(raw footage from my climb of Eagle Tower)

I recently spent some time in Door County, Wisconsin on a relaxing little weekend getaway.

Can You Create a New Habit in 21 Days?

“Fake it ’til you make it.” We’ve all heard the cliche for approaching something that seems out of reach. There may be some method to the madness of that approach.

But have you ever given much thought to what it takes to bridge the gap between where you are now and where you want to be when it comes to eliminating old habits and forming new ones?

Success is habitual.

We have all witnessed those who seemingly achieve amazing feats over and over. Think of Tiger Woods, Michael Phelps, Michael Jordan. What allows one person to be an automatic peak performer every day without fail while others experience failure after failure? Most likely, the achievers have created and practiced success systems, habits and rituals that serve rather than detract from their goals.

If everything affects everything, which is, of course, true, then it pays to take a holistic look at the current habits and patterns in ALL areas of your life, at work, at home and at play.

You cannot change what you don’t acknowledge so it pays to get real and be brutally honest with yourself so you can finally align your habits with your dreams.

How to Create New and Empowering Habits

1. Identify your current habits, the good, the bad and the ugly. You have probably practiced many of the same habits throughout your life without realizing it. Keep a pen and paper handy throughout the day to capture habits as you become aware of them. From the moment you wake up to the moment your eyes close at night, most of your thoughts, words and actions are habitual. Write them down on paper. If you get stuck, ask others around you what habits they notice in you. This might take a few days.

2. Once you have identified your dominant habits, identify the source of those habits. Most of your habits were programmed into you at a very early age without you even realizing it. Many of your habits come from observing your dominant parent or caregiver. If you are habitually late, perhaps this trait was modeled for you by someone you admire. Not always but often enough. From the brand of car you drive to the brands of food you purchase, many of these habits were modeled for you and you practice them subconsciously.

Here are some common negative habits:
reading the newspaper first thing in the morning
vegging out, watching tv all evening
going to bed too late
hitting the snooze button every morning
cleaning obsessively
exercising excessively or not exercising at all
eating fast food frequently
saving money or not saving money
excessive credit card debt
choosing toxic relationships
not reading self-improvement books
not setting goals
procrastination
having many started projects and none finished
impulsiveness
dishonesty
infidelity
hoarding
negative self talk
criticism of others
complaining
depression
worry
blame
smoking
overeating
sugar addiction
skipping breakfast
workaholic
alcoholic
overcommitting to things because you can’t say no
etc.

Often you can look at your parents, examine their habits and see them in yourself. <gasp> I know I do on both the positive side and the negative side. They’re there alright. This exercise is not to judge others or yourself. It is simply to identify. This is especially important if you have children because your current habits are likely to be modeled by those who look up to you. What habits and traits do you want to instill in them?

3. Next to each habit you identified, decide which of these habits are empowering and which habits are disempowering. An empowering habit serves your greater good. It usually serves the greater good of the people around you too, those whom you love and care about. A disempowering habit does not serve your greater good, in fact, it likely detracts from your life.  Disempowering habits are roadblocks to your dreams.

Next to each empowering habit, draw a smiley face :)  Next to each disempowering habit, draw a frown :(   There is no neutral.
4.  The best way to eliminate an old disempowering habit is to replace it with a new more empowering one.  Next to each disempowering habit, write down a description of the opposite habit you want to replace it with. 

For example, if you come home after a long day’s work and turn on the television vegging out mindlessly for hours while your belly magically grows, perhaps an evening walk with your mate is what’s called for. Perhaps instead of reading the newspaper each morning and being bombarded with negative news and advertisements, perhaps you will opt to replace it with reading a chapter of a personal development book or listening to an audio while you prepare for the day. Instead of surfing the net, perhaps you want to write a few pages of that book you’ve been putting off. If you’ve been hoarding to the point you barely have a path to walk through, perhaps some purging and organizing is in order. If you habitually criticize your mate, perhaps you can create a new habit of focusing on what’s great about them. If you were a habitual procrastinator, you could become a habitual action taker.

