Whole Brain Goal Setting Technique

Whole Brain Goal Setting

This method will take you through working out what you really want, writing goals that engage all of your brain and set you up to succeed.

Table of Contents Whole Brain Goal Setting ..................................................................................................................... 1

Why set goals? ..................................................................................................................................... 5

Whole Brain Goals ............................................................................................................................... 6

How to set goals ................................................................................................................................... 6

SMART Goal Setting ............................................................................................................................. 7

S ‐ Specific ............................................................................................................................................ 7

M ‐ Measurable .................................................................................................................................... 7

A – Achievable ...................................................................................................................................... 7

R ‐ Realistic ........................................................................................................................................... 7

T – Timed .............................................................................................................................................. 7

I – Inspirational .................................................................................................................................... 7

E – Emotional ....................................................................................................................................... 7

S‐ Specific ............................................................................................................................................. 8

M ‐ Measurable .................................................................................................................................. 10

A‐ Achievable and Action Oriented ............................................................................................. 10

R‐ Realistic and Relevant .................................................................................................................... 11

Do I really want it? ............................................................................................................................. 11

Is the goal possible for me? ............................................................................................................... 11

Familiarity Zone ................................................................................................................................. 12

Dreamer ............................................................................................................................................. 12

T‐Timeframe ....................................................................................................................................... 13

I – Inspirational .................................................................................................................................. 13

E‐Emotional ........................................................................................................................................ 14

How do you “check” with your unconscious mind? .......................................................................... 14

1. Should you be listening to your unconscious? ....................................................................... 15

2. Do you need to change your unconscious expectations? ...................................................... 15

What goals to set? ............................................................................................................................. 17

Life Areas to set goals for ................................................................................................................... 17

It’s your life ........................................................................................................................................ 18

Life Wheel ‐ Where are you now? ..................................................................................................... 19

Setting your goals for your Life Areas ................................................................................................ 22

Whole Brain Goal Setting ................................................................................................................... 23

Preparation ........................................................................................................................................ 23

What you’ll need ................................................................................................................................ 23

The People ......................................................................................................................................... 24

The Process ........................................................................................................................................ 24

Focus Questions ................................................................................................................................. 25

FAQs ................................................................................................................................................... 26

How old do my children have to be to do this process? ................................................................... 26

What if my husband and I have really different goals? ..................................................................... 26

What if I don’t have any goals or I only have one goal? .................................................................... 26

Glossary

Conscious Mind – also called awareness. You conscious mind is the term used for the part of your brain that you are using right now. It’s the bit that you notice, the thoughts, pictures, sounds and feelings that you are aware of.

Unconscious Mind – all the rest of your mind. It would be convenient to think of your mind being partitioned neatly into conscious and unconscious but this isn’t really true.

Is the big toe on your left foot itchy? I don’t know if it is or not but now it is in your awareness – your conscious mind and before it was in your unconscious. Does that make sense?

What colour were the buildings in your primary school like? Once again I doubt that was in your conscious mind before I asked that question.

So your unconscious mind is the great repository of everything you know, even the things you have forgotten you know as well as your body mind. Your body mind is the part of you that keeps you heart pumping, releases hormones in response to external and internal stimulus, monitors your body to make sure it is working and not damaged and all the other amazing things that keep your body functioning.

The unconscious mind is still poorly understood by science due to the difficulty in applying scientific methods to its study. Much of what is know is through observation of results that can be achieved when you harness your unconscious mind.

There is a function of your unconscious mind that is called the Reticular Activation System (RAS) and this is like an unconscious search engine. It operates in the background in your unconscious sorting through everything you see and everything you come in contact with looking for the things that are important to you.

You are familiar with your RAS in operation although you may not have previously been aware of it. Have you ever bought a car or some other major purchase and then suddenly started to see the same model everywhere? That’s you RAS in action.

Why am I telling you this? You RAS is one of the reasons why setting powerful goals is so important. A well set goal turns on your RAS. It means that all your unconscious power is turned on to looking for the opportunities to move your goal forward. Without instructing your unconscious as to what is important to you the only other option is to try and keep your objectives in your conscious mind.

