Welcome back!

If by some chance you have came directly to this post please start at How To Set Goals.

Although this coaching module is spread out over 5 days you should not feel like this is the end or that you need to complete it in 5 days – but make sure you do go through the entire module. The whole purpose of the exercises is to give you something constructive to work with towards achieving your life objectives.

There is just so many ways that you can continue to use this module as a way to set goals for every facet of your life for the future. The whole point is that you create a process for yourself and prove to yourself that the exercises work for you. You should do this for any and all goal setting exercises. Just because someone came up with some fancy acronym doesn’t necessarily mean it’s going to assist you in getting results for your life.

That being said, I would ask that you leave any thoughts, suggestions and specifics of what worked for you in the comments section below. This module is best suited for a one-on-one or classroom setup and this is the first time I have put it online in this format. I am always keen to learn, so feel free to let me know how it can be better presented to future visitors. Email me (admin@theselfhelpsphere{dot}com) if you prefer.

Ok so let’s wrap things up.

When we started out I said that through these exercises you would learn 5 things. Let’s go through each one and see whether we did in fact cover everything and then finish off by discussing the 5th point at the end.

• What’s really important to you – in your own life?

In doing the wish list exercise you uncovered all the desires you have for your life and by measuring these up against whether each would improve an area of your life you discovered what was truly important in your life at this moment.

• Where your life is right now

You covered this by highlighting in one sentence the scenario in each area of your life sticking to the facts

• What action steps you need to take to improve every area of your life

By creating an action step for each area, something you felt was achievable with in a few hours but no longer than a couple of days, you created 8 action steps you could take to improve each area of your life.

• How to commit to taking these action steps

We worked through the 5 step action process to taking committed action. As I mentioned this was a crucial part of the process because otherwise all this entire module would be about is ‘wishing and hoping’. Being told to create a goal list in a shopping-list or to-do list kind of way is, IMHO, counterintuitive. You first have to discover what you truly want to go after in your life, set out a course of action, work on it and then measure the results. Anything short of this is merely meandering.

• How to build on what you have learnt and ’stay the course’

It gets a little tricky here because this step actually is all about you.

You have to decide whether this is a course of action you want to follow for your life, whether this will be just another thing you ‘had a go at’ or whether you will take what resonated and start working to understand more about it.

There is no cookie-cutter system and don’t listen to a anyone who says different. Your aspirations are personal. Don’t follow the crowd. Find your own path, become who you are, become your passion and success will follow. Discover what works, chuck out the rest, rinse and repeat.

If this process has produced, even in this short time, results for you or you have uncovered the facts of why this works for yourself then the best way to build on what you have learnt is to continue with the exercises and going through the entire process as many times as necessary for it to become second nature.

Once you start to see the power in how quickly you can get results and start to get feedback from the people around you as they see the positive changes you are making in your life it will start to become a part of how you live your life every day.

]]> http://www.theselfhelpsphere.com/sphere-of-life-coaching-module-day-5/feed/ 0 http://www.theselfhelpsphere.com/how-to-set-goals-how-to-live-your-best-life-and-have-fun-doing-it/ http://www.theselfhelpsphere.com/how-to-set-goals-how-to-live-your-best-life-and-have-fun-doing-it/#comments Sun, 29 Nov 2009 13:41:06 +0000 Emil Raal http://www.theselfhelpsphere.com/?p=312

I don’t know you, where you are in the world right now or what you want in your life exactly but what I do know is that everything you need to have the life you truly desire you have at your disposal right now and I know that the only thing stopping you is…You!

A lot of people think that just by thinking about setting goals or dreaming about the life they want that this will get them there or that by attending some personal development seminars or listening to some tapes; even standing in front of the mirror throwing out a positive affirmation or two will get them the life they want.

Now I don’t mean to demean these resources – some of them are really great and you can learn a tremendous amount by making use of them – it’s just; so much of what is taught out there is done in a vacuum. People do these self improvement things, get all pumped up, ready to take on the world – while removed from the real world – and as soon as life throws it’s inevitable curve ball they end up falling into old habits and give up pursuing their dreams.

Add to this the fact that we are a society conditioned to expect things to just happen to us; to have things done for us. To get the body we want all we need do is take a pill or purchase the latest fitness contraption. Or if we want to feel better about ourselves, retail therapy is only a 10 minute walk from the house (we of course drive there!)

Most of the time it seems that the only way people will get off their butts and do something about their life is when tragedy strikes! Seriously doesn’t make any sense to me.

Why set goals anyway?

Honestly I don’t believe your life needs to be rigidly planned out, leaving no room for spontaneity but at the same time having no direction could mean ending up exactly where you don’t want to be.

If you have an idea of what you want for your life, set out a plan to achieve your goals and discover what works and what doesn’t, you’ll uncover a system which will produce long term results and will empower, inspire and encourage you to design the life you truly desire.

It all starts with a plan though. And this brings me to goal setting tools.

As I am sitting writing this I can see my neighbor across the road working under the hood of his car. I have no idea what he is up to (what I know about cars is a little scary) but he has a tool box open on the floor next to him and in the past few minutes he has taken out various tools in order to help him with whatever he is doing.

Somewhere in that box of tricks he has the right tool to get the job done quickly and effectively.

This is exactly what a goal setting tool and resource should be. It should be something you can use and adapt to your own life in order to get sustainable results you desire quickly and effectively.

Sadly, many of the goal setting techniques people use, barely help them get out of the starting blocks.

Honestly, I have not come across anything more powerful than the goal setting exercise I personally have used over the years. Obviously you would expect me to say that but it is not until you actually go through this module yourself that you will understand what I mean. There are plenty of excellent resources for goal setting and life planning out there but for me the majority are merely by-products of what this module can help you realize for yourself.

Look I don’t want to oversell it – best is just to try it for yourself and the reason is simple: where many other processes fail because they try and provide you a way of setting and achieving predefined society-based goals, these sets of personal exercises will aid in the realization of what you truly want for your own life!

You can go through the entire action plan on this site. I have called the coaching module the Sphere of Life.