5. Prioritize which habits you want to tackle first based on their importance to your life. Write #1 next to the #1 most important habit you want to focus on, #2 for the next most important habit and so on. To begin, focus your time and attention only on the habit you have determined is most important that will have the greatest positive effect on your life. I’m not going to tell you to turn your entire life upside down overnight by tackling them all at once. Some can do this successfully because they seek a complete life makeover. Others who are easily overwhelmed and lack confidence will sabotage themselves and fare much better by focusing on one habit at a time.

6. Imagine a role model or someone you admire. What habits and rituals do they consistently practice to achieve the results they do? Now here’s the bigger question: What beliefs underlie those habits? Model the habits of those whom you admire. Model the habits hight achievers. Focus on the beliefs underneath that support those empowering habits. Fake it ’til you make it is ok to begin but it only gets you so far. Many copy the action steps in an effort to duplicate a formula, and complain when things don’t work out. They only went through the motions. The real magic happens when you in embrace the underlying Principles, beliefs and mindset that produced the success.

Sometimes creating a new habit can lead to a new belief.
Sometimes creating a new belief can lead to a new habit.

Ultimately, they must be congruent to move you in the direction of your Goal.

7. Celebrate your existing empowering habits and the new habits you seek to create. Imagine the positive effect on your life and the people you love. Revel in the ways you will impact the people around you for the better. Imagine your life in one month, 6 months, 1 year, 5-10 years from now. What will your life be like because you adopted these new and empowering habits and beliefs. Pretty remarkable I would think.
                                                                                                                            
When your current thoughts and habits are congruent with your Goals and dreams, you will begin to move towards them more quickly and with seemingly less effort.

You know you have successfully created a new habit when the practice of it is automatic and effortless.

How long does it take to break an old habit or form a new habit? It varies. Most experts assert you it takes 21 days. I believe it could take an hour, a week, months or years. The greater your desire and commitment, the faster the change will occur. Practicing the new desired habit consecutively (every single day without fail) increases the speed in which you will see results.

When the identity shift occurs inside you, you are well on your way. When you no longer think of yourself as a smoker, but a non smoker. When you no longer view yourself as overweight, but rather a healthy vibrant person who lives a healthy lifestyle. When you no longer think of yourself as a complainer, rather an person who finds the good in every person and situtation-automatically. That is when you will have successfully created the new empowering habit.

After you have accomplished successfully creating your #1 top priority habit, move on to # 2, then #3 and son on.

When your identity is congruent with the beliefs, thoughts and actions necessary to carry out your Goal, you have become the person necessary to achieve your Goal.

Resolve to do whatever it takes to improve the quality of your life.
Live Your Dreams,

Jill Koenig

http://www.GoalGuru.com

Jill Koenig, The Goal Guru, is America’s Top Goal Strategist. A self-made millionaire by age 30, she has dedicated her life to teaching the principles of Goal Setting, Productivity and Self Improvement to individuals, entrepreneurs as well as Fortune 500 companies. She is a highly sought after Author, Peak Performance Coach and Motivational Speaker. To learn how to achieve your Goals at TURBO speed, visit: http://www.GoalGuru.com

Some of my most cherished memories from childhood are from pickup football games my friends and I played on the school lawn down the street from my house.

There are lessons all around us contained in art, theatre, movies, athletics, nature and even in the most unexpected places.

The other day I was going through an old box of pictures and I found a picture of myself and my friends in front of the schoolyard where we used to play football together and it got me thinking about many of the lessons I learned about Goal Setting by watching and playing football. If you are a football fan, you will appreciate this.

The Top 10 Lessons Football Taught Me About Goal Setting

1. He who scores first gains momentum. Have you ever heard a coach talk about an upcoming game? Almost always the coach declares the intention to score first, to put points on the board as soon as possible. This is so important because it gives the scoring team a psychological edge. Scoring first has the potential to boost your confidence and deflate your opponents psyche. I have seen many games where two teams with equal talent are won by the team who scored first.