We’re not good at maintaining conscious focus for any length of time. We get distracted and forget easily. We need to set whole brain goals to really powerfully move towards what we want.

Why set goals?

Goals are an essential part of being in control of your life. We all set goals, every day. Even those of us who like to think that we are free spirits and that we go with the flow. You may be avoiding setting big goals that would help you to direct your life but don’t be confused in thinking you don’t set goals. Everyone sets many small goals every day. Anytime you decide to do something you are setting a goal.

I’m writing this as I travel home on the train and that involved setting a goal.

My goal was to catch the train home as quickly as possible.

That statement meets all the criteria of a goal. It’s specific, measurable, achievable, realistic, and timed.

If I hadn’t set that goal then I would have jumped on the first train that arrived to the station. If I had done that I would have ended up somewhere else as the first train went down another line, the train to my house was the second one.

To achieve this simple goal I had to achieve a few sub-goals or milestones.

Go to the station – sounds simple but from where I was that involved catching a tram.

Find the right platform when I got to the station. Check that the train that was pulling into the platform was the right

train.

When you see the train about to leave it’s tempting to jump on without making sure that you know where it is going. It’s natural not to want to miss out but sometimes those split second decisions lead you down the wrong track. It’s important to remember that there is usually going to be another train coming along if you miss that one.

You can see that even with this simple example goals give us criteria for making decisions, they help us to become clear about what we want and they help us to take the actions needed to get it.

Now the fact that you are on the train doesn’t guarantee that you are going to achieve your goal. I don’t know about you but at times in my life I’ve forgotten to get off the train. Sometimes I fell asleep, other times I was

engrossed in a book or talking to someone and I didn’t notice that the train had pulled into my station.

When you set goals it’s really important to make sure that your unconscious mind is aware of your goals and is conspiring with you to make sure you get them.

If our goal is important to us then it usually isn’t hard to get started. The challenge comes when we encounter obstacles. You’ll notice that I didn’t say if you encounter obstacles. It’s inevitable, the only time we don’t have obstacles in our path is when we are not moving. It’s often easier to give up, to “forget” about the goals we’ve set than to come up with ways to overcome the challenges.

That’s why it’s important to set Whole of Brain Goals. When you do that you are giving yourself the very best of chances of achieving your goals and designing your life the way you want to live it.

Whole Brain Goals

Whole Brain Goal Setting is a great exercise to do once a year. Over the Christmas to New Year period is a great time, around your birthday or other significant day, when you decide to change your life or when you decide to pursue a really big goal. In fact any time is a good time if you haven’t done it already!

How to set goals

Review

Everyone Sets Goals Goals keep us going in the right direction and encourage us

to push on when challenged It’s important to not only engage our conscious minds but

also our unconscious minds. Set Whole Brain Goals once a year.

SMART Goal Setting

The Whole Brain Goal Setting process starts with “normal” goal setting. If you have learnt to set SMART or CREATE goals or any of the other goal setting acronyms around that’s great.

They are helpful and still form the basis of setting goals. The important thing is what you do with the goals once you’ve set them. It’s important to really engage your imagination and your unconscious mind as well as your conscious mind. That is what makes Whole Brain Goal Setting so effective.

Before we continue on to Whole Brain Goal Setting let’s just refresh you on goal setting. When you are setting goals there are a few things to consider which is why acronyms are so helpful.

When you are setting any goal it should be SMART.

S - Specific

M - Measurable

A – Achievable

R - Realistic

T – Timed

When you are setting Whole Brain Goals it’s good to go a step further and be a SMART-IE goal setter. What do the extra two letters stand for?

I – Inspirational

E – Emotional

Ok let’s look at the elements one at a time.

S- Specific

It’s important to be as specific about your goal as you can. Why do you think that is?

Generality doesn’t exist in the real world. Think about it. When you ask someone what they want and they say anything, some, whatever, you decide etc.

