Re-Start Your L-Factor

Last week I started talking about the many important points in my book, How to Ignite Your Passion for Living. One of the really big ones is in the chapter entitled, “Clone Yourself with the Amazing L-Factor.” So, what is that L-Factor? It’s all about making lists!

Show me any super-successful person who has accomplished big things and I’ll show you an accomplished list maker. There is something magical that happens in our brains when we reduce our desires to a list. When we write those items down, it’s like our brains push us to act on them and won’t let us go until we do it.

Of the many specific techniques that have huge value in helping catapult a person to the top of whatever they’re going after, I have to say that list making is at, or near, the top of that list. It’s just flat-out amazing how much more enhanced your life will become and how many more dreams and goals you will be able to achieve by using lists. In addition, daily task lists or to-do lists are the key to keeping track of accomplishing all the bite-size components into which you’ve broken down your big picture goals.

For instance, a number of years back, I talked about how important that first hour of your day can be as the book, The Miracle Morning, talks about. Getting tons done in that first hour can be helped by using that L-factor as well. Just make a list, before you go to bed, of the items and tasks that you want to address in those first 60 minutes. You can break it down to six 10 minute items or four 15 minutes tasks, but no matter how you do it, making a list can, and will, greatly increase the odds of you following through on what you want to accomplish.

So, if you have gotten away from that ole list making habit, it’s probably a good time to re-start making lists in order to drive yourself to get lots of stuff done. And I don’t mean just for that first hour of the day, but make lists for everything, especially your big, huge goals, and read over your list often, checking off those items that you’ve accomplished to give you a boost by seeing how much you’ve accomplished. Then you can give yourself a nice pat on the back for getting the job done!

Should We Really Set Huge Goals?

 

Is there any great advantage of setting very BIG goals?

Well, yes, there really is a good reason to set very big goals, as long as they are realistic. Setting huge goals excites the mind and actually can stimulate the brain enough to create extra energy. But if you do set big, big goals be sure to break them down into smaller steps and be sure to WRITE down both the big goals and the smaller steps with time frames for each.

While working on this blog, I saw that Holly Richardson, a regular contributor to our daily newspaper The Salt Lake Tribune, happened to put out a very interesting and helpful article on goal setting entitled, “Autumn is the perfect time to set new goals”. In it she writes “We’ve all heard the stats: The average New Year resolution setter makes it about mid-way through January before they’ve given up on the ‘resolutions.’ Maybe the reason is those resolutions are the ones people feel they ‘should’ make, not the ones they really want to make.”

Vancouver based educator Mehrnaz Bassiri, drawing on the work of organizational theorist Carl Weick during her, “To Achieve Success, Start Detecting Your Small Wins” TEDx talk, explained that, “Small wins have a transformational power. Once a small win has been accomplished, forces are set in motion to favor another small win and another small win until the combination of these small wins lead to larger and greater accomplishments.”

Small wins really do add up and keep you motivated and excited about those big, huge goals. That has certainly worked for me.  I vividly remember when I was 27 years old setting, what was a huge goal for me at the time, to have a net worth of one million dollars by the time I was 30 years old. Believe me, a million bucks back then was a ton of money especially since I was only making about $30,000 a year. That huge goal gave me so much energy. It kept me excited and working hard.

I was one year late in hitting that goal, but it inspired me and motivated me to set some much bigger multi-million dollar goals which I was very fortunate to accomplish as well. And yes, I did set lots of little time driven goals along the way to each big goal, writing them down complete with dates to have them accomplished. Plus, as I hit those numbers, I made a record of my successes in my personal journal.

Holly Richardson gives one more bit of very good advice: “Pick one or two people to share these goals with and who will cheer you along the way and get going!”

Next week I want to share with you some very good stuff I’m reading and learning from. I am reading a super great book by Charles Duhigg called The Power of HABIT. You’re going to really like the wonderful advice that can change and lift your life to a much higher level.