2. Every inch, every yard forward counts because it gets you closer to your Goal. Most of your offensive plays gain at best an average of a few yards, but over time, they accumulate and contribute to forward movement. Inevitably at times you go backwards a few yards, but if you stay focused on your Goal, you can make up for it on the next play.

3. You cannot play defense the whole game. You cannot just sit back in reactive mode, waiting to see what everyone else is going to do or spend all of your energy responding to circumstances. You have to be proactive, play offense and move yourself towards the Goal by making things happen through deliberate thought and effort.

4. To be effective, you must manage the clock. There are four quarters in a game and there are four quarters in one year. Carefully and strategically allocate your time, energy and manpower to perform at your peak from beginning to end.

5. Take quarterly time outs to evaluate. Schedule these into your life. Examine your stats and measurements. How are you doing? You may need to make an adjustment in your game plan, tactics or fine tune your game plan for better results. If you are in need of a short break to re energize, or are off track at any time, simply call a time out and regroup.

6. You need a strategic Game Plan. Before the game is ever played, every player must know their part and be prepared to execute.

7. You need a great Coach. Even the most gifted, talented players need a Coach to bring out the best in them and keep them focused on the executing the plan. A Coach has a different perspective than the players. A great Coach brings experience and a holistic view of the game and can see things in the big picture that most players cannot see.

8. The greatest players in the game condition themselves year round. Those who enjoy longevity work just as hard on themselves outside of the game as they do in the game. They surround themselves with positive people who support their Goals. If luck is where preparation meets opportunity, the prepared outperform those who are not conditioned every time.

9. An effective Blitz can change the momentum and turn the game in your favor. Focusing all of your energy and attention on one area can catapult you forward by leaps and bounds.

10. Be a Leader, be a play maker. On every team, in every game, you know who the go to guy is who will get the job done when the game is on the line. You know who puts in the extra effort and that in a close game, that extra push is what makes a winner. Be that play maker in your chosen field.

In the game of football and in the game of life, be a team player. Be a leader and approach every important goal as if it your own personal Superbowl.

Enjoy the game and live your dreams.

Jill Koenig
http://www.TheGoalGuru.com

I bring this to your attention now so that you can give yourself the ability to make a conscious decision of what you want to create for yourself in the final 33 days left in 2007. That gives you plenty of time to tie up loose ends get a handle on any unfinished business you want to wrap up before December 31st.

For some this time of year brings great growth and positive momentum, yet others experience a decline or negative momentum, as in a slow down.

There are many myths about the Holiday Season when it comes to business. These myths apply to both online and offline businesses.

The Biggest Business Myth of the Holiday Season: “Only retail and gift businesses grow during this time of year, every other business slows.” This is simply not true. I love it when people tell me that business is slow this time of year and that my business will slow whether I want it to or not. It seems like a rather helpless proposition, doesn’t it?

In most cases, business slows for them because they stopped doing the daily method of operation that their business needs in order to continue moving forward. Many business owners actually reduce their efforts and fail to follow their own action plan during this time because they believe it is a slow season, because someone told them it would be and so it becomes true for them. Because they believe and accept this erroneous prediction, they stop trying, they stop injecting life giving effort into their business. That is why business slows for them.

Yet for others, this is the time or year to create exponential growth. If your competition is reducing their efforts, and most are, it is the perfect time for you to rev it up and make your move.

Don’t get caught in the trap of reducing your efforts because the media, your peers or anyone tells you that business slows. Do not ever accept that invitation to slack or minimize your efforts. This is the most critical time of year to practice consistency for any business. Every action you take in December contributes to a stronger January. Keep the ball rolling.