How does that make you feel? Is it easy to get them what they want? No, it isn’t because they haven’t told you what they want. You don’t know.

The same thing applies in goal setting and getting what you want in life. You have to say what it is. You have to be specific.

The W words can help with that. What, who, where, when, why, which. To start making your goal specific go through these words to clarify to yourself what it is you really want.

You know how to do this. Watch a small child. They are usually very specific about what they want, and when they want it. For one reason or another many people come to believe that they can’t have what they want and rather than be disappointed stop asking.

Whatever your spiritual beliefs be it in God or other deities or a abundant universe there can be no denying you have a much better chance of getting what you want if you ask very clearly for what you want.

Being specific sometimes prompts in your mind a bit of the strategy of how to get it. When you are setting a goal it isn’t really that important to know upfront how you are going to achieve it. During the goal setting process it is all about making sure that you’re really want it and you believe you are capable of having it.

However it does help to put a bit of the how in to get things moving. You must know the first steps and what the end result will look like. It doesn’t matter if some of what needs to happen is hidden from view.

For example if you set a goal to “get fit” it is very general and doesn’t contain any idea of how you are going to do that.

Something like “work out for at least ½ an hour four days a week doing free weights and at an aerobics class at my local gym” is much more specific.

But be careful. Would be much more specific but are you going to do that for sure every week? Getting fit isn’t something that you can do and then stop. If you are setting a fitness goal you are really setting a lifestyle change goal. It’s about changing the way you live so that it becomes a habitual way of being.

If you set a specific goal like that what will happen if you skip a week? What happens if you move away from where the gym is? Or go on a long holiday? Are you going to drop your exercise and give yourself a hard time for being bad?

You don’t want to do that! Achieving your goals should be as fun and pleasant as you can make it.

So what about if you decided to “get fit by exercising for at least ½ an hour five days a week” and then got creative about all the different, fun ways you could do that? You could explore all sorts of different things like dance classes, fun runs, sports or bushwalking clubs to keep it interesting.

A different way of being specific is to think about what you will be able to do when you have achieved your goal. Back to the fitness goal there might be some race or other activity that you could only do if you have reached the level of fitness you are after so you set the goal as “completing x fun run in x time”.

That is a good way to be specific but do be careful with these types of goals.

If you are not prepared to set another goal after you have achieved that one you may find that your motivation to exercise disappears and you drop back to how you were before or even end up less fit.

This is a really common pattern with fitness or weight loss goals so be careful if you set a goal in this area of your life that is a specific event or activity that

required exceptional, focused effort to achieve and you don’t have another goal to replace it when you achieve it. It is probably safer to focus on the new behavior patterns but if there is something that really inspires you then go for it.

M - Measurable

Your goal needs to be measureable so that you know when you get there. Being measurable goes hand in hand with being specific.

What specifically do you want and how are you going to know that you have gotten it? How much? How many? Numbers make it easy to measure your goals so look for a way to put a number in there if you can but…

A- Achievable and Action Oriented

Often what happens when people are faced with putting a number down in their goals they put down something that sounds great but is totally unrealistic.

For example if you set a wealth goal “My goal is to increase my net (specific) wealth by $1,000,000 by x date”

If you have a business that is just coming into the performing stage of its life cycle then an increase in wealth like that may be an achievable goal.

But if you are a $50,000 a year salaried worker and the only effort you are currently making is to increase your net wealth is to buy lottery tickets. Well that is not a smart goal – that is a wish list or dream. Its fine to have dreams but don’t confuse them with goals. A goal is something you intend to do and it is within your power to achieve it. A goal must be achievable.

Action oriented continues to focus your goal on what you are going to do. Sorry to disappoint you if you thought that there was a magic way to get your goals in life without doing anything. Sometimes all you have to do is ask but that is still an action.

What do you need to do to achieve your goals? What are the actions required?

R- Realistic and Relevant

We’ve just finished talking about achievable. Isn’t realistic the same thing?

