Away back in the beginning of MindStore, I used to hold a goal setting workshop around this time of year. Famously one year, I presented one in the Royal Concert Hall in Glasgow and the Novotel at Hammersmith in London. I was really fortunate to have managed to book Sir Ranulph Fiennes to speak at these. As you can well imagine, he was a wonderful inspiration to the hundreds who attended. That was many years before he even considered running all those marathons, and he lifted everyone up to believe that they could achieve too. His story included endless setbacks and even life-threatening challenges during his quest. He let us all see a slide, containing an image with most of his belongings and provisions sat upon a piece of ice that had broken off where he had camped, and was now floating away from him to be lost forever.
He let us all see that if you are truly committed (in the middle of the Antarctic on your way to the South Pole you have no choice but to be so) then no matter what stumbling blocks get in your way, you have the wherewithal to find deep inside a part of you that can, and will find a way.
You can only discover that part of you if you find yourself tested, and that will come by pushing yourself to set the goals that will inevitably draw on all your resources. You need goals that are big and demand that you be the best you can be. You know that you can do this. Don’t concern yourself about the HOW question when you start out. Don’t let your doubting left brain put you off. Don’t deny yourself your true desires. Think BIG! Sir Ranulph helped put any of our limitations in to perspective and he perfectly set up all the participants to work their way through our goal setting process.
Firstly we took a sheet of A4 and wrote down a big gratitude list. We identified everything we were well and truly grateful for and each person worked on that for fifteen minutes before sharing a couple from their list with a stranger.
So before this year is out make sure you get that sheet of paper out. Why not hold a small workshop with your family and friends. Even watch an uplifting movie or documentary first. Write out your gratification list. Share a few of your goals with others and enjoy listening to what they trust you with. We then did a fifteen minute listing on a fresh sheet of eliminations. Here you list all those things that you have “clinging to you” and that are actually holding you back. You can’t create space for the future if your energy is all clogged up with the past. So, empty out the garage, get rid of stuff in cupboards, drawers and definitely your wardrobe. (Those flares are never coming back into fashion!) You will have all manner of stuff you will never really use again and it’s best to move it on.
Creating empty space at home and at work, creates a vacuum and like a magnet the space inevitably attracts all kinds of new things to once again fill it up. When you have made the list and then have taken the time to clear it all out, (you can easily do this sometime between Christmas and New Years Day) you have then created a space of expectation, that space of being receptive, of being ready for the new, where you are open to receive. Then you can and should review or write down your thirty goals before narrowing them down into your top seven.
Do take the time to do this to get them into your consciousness ahead of “the bells” and the New Year. I will provide you with “What to do in the first few days of the New Year”, in the next blog.
Enjoy this wonderful time of renewal, hope and wonder.
For additional help with Goal Setting CLICK HERE to view our range of tools and for information on The Best of MindStore with Jack Black