The keys for thriving during the Holiday Season are persistence and consistency. Every day people are looking for whatever information, service or product you offer. Those who keep up, stick with their plan or even increase their focus and efforts this time of year are the ones who will reap the rewards and explode their growth in the coming year.

Choose to be one of them.

You do not have to succumb to the myths that others use to rationalize their own laziness or reduced actions that are based purely on opinion.

Momentum breeds Momentum.

Winners know that finishing strong in December is the catalyst for massive growth in January as it sets the tone for the rest of the year.

Live Your Dreams,

Jill Koenig

When we set out to pursue any Goal, clearly we need to choose a path for it’s attainment, create action plans and begin taking steps and do our part to move it forward.

There are some who believe that applying The Law of Attraction requires no action, however I have never met anyone who laid in bed all day and manifested anything.

At many points along your journey while you plan your work and work your plan, many opportunities you could not have planned or predicted will appear. One of the reasons I stress to “Begin with the End in Mind” and create a long term vision for your life is because looking ahead years and decades from now allows you to understand that there will be a multitude of ways you can achieve your big picture outcome. It also gives you flexibility to discover other ways to reach your desired destination.

Creating long term Goals gives you the freedom to change paths at any point along the way when the right opportunity presents itself.

In my childhood I dreamed of being wealthy, and designed a long term vision, having no idea how I could ever achieve this. When I graduated high school and worked as a firefighter while attending art school, I had no idea if I could parlay those skills into long term wealth, but I was always willing to follow my passions in the faith that the way would be made.

Because I trusted that if I continued to move forward and take daily action on my dreams, the how would evolve and I would be ready when the opportunities arose. And sure enough, the path that was formed was quite unexpected but because I kept my options open, when it appeared, I was ready and seized it.

Here’s another example of having a long term vision and keeping your options open to the fact that there are many roads that will lead you to it.

Hold onto your vision and welcome new paths for creating it.

Here’s an amazing example from Masseuse to Google Millionaire.

Live Your Dreams,

Jill

You’ve defined your Goal, identified your key strategies, created an action plan and have started to put it into action.

What’s next?

As you proceed, it is important to measure your results and track your progress (or lack of it). This is the least exciting part of the journey of any Goal, but I assure you it is one of the most important. This is where it gets a little tricky due to the fact that every Goal is different. Each Goal has it’s own unique targets, time lines, and action plans, therefore it will require it’s own unique system and schedules for measuring.

Not every Goal needs to be measured, just your most critical ones. For example, if on the weekends you take guitar lessons to explore your interest in learning how to play, you don’t necessarily need a plan for measuring your progress. But for your highest priority Goals, you absolutely do. If you are building a business or trading in the stock market, your very financial existence relies upon your systems for tracking.

People often seek my coaching and assistance because they are stuck in some way. They say, “I am stuck! I have tried everything and nothing works!” The first thing I do is ask for their gauges, measurements and stats for the related area. Often they reply with blame or excuses about the economy or some outside circumstance for why they are off track and never is that the real reason for a decline. The reason for almost all struggle, stagnation and lack of growth is due to a lack of attention, measurement or action in the critical areas. It is usually a matter of neglect and fortunately there is a quck and easy solution to create a major turnaround.

The fastest way to create a breakthrough is to measure and examine the critical areas of your Goal.

You cannot change what you don’t measure. You cannot improve what you don’t measure. Where focus goes, energy flows so begin focusing on your major key areas that are critical to your success.

Tracking reveals the true reality of a situation. Many Goals can be measured with numbers. For example, Health Goals provide many numbers to monitor your progress; pounds, inches, blood sugar, triglycerides, blood pressure, as do a multitude of other precise diagnostic measurements.

Tracking builds confidence. When you have a great plan, are following it and producing phenomenal results, you automatically raise your own self-esteem and that optimism carries over into every other life area. Knowing that you are on track and having the validation of facts as proof gives you an enormous boost.