No not really. Attainable means that the goal is able to be achieved. There are sequences of steps that if taken, will inevitably lead to the goal. They may be challenging but are not just dependent on luck such as buying the lottery.

When considering if your goals are realistic and relevant to you it’s important to consider two things. Do you really want the goal and is it really possible for you?

Do I really want it? It’s easy to be influenced by society or those close to us and get confused about what we really want. If you cupboards are full of unworn clothes and gadgets that you never use then you might be falling into the trap of chasing material things that you don’t really want.

The same applies for careers and courses of study. If you are setting a goal for something like that is it because it is something you feel like you would love to do or know then great but if it is just because someone else thinks it would be good – consider carefully.

Is the goal possible for me?

You are the best guide to know if the goal is really possible for you. Consider realistic in two parts.

Is it possible? Is it possible in the time frame I am going to allow?

What if you were 55 and only have one arm and your goal is to win a gold medal in swimming at the next Olympics. You’d have to ask yourself. Is that realistic? Perhaps you might think of it in terms of is what I want humanly possible? Is it possible for a 55 year old to compete and win at that level? Has it been done?

Don’t take that to mean you shouldn’t set goals to achieve things that have never been done before. All advancement comes from people setting unreasonable goals.

The question to ask if you are doing something that pushes the boundaries of what is believed to be possible. Do I really believe in my heart that I can do this? Am I prepared to put in the super human effort that it will require of me? If the answer is Yes! Then go for it.

If you know you are being unrealistic then think about what it was about the goal that was appealing. What element of it is the most exciting? What other goal could you set yourself that will get you that same feeling. Think about it. There is bound to be something.

A final word on setting realistic goals.

Familiarity Zone If you always achieve all of your goals easily then you are not setting realistic goals – you are setting cop out goals. You’re stuck in your familiarity zone, also known as your comfort zone.

Comfort zone isn’t really a good name for it though as quite often it isn’t comfortable where you are, it’s merely familiar. If you are not setting goals that expand your Familiarity Zone then don’t you think it is time you did?

When you are setting your goals write down what you think is possible and then push it a bit further. Make the goal a bit bigger, set the time frame a bit shorter.

Better yet, set yourself a goal that would absolutely transform your life for the better if you achieved it. Something that really fires up your imagination and makes your heart beat faster when you vividly imagine it.

Dreamer If you very rarely achieve your goals you might be going to the other extreme and setting goals that are so unrealistic that you don’t believe them yourself. When this happens it’s impossible to harness your personal power in pursuit of your goals. If you do manage to get beyond thinking about it and start to take action you find you get overwhelmed and run out of motivation long before you have anything to show for it.

Typically we drastically over estimate what we are able to achieve in a year and under estimate what we can achieve in 3 months.

My advice is, don’t give up on your dreams if they are really important to you. If it is compelling to you and what you want is humanly possible then go for it.

What you need to do is change your strategy. If you usually fail to achieve your goals then break them up into smaller chunks or sub goals and scale them back to a shorter time period.

Set goals for the things that will have to happen along the way for you to achieve your dream goals and tick them off one at a time.

For example

Is there a new skill you require? Set a goal to acquire that skill. Is there a level of physical fitness you will need? Then set a goal to

achieve that.

As soon as you achieve these smaller your goals set new ones that are on the path to your big dream goals.

T-Timeframe

When was one of the things you considered when looking at the specific part of your goal. Unless you set a time by when you want to achieve your goal it isn’t really a goal, it’s just a wish or a dream. When you are setting your whole brain goals I’m going to ask you to set 3, 6 and twelve month goals.

You will be absolutely exceptional if you get the timing exactly right on all your goals but that is not reason not to set a time for your goals.

Tomorrow, next month, soon, one day, next year are not times. You must set a specific point in time. Without it you will find that it is easy to keep putting off the things you need to do to achieve your goal.

SMART goals can be used in any context of your life – for the things that you really want to do and for the things that you decide that you will do.

SMARTIE goals are best when working on your Whole Brain Goal Setting.

