One Hundred Goals? YES! One Hundred Goals!
The speaker, Mark Victor Hansen, compiled the hugely successful Chicken Soup for the Soul series of books with Co-Author Jack Canfield. He challenged the assemble throng at the Women's Business Conference to brainstorm 100 life goals.
Further, he encouraged us to work with a partner with whom we would swap lists. Together we would encourage each other to develop our list. We would hold each other accountable. We would help each other eventually reach these 100 life goals.
Seeing that he was where he was, and I was where I was, I decided to take his advice! How many best sellers does Mark Victor Hansen have anyway?
Exactly my point! He was a best selling writer, highly paid motivational speaker, darn good dresser too! And me? I was an employee of local government who read a lot of inspiring books. The kids in my Sunday School class
were motivated by my speaking. That was certainly worth something. My
wardrobe? Usually bought on sale, or at the end of the season on clearance.
If Mark Victor Hansen got where he was by writing 100 goals? Then I figured it would not hurt to try! My co-worker and I buddied up to walk together through the process.
The next day I sat at my keyboard. At first I thought I would have difficulty in thinking up goals. Soon, though, I was on a roll. My goals were as diverse as "Have lunch with a friend one time weekly" to "Host a radio talk show" to "travel to Europe".
I approached my co-worker to share my list with her. I also wanted to do my part as her buddy. I knew I needed to encourage her to write her own 100 goals. She read through my list, saying "Great! Oh, and you wrote 'Learn French twice!' ". With that, she went back to the tasks on her desk.
"Ummmmm.....how is your list coming, buddy?" I tried to sound as positive as I could on this one. Never sound accusatory towards your buddy, I thought.
She looked out her window and replied, "My 100 goals are to get up tomorrow and the next 100 days!" She laughed at her humor. Me? I didn't understand.
Then again, her dream in 5 years is to still be working in local government. Perfectly respectable. Nothing at all wrong with that goal.
It is just not something that I could be particularly passionate about.
Not something that I would be especially inspired by.
So where does that leave you, today?
Can you think of your 100 goals? Where would you like to be in 5 years? If you had a magic wand and your life could look like anything, what would I see when looking at you? What would it feel like to live that ideal life? What would others think of your life? Would you inspire people? Annoy people? Learn from people?
In other words, what do you really want to do with your life?
Start slow if you think you can not possibly think of 100 goals. Take out a piece of paper or open a new document on your word processor. Go for ten goals at first. No set order of preference, just let your mind go.
Let the ideas and thoughts flow.
You may find you need to write more than ten goals as your ideas start moving less like a trickle and more like a deluge. If you run into a roadblock? Stop working. Walk away. Save the goals you have written. .Promise yourself that you will come back later.
And then do exactly that! Come back later. Challenge yourself to finish your list of 100 goals.
Finally, find someone with whom to share your goals. A buddy to encourage you as you grow. Do you have anyone who would encourage this kind of challenge? If not, ask around or look for a group on line that discusses goal setting.
When I first wrote this article, I was still working as a government employee. I have gratefully been an entrepreneur, coach and writer full time since November, 1999. As for me, I am on my way to reaching more and more of my 100 goals. I spend my hours caring for my precious babies (one goal was to have another baby, who is now 4! This May I was blessed with another baby, my first son). Just this past week I bought four new website domains to add to my main website, www.5passions.com. It is all about Living a Passion Filled Life. My second book is about to hit the market.
"I have not yet made reservations for a European Trip, nor have I
hosted aTalk Radio program, but listen to your local station. You just never
can be sure." Were the words I wrote back in 1998. In fact, that needs to be updated. In January I begin hosting my own radio show, so now I will have to say, listen for when my show hits syndication!
100 Goals? YES! 100 goals!
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