Tracking provides valuable feedback and indications of areas that may need to be addressed or adjusted. If your Goal is to lose weight and the numbers on the scale are going up, up, up each week, it could be an indication that you may need to re evaluate your plan or if you have a great plan and have not been following it, simply renew your dedication to it.

For every Goal that does not succeed, there are always numerous indicators along the way that would have provided a snapshot or a warning ahead of time and all throughout the journey, if the critical components would have been measured and appropriate action taken, the Goal could have been salvaged.

Your Action Plan:

1. Examine your highest and most important Goal and the key areas that will ensure it’s success. What are the aspects you will need to measure so that you will know on any given day, at any given time, whether or not you are progressing on track?

2. List at least ten precise critical components you can begin measuring and tracking. (if you come up with more than ten, that’s even better).

3. Create targets for each of the chosen areas. This can be done by looking at the end result and tracking backwards. What are the ideals you will need to achieve in order to successfully realize your Goal?

4. Create the most appropriate schedule for tracking and checking your gauges and schedule it into your planner. How often should you measure your metrics, stats and gauges and examine your progress? If the Goal has no end, as such with an ongoing business, you can certainly break it down via yearly, quarterly, monthly, daily and even weekly measurements.

Since each Goal is unique, your Goal will require unique systems and schedules for tracking it. By implementing this for all of your highest priority Goals, you will instantly begin to produce better results.

Goal Achieving abides by the Universal Law of Cause and Effect. If you don’t like the results you are creating, change your approach, increase your efforts, modify your plan, but don’t stick your head in the sand and neglect to see the truth of the situation.

The fastest way to improve your results is to measure your progress. So re examine your most cherished Goals and see where you stand. Your mind will instantly begin to search for ways to make improvements in those key areas.

Numbers don’t lie. Welcome whatever data you receive and take the appropriate actions to ensure your success!

Live Your Dreams

Jill

Copyright 2007 Jill Koenig

I think we all agree that there is a huge gap between passively learning a thing and the actual Mastery of it. Anyone can pick up a paintbrush and splash some color on a canvas, but not everyone will go on to create a masterpiece. While everyone CAN create a masterpiece, everyone has the capacity, not everyone will employ the belief, drive, discipline or even the desire to develop their inborn dormant talent or skill.

There is one area in which each of us must become the master of, and it is that of our own life design. We are given the blank canvas at birth and for a time, we are guided by others on how to fill it in until we realize that we can begin anew with a blank canvas anytime we choose. In fact, we can add as much color and depth as we want and we can paint over whatever we previously created.

Don’t wait for someone else to give you permission to paint your canvas. Choose your own color palette, mix it up and fill your life with rich textures, and make your life full of color, depth and expression. Aim high, think big and go for your dreams with all of your might.

You are the artist.

Your life is the canvas.

Make it a masterpiece.

Goal Achieving is the #1 life skill, but most people become complacent about it and take it for granted. They understand it to some degree in theory, but rarely activate the immense power of integrating it into their day to day life.

Goal Setting is very easy to do. It’s also just as easy not to do. And herein lies the danger. It is one of the most powerful “unseen” forces in the world, yet it is one of the easiest to take for granted or engage in sloppiness and mediocrity.

For example, most people only think about Goals once a year. You guessed it, January 1st. Millions of people take a stab at setting some half-hearted New Years Resolutions. They make random wishes in the hopes of achieving or obtaining things they have no commitment to and within a few weeks, they are forgotten… until next year. And then they do the exact same thing. Most resolutions have little motivation attached to them, no plans for their attainment, no strategy for measuring their progress and no support or success system to ensure their progress.

One of my early mentors said to me, “Find out what failures do and then don’t do it. Find out what successful people do and then do it.”

So don’t do what the failing Resolution crowd does, which is clearly “set it and forget it.” Learn how to stay plugged in to your Goals every single day, 365 days a year. Here are some helpful tips:

The Three Stages of a Goal

In my observation of those who embark upon the journey of Goals, I estimate that 97% of those who attempt to pursue a Goal barely succeed beyond the first stage of Goals and therefore never progress to the second or third stage. It’s easier than you think to realize your most significant Goals once you understand the magnitude.