So what do the other two letters stand for and why are they important?

I – Inspirational

If you are going to set big goals then please make sure that they are for things that inspire you. You can use this process to motivate yourself to do

things that don’t really matter to you but why would you? It’s your life. Don’t let anyone else tell you what would be the best thing for you.

I’m not saying that you are going to love every step of the way. Sometimes we have to do things that are not as much fun or that are hard work in order to achieve our goals. That’s ok. What is a problem is if you do all that and then get your goal and it isn’t really what you want.

So when you have set your goals run the Inspirational check on them.

Does this inspire me? Do I feel enthusiastic when I think about doing what I need to do to achieve this goal because I want the prize at the end?

If it is to get a certain job or activity. Ask yourself. Would I do this even if I wasn’t getting paid?

E-Emotional The other check is to go inside and check how you really feel about the goal. It is easy for our conscious mind – that’s the bit that is reading this right now – to forget to listen to our unconscious mind. When that happens we can get out of rapport with ourselves.

When we are out of rapport we feel bad and we find it difficult to achieve our objectives. Our unconscious mind is where our beliefs, values and identify are stored. It is the storage place of all our memories. If you set a goal that is in conflict with all of that you will have difficulties in achieving your goals. In fact, your unconscious mind will sabotage your efforts if it thinks that what you say you want isn’t really what you want.

The thing to realize here is that your past does not have to dictate your future. If there is a lack of rapport you can do something about it.

How do you “check” with your unconscious mind?

1. Re-read your goal 2. Close your eyes and vividly imagine the end step. The very last thing

that would happen for you to know you have achieved your goal. See what you would see, hear what you would hear and feel the feelings you would feel when you achieved your goal. Does that feel good?

3. Do you maintain feeling good or are other feelings intruding? Perhaps you are getting images coming to your mind of things you don’t want to happen. Or it might look alright but you are imagining voices saying that you will never achieve this, perhaps sounding like people in your life or perhaps even your own inner voice. Perhaps you don’t see or hear anything but you get a feeling that isnt’positive and excited.

How was that? Do you feel that you are in rapport regarding achieving your goal or is there something there that you think needs attention?

There are two courses of action for you to consider if you do feel that you are out of rapport.

1. Should you be listening to your unconscious?

I s what you have set your goal for really what you want? Sometimes your unconscious really does know best and it might be wise to listen to it. Is there something about your goal you should change? Perhaps the timeframe you have given yourself is wrong. Perhaps you are setting a goal for something someone else wants for you rather than what you really want.

Don’t just assume your unconscious mind is wrong to be concerned about your goal. If you have a feeling that your unconscious doesn’t support your goal because it doesn’t feel that it is right for you then pay some attention to that. Is it right?

If your unconscious thinks you can’t have the goal because you are not good enough or some other limiting thought then you may need to change your unconscious mind so that it supports what you intend for yourself.

2. Do you need to change your unconscious expectations?

Sometimes if we have had a lot of challenges and disappointments in our lives our unconscious mind tries to protect us by limiting what it supports us in doing. We establish limiting beliefs that hold us back from reaching our potential. If you get a lot of negative emotion such as fear coming up when you think about achieving your goals then you may be out of rapport because your unconscious is working to limit your expectations in order to protect you.

But you are not going to let it do that, are you? If you know that this is an issue for you then get some help to change your mind. It is a natural thing to

develop limiting beliefs but it is not an inevitable thing to have to live with them. Sometimes just by exposing a limiting belief to the light of your awareness and deciding that will no longer believe that about yourself is enough to change it.

Try that now.

If you could write down that old limiting belief.

E.g. “I am not good enough to have what I want.”

Have a look at it. Now write down you new empowering belief. It may be directly opposite to the old one or it may be slightly different. Trust that you know what it should be.

E.g. “I am good and I can have what I want.”

Ok try your new belief on for size. Does it look good? Say it out loud. Does it fit you? Will you have more or less power as you go through life and pursue your goals if you believed this?

