Building Momentum

Just to remind you, goal setting is a very powerful way to help you produce the results you desire because of the Reticular Activating System (RAS). This helps filter out all the information that is coming in through your senses, estimated to be around 2 million every second, so that you only become aware of the bits that are of interest to you.

"Create a climate that suggests success is imminent." - Charlie Mae Knight

 The RAS enables you to gather information on those things that you are focusing your attention on. Goal setting is a conscious way of telling the RAS what you want to focus on and therefore puts you in control.

Sadly many people do exactly the opposite; they focus on what they don't want. They therefore only receive information on those things that they don't want, which in turn leads them to having those things in their lives.

Visions are very big goals, actually the biggest of the goals. This can be a problem though. Sometimes, once people have set their Visions, they see them as so far away that they treat them as unattainable. This leads them to put them to one side and forget about them. For example, if your Vision is to be 3 stone lighter in order to provide you with plenty of energy and have a strong self-image which in turn makes you feel confident and happy, but currently you are feeling down and depressed, the Vision could be too much of a stretch for you.

To help resolve this, it is useful to break the Vision down into more manageable pieces, although this in itself can present some challenges. When you break the Vision down into all the things that need to be achieved, you can become overwhelmed with all the tasks that need to be done. To resolve this issue, it is useful to identify those things that are the most important to achieve.

An analogy we often use here is to think of a very large vase, perhaps 3 ft high. By the side of the vase lies some large rocks, next to them some stones, and then some small pebbles and finally some sand. You are set the task of getting all of these into the vase; which do you put in first? The answer is the large rocks, followed by the stones, pebbles and sand. Why? Because once you put in the large rocks, everything in turn fits around them. How does this relate to you moving forward? Many people, when they are choosing the things to focus their attention on, focus on the pebbles and the sand, the small stuff, which doesn't make much difference. People who achieve what they want in their lives focus on getting the big rocks in place.

This relates closely to the concept of levers. Without going into the physics behind the concept, levers are those things that will produce the most returns for you with the least effort. For example, if you happen to drink several pints of beer a night or a bottle of wine, which carry hundreds of calories, by reducing that you could make significant progress with your weight loss. On the other hand, you could take up marathon running which will entail you running 6 days a week for several hours. Which one is the better lever for you?

So having set your Vision and looked at some of the challenges facing you, now is the time to decide what your big rocks are. Another term we use for these is Outcomes. These should be your priorities, the key things that you need to focus your attention on. They are things that will help you resolve your challenges and lead you towards achieving your Vision.

Gareth
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