Stage 1. Goal Setting

Over the course of my life and in my decades of studying success and leadership, I learned key distinctions about how to create success systemsâ„¢. A system is a formula that dictates a sequential order of a process. Call it what you will, in sports, it’s a game plan, in cooking it’s a recipe, in business it’s a business plan. For example, when someone start a company and it succeeds, in many respects, they can model the steps that led to a successful outcome and duplicate them when creating the next company.

And the greatest success systemâ„¢ you could ever learn is that which leads to the advancement and achievement of your most cherished Goals.

The Goal Rush success systemâ„¢ is your recipe, a formula that when followed will lead you to a successful result. I found that those who consistently achieve their dreams, whether consciously or not have followed a system. The system and the first stage of the process is critical for your success. At this juncture Goal Setting is more than just making a wish. Goal Setting in it’s essence is deciding, visualizing, planning, beginning to take the necessary actions, measuring, adjusting where necessary which will then lead to the Goal’s advancement and finally Goal Achieving.

You see Goal Setting is only one aspect of the equation. The setting of the Goal is the envisioning stage. It’s one of the early steps in a process of having, being, doing or giving something. Did you know that there is a surefire process for selecting Goals? Then and only then, can you pursue your most cherished Goals based on a holistic perspective of your life and from there, from only the Goals that pass the test and meet the criteria, you will begin the journey of moving towards it and attracting it. The only thing worse than not setting Goals, is tying up your time and energy on Goals that have no meaning. Even more damaging, is the habitual act of pursuing Goals are detrimental to you and the people around you, the Goals that rob you of your most precious resources and detract from the other areas of your life.

Goal Setting is the stage of decision. Deciding what you want and clarifying it in precise detail.

Stage 2. Goal Achieving

Goal Achieving is the outcome or result of actually hitting your target. After you learn the art of Goal Setting, you will drastically increase your success rate. I don’t know anyone who achieves every Goal they set, not even me. Bill Gates, Tiger Woods and others who are world class Goal Achievers don’t reach all of their Goals either, but they are winners in the game of life because they aim higher than most people ever dream and therefore they reap a higher level of reward. World Class Goal Achievers know the simple process of selecting Goals that are in harmony with your life’s purpose, planning for their attainment, and increasing the likelihood of it’s success. There are a multitude of things you can do to stack the odds in your favor. Goal Achievers understand it is possible to live in a constant state of joy, even when things don’t go as planned, even when things don’t work out.

The joy is in the journey.

Stage 3. Goal Mastery

Goal Mastery is the state of habitually and consistently being in touch with your life’s purpose and leading a Goal directed life. In this state most or even all of your life areas are working at optimum levels, meaning your relationships, career, health, financial and spiritual lives are all feeding and adding to each other. You easily attract what you want. Some call it balance, but it is rare to have all of those areas living in total balance. Instead, strive for harmony. Your life Goals allow you to live a life where no one area gets neglected or suffers. Whatever you call it, Goal Mastery is a state of positive growth in all areas.

Mastery of anything is not a one time event. It is a constant process of never ending improvement. When you think you know it all is precisely the moment you will begin to backslide and regress. That is what leads to complacency and depression. How many people do we know who were incredibly gifted at something but stopped developing their God given gifts because they got comfortable or distracted? How many people do we know who settle for much less than the are capable of and go on to lead lives of quiet desperation.

If repetition is the mother of skill then just like I and so many others have, you too, have the power to condition yourself for success, and along with that comes the means to choose and achieve your destiny.

You are the artist.

Your life is the canvas.

Make it a masterpiece.

Live Your Dreams,

Jill

To make your life a masterpiece, enroll in Goal University today!

http://www.GoalUniversity.com