More personal power? Good. If that is the case then you can decide right now to let go of the old belief and take on the new one. Changing beliefs is a natural process. We do it all the time.

Once you believed you couldn’t write your name and now you can. As we grow things the limiting things we thought about ourselves become false. In fact most times they were never true at all. Part of our job as we grow and evolve into the person we are capable of being is to identify and get rid of these old limiting beliefs.

Just deciding may be enough for you to make the change or you might need to teach your unconscious mind that the new belief is now your version of the truth.

Set SMARTIE Goals Goal setting template at the back of this e-book

What goals to set? Now you know how to set goals, what goals should you set?

When doing whole brain goal setting it is important to set goals for all areas of your life. We don’t want to fall into the trap of focusing exclusively on one area of our life, achieve the goals we’ve set only to find that the other areas of our life have paid the price of our lack of attention. Relationships might be lost, health damaged or finances suffer depending on where you failed to pay attention.

We don’t want that to happen, do we? If you have a truly inspiring goal that is going to push you to the edge of what is humanly possible then it is going to be difficult to retain your balance. Many of the people you are probably using as role models have failed in one area of their life while at the same time achieving great things in other areas.

There are a couple of sayings that would be a wise one to take onboard.

“There is no failure, only feedback.”

And the other one is

There is no glory in repeating someone else’s mistake

We know by learning from others that loosing balance in life is a common by product of big goals so we can avoid that problem. Whole Brain goal setting is a way to make sure we make time for everything that is important to us.

Life Areas to set goals for

You know better than I do what are the important areas of your life. If you started writing goals in the previous section you have already started in the parts that are currently most compelling for you.

Now it’s time to go back and fill in the balance. If you are a more orderly person and you wanted to read right through before you take action then get excited. It’s time to start taking action.

Grab some paper and coloured pens if possible because you’re going to start writing out your goals. There will probably be lots of crossing out and re-writing so don’t use your beautiful new journal or other book that you don’t want to rip pages out of.

There are different ways of approaching setting goals.

You can set Be – Do – Have Goals but when we are setting our Whole Brain Goals we want to make sure that we have balance so we are going to set life area goals.

Have you come across Life Wheels Before? It is a tool to see how balanced your life is and what areas need focus to improve and which you can continue on path.

The wheel metaphor is a good one. Most of us have experienced a flat tire at some time in our life either on a bike or car. When you get a flat tire it is only flat on the bottom, the rest looks OK but in reality the whole wheel is useless and needs to be repaired and inflated before we can comfortably continue our journey.

If you are experiencing a rough patch in your life then in all likelihood you have “a flat” in one or more areas of your life. Here’s an example of someone who has a loving relationship in their life but has been focused on some aspects of life and not paying enough attention to others. .

It’s your life

Feel free to change the categories to ones that are important to you but please don’t take out the health and fitness category.

If you believe in an enduring soul or spirit then think of your body as your “space ship” for your time on earth. If it fails then you will die. Even worse if you don’t believe that you have an essence that continues on after your body dies – for you the end is the end so postpone that as much as you can by looking after your body.

Health/Fitness

Family/Friends

Love/Partner

Financial

CareerLifestyle

Travel

Helping People

Growth & Learning

Can you see the "flats"?

Now

Even is your mistreatment doesn’t lead to death straight away when your body isn’t functioning properly it limits your ability to do what you want.

As with any machine to keep it running well you have to either find out how it works and see that it gets what it needs or find specialists that know how to care for it.

Like any profession body mechanics vary in ability, interest and knowledge. If you take your car to a mechanic and are not happy with the service they do you wouldn’t go back. You should apply the same thinking to your doctors and other “body care” specialists.

Life Wheel - Where are you now?

Setting goals is at its essence a strategy for navigating into the future. It’s about getting you from where you are now to where you want to be at some future point in time. In order to do that it is really, really important to know where you are now.

