a great dad.

Now my #1 priority that I write everyday is; “I am a kind, loving and patient father and husband today and everyday” (with today’s date added).

Folks, trust me. This really works! Since starting this habit, I have caught myself several times with a flash of irritation that  before would have caused me to get angry or upset at my son but since I started writing down about being patient and kind. My mind recalls that goal immediately and has killed that flash of anger in it’s tracks.

Why ruin what could be a good learning moment and memory with an out burst of irritability? What for? Life is too short to be getting upset at the small stuff all the time.

As the great writer C.S. Lewis wrote in Narnia, “Life is difficult as it is so let us be good to each other.”

Try reading Brian Tracy’s Goals! Write down your goals everyday. You’ll be glad you did.

(This article was inspired by a meeting I had with a most interesting fellow named Roger Marshall. Thank you, Roger!)

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