Stay Excited About Your Goals

 

I would guess that you remember that great theatrical adaptation of Cervantes’ Don Quixote and that great song “The Impossible Dream”. I think there is great wisdom in the words of that song that has so much to do with goal setting. I think these words are so very important for super success with really big goals. Read the words to this great song and think about its great message:

To dream the impossible dream,

To fight the unbeatable foe,

To bear with unbearable sorrow,

To run where the brave dare not go,

To right the unrightable wrong,

To love pure and chaste from afar,

To try, when your arms are too weary,

To reach the unreachable star–

 

This is my quest, to follow that star,

No matter how hopeless, no matter how far,

To fight for the right, without question or pause,

To be willing to march into hell for a heavenly cause!

And I know, if I’ll only be true to this glorious quest,

That my heart will lie peaceful and calm when I’m laid to rest!

 

And the world will be better for this,

That one man, scorned and covered with scars,

Still strove, with his last ounce of courage,

To reach the unreachable star!

 

When Don Quixote set out on his quest, he was an old man but he pursued his goal with the energy of a man less than half his age. What kept him going? How was he able to stay so excited about his goal? One thing that made a big difference was his commitment to the goal. He believed with all his heart that he was seeking to do the right thing.

Do you believe in your goals?

Do you really feel that they are the best ones for you?

Do those goals represent what you really want in life?

If you answered no to any of those questions, I’d say you probably should be in search of new goals. Without a strong and positive belief that we are seeking what is best, we simply won’t have the power we need to bring our goals to completion. We won’t have the energy that will take us through every action that is necessary to take us step by step to the goal.

We can learn from Don Quixote. Select goals that you can believe in then work tirelessly to bring them about. Plus, I do strongly believe that if you set very, very big goals, goals that really super charge your brain, then that will give your body and mind more energy to keep pushing yourself until you have achieved that big goal. But we all must make sure that those huge goals are realistic.

Next week I want to talk more about these BIG HUGE GOALS and just how you can make them a reality.

 

Balancing Big Goals with Small Steps

Last August I wrote a blog titled “The Biggest Leap is the Small step of Getting Started“. In that blog I said a good way to stick with a particular tough goal is to kind of trick yourself by saying, “Ok, I might not be in the mood to do this right now so I think I will just spend 5 minutes with this project,” and all the time you know that there is a very good chance once you start the project you probably will keep going beyond the 5 minutes.  I know this sure works for me when I don’t feel like climbing on the stair master or the elliptical or any other exercise I know that I should do.

The “small step” method really does help a person stick with their goals, so I was somewhat bothered when I re-read my blog of November 2012 and looked at the huge printed sign that I had reproduced in the blog that said “Set a goal SO BIG that you can’t achieve it until YOU GROW INTO THE PERSON WHO CAN”.  I began to question myself for putting that quote on my blog.  Here’s why I question myself now, at least to a degree:  You see, if you set your goal way too high, your goal may scare you and you may begin thinking “There is just no way I can achieve something so big.” But I do believe there is a way around the problem that can allow you to set huge goals and be able to achieve them.

The great thing about setting big goals is that they can stimulate and excite our brains and body to keep pursuing what we set out to do. So, although it’s important for the brain to set big goals, the trick is to not set them so big that deep inside your mind you really feel you could never achieve them.

The real key here–and there is research to back this up–is to set the big goals that excite you to action then put aside that big picture and think about and work on the small daily or hourly goals that give you many small steps of achievement towards that big goal.  Keep telling yourself that you only have to reach “today’s goals” and remind yourself how good that is making you feel.

To quote David DiSalvo from his great book What Makes Your Brain Happy and Why You Should Do the Opposite, “The happy brain tends to focus on the short term.  That being the case, it’s a good idea to consider what short-term goals we can accomplish that will eventually lead to accomplishing long-term goals.”

I’ve been doing just that lately.  I concentrate on just today or, sometimes, just this hour or minute and for the most part I try to totally forget my big goal. That usually gives my brain plenty of rewards and comfort.

Next week I will give what I think is the perfect example for losing weight–since it is the time of year that most people do the opposite—and when you read it, keep in mind you’ll do this one small, easy step at a time.