Some schools of thought are that you have to know how you got to where you are before you can move forward. I don’t agree with that. Yes it’s important to get the learning’s from our mistakes and failures because as you remember there isn’t any failure only feedback. If we don’t take on board the feedback then we will almost always repeat the same patterns as we did before and end up with the same bad results.

But the reality is as long as you know where you are you can navigate into the future. You can allow what has happened to you in the past to stay in the past and over time it will become smaller and less important to who you are today and who you decide to be tomorrow.

If you have things from the past that you don’t feel you can let go of and feel compelled to revisit and relive get some professional help. It might be a NLP practitioner (that’s my preferred modality for that type of work) a wellness focused psychologist or other professional who can help you to let the past stay behind you where it belongs.

If you feel that you want to let go of the past but there is a lesson there that you have to get before you can try asking yourself these No Failure only Feedback questions.

What could I have done differently to get a better result?

What will I do now to make sure that doesn’t happen again?

But above all remember that this is not about beating yourself up or giving yourself a hard time. Remember when you were learning to walk? Probably not but you used to make a lot of mistakes. You’d lose balance and plop down. Sometimes you got over excited and went too fast and fell over. Sometimes you even hurt yourself but none of that meant that you were hopeless, no good, stupid or dumb or any of the negative things that we sometimes say to ourselves.

If you answered any way except with something that you can constructively use going forward in your life go back and do it again! There is a bit of feedback for you.

What you come up with might be something to focus on for a 3 month goal in the personal growth / learning area of your life.

Let’s look at an example.

Someone lost a lot of money because you got ripped off by someone they trusted


Not been such a stupid idiot in trusting them.


Never trust anyone again.

Not very empowering is it? Can you imagine what will happen to that person if they took on those beliefs? In fact that often happens especially when people feel betrayed by someone they are close to or love. They decide that they are stupid and that no one can be trusted. But that isn’t true. There are lots of examples of people who are very trustworthy and can be relied on.

Let’s have another look.


I could have been more aware of what was going on with my money. I could have asked questions much earlier.


Pay attention to what others are doing when it impacts me.

See how the answers are much more specific? And more “doing” focused. Taking the learning’s from life is often a lesson on how to do things differently so that you get different results.

Setting your goals for your Life Areas

Choose 10 areas of your life that you want to focus on over the next year. You can use the ones on the Life Wheel already or change them.

Now using the Goal Setting Pages and the SMARTIE Goal Check Process write goals for each area of your life for 3 and 6 months and 1 and 5 years.

Find a quiet place where you feel comfortable and inspired. You might like to put on some music that inspires you or even go outside and sit surrounded by nature.

Don’t self edit while you are writing the goals. You can do all of that when you are doing the SMARTIE Goal Check Process at the moment just allow yourself the freedom to write down everything and anything you would love to be, do and have in your life.

You may recall that we are setting goals for the next twelve months and be wondering why I am asking you to set 5 year goals. Sometimes the really important things you want are further out for you than one year and yet they are too important to be ignored so get them down on paper.

The other reason is that it helps to make sure that the goals you are setting are really things you want. When you write your one year goals and then look further out in the future of what your life will be like in five years if it is out of alignment you will feel it and be able to think about why.

Whole Brain Goal Setting

You have now set SMARTIE Goals for ten areas of your life. That is too much to hold in your attention or conscious mind.

As well as your goals that you are going to be pursuing over the next twelve months you have to deal with all the day to day of life.

Your unconscious mind can deal with much more than you can hold in your attention. While it is important to trust your unconscious mind it doesn’t hurt to help out a bit. That is where the fun bit of Whole Brain Goal Setting comes in.

You are going to make a Goals Board for the next 12 months.

Preparation

You are going to need to do a bit of preparation for this next bit.

Step One:

Decide where you are going to put your goals board.

Ideal location is somewhere you will see it every day.

Bedrooms are a great place, bathroom doors, somewhere where you will see it but it won’t turn into “wall paper” it’s good if you are actively moving when you go past it.

What you’ll need

A Cork Board or something similar for your Goals Board. o A very large Self Adhesive Photo Album Page may be an

alternative as it is light enough to go on a door. o If for some reason you can’t have your Goals Board out on a wall

a self adhesive photo album makes a good alternative. You can have a page to a life area.

o The downside is it is easy to put it away and forget to look at it. You will have to establish a routine of looking through it regularly.

Magazines, brochures, photos etc that you can cut up and put on your board

o Traditional Dream Boarding just uses magazines and so what it on the board is limited to what is available when you are creating your Goals Board you want to make sure that there are pictures of the things you specifically want in your life

o Photos of family and loved ones that you want to improve or maintain relationships with.

o Photos of yourself when you were at the level of health and fitness you want to achieve or photos from magazines of people who represent that

o Brochures for the places you want to go to o Flyers for courses you want to attend o Magazines are great because they have words you can cut out

and also images that might inspire other goals or represent the ones you’ve already set.

o Catalogues o Printed words or images from the internet may be needed to

complete your Goals Board. It’s a great opportunity to have your new beliefs on the board as well as empowering questions

o The limit of what can go on is really your imagination

The People

Creating your Goals Board is best done with other people as a communal process. It creates a great energy and makes it fun and is a way for you to declare to the world what your goals are. Remember we said it’s important to ask for what you want. Secret goals often stay secret because they never happen.

The people might be:

Romantic partners Children Everyone who lives in your house A group of like minded friends. Parents Social Group Volunteer Group School Group

The Process

Put on some uplifting music Have lots of yummy snacks Have plenty of scissors, glue etc available Zone up your board into the life areas you are focusing on and create

a collage of your goals Be as messy or as neat as you feel you want to be.

When you’ve finished hang your Goal Board in the place you chose and get on to it. Look at it often and you should be feeling compelled to take some action towards those goals you’ve set for yourself.

Focus Questions

It’s great to ask yourself focus questions about your goals first thing in the morning and last thing at night.

In the morning ask yourself.

What can I do today that will move me closer to my goals? What specifically?

Last thing at night congratulate yourself on what you did and set your intention overnight asking your unconscious mind to come up with the next step.

What can I do tomorrow that will move me closer to my goals? What specifically?

You may like to keep a small notebook next to your bed to capture any ideas that come up overnight or first thing in the morning. That way you won’t run the risk of forgetting the brilliant ideas you come up with and won’t have to wake fully up in order to remember it the next day.

FAQs

How old do my children have to be to do this process?

Old enough so they don’t eat the glue. Once they are passed that stage give them a little board and some pictures and let them enjoy the process. Toy shop and sports shop catalogues might be of interest to them.

Some parents worry about getting their children’s hopes up and try to censor what is available to them to use on their boards. For some it’s a legacy from their own childhood where their parents trained them not to ask for things. If not asking for what you want is a limiting pattern in your life don’t you think it is time to break the cycle?

If your kids want to put hundreds of images of expensive “stuff” then it is a great opportunity to talk to them about the work involved in achieving goals. You might even find it has a byproduct of them becoming more interested in doing chores if there is a link to their goals.

So give your kids the trust that they will come to understand the difference between wishes and goals. The really might surprise you.

What if my husband and I have really different goals?

If that is the case it is really important to find that out. Many successful long term relationships are between people with totally different interests and goals in life. The important thing is to know what you each want and find ways for both to get their needs met.

Not doing the process so that you avoid making differing goals known is just like closing your eyes when you are in danger using the principal of “what I can’t see can’t hurt me.” It’s time you grew out of that one.

What if I don’t have any goals or I only have one goal?

Go back and read this e-book again. You weren’t paying attention!

You best chance of getting what you want in life is to ask for it.

Goals are a way of asking for what you want. When you do SMARTIE Goals you get really specific about what you want.

If you are really struggling to think of things you want in your life use the Gifts I Give to Me and the Living Goals Templates to write down some things that you enjoy. Now do them!

That will get things going for this year and later you will be in a different mind space and find setting your goals much easier.

Whole Brain Goal Setting Technique

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