Goal Busting Formula
July 16, 2023 by MarkHaroldsen
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As mentioned last week, there really is a formula for making your big goals actually happen, and it takes more than thinking and wishing them to come true. So, there is a kind of formula for successful goal setting that you need to apply to all your big goals.
- Be clear about what you want and go big.
- Set lots of small goals broken up into daily and weekly goals so they feel, and actually are, achievable.
- Write your goals down and review them often.
- Remember to always keep busy. Research suggests that a broad goal of simply staying busy is better than doing nothing and will help keep you happy.
- It takes 66 days to change a habit and 80 days to develop a solid, healthy habit so keep working at your goal until pushing through those steps become the habit you want it to be.
- When it comes to that good ol’ self-talk, it has been shown that asking yourself rather than telling yourself that you are going to reach a goal is much more effective. So, start asking the question “Can I reach my goal of _______?” Then answer by saying “Yes, I can!”
- The key to change and control is “awareness”. Pound that into your head. Always be aware and observe your internal dialog, paying close attention to what you are thinking. Yes, that’s thinking about thinking and if you do that consistently you will find that it helps you see what you need to change and how to change it.
- According to David DiSalvo’s book, What Makes the Brain Happy and Why You Should Do the Opposite, you should spend more time reading about people who use self-control and discipline. By doing that, you will boost your own self-control and self-discipline.
Now that you have a list to go by, go ahead! Create those goals and take the steps needed to make them happen! It’s just not enough to really want it. Take action and use your desire and passion to fuel it.
Next week, we’ll talk about ways to make reaching your goal even easier.
Don’t Live Without Passion.
July 2, 2023 by MarkHaroldsen
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It doesn’t take much thought to realize that life really is too short, so you just have to live every day with more passion! Time squandered, is time wasted.
Most people, when looking back at their lives, are in more pain over the things they didn’t do rather than over the things they failed at while trying to do them. Yes, I do believe most of us would rather try and fail than never try at all. Why is that? I think it’s in our nature as humans to want to receive long lasting and deep satisfaction from struggle and hard work, because even if we fall short of our objective, at least we know we tried.
I’ve certainly had my share of failures and tragedies. But I wouldn’t have it any other way because, in most of those failures, I’ve learned so many huge lessons that, in the long run, greatly enhanced my life.
Let me briefly tell you my own story. It was a “Sudden Death Wake Up Call”.
I had a pretty ordinary beginning into this life. Born in Portland, Oregon in 1944 (that means next year I hit the big 80 mark!), I was the second born in my family, so I was always trying to prove myself, to measure up to my older brother.
My life and my mindset were forever shocked and changed when, at the age of 15, my older brother died, literally, at my feet, while playing basketball. We were in an outdoor stadium halfway around the world in Ankara, Turkey. That one life-shaking event permanently altered my way of thinking, something that is with me to this very day, yes, even as I write these words. As I express myself and think about the big picture of life, it helps me understand that life can be gone in a moment. It’s a sobering thought.
Yep, we all have an end to our life, or as some people say, “Nobody gets out of here alive.” It doesn’t matter how rich or powerful you are, you and I really have a fairly short time to be here on planet earth. So, all of us need to live with passion right now and go after the things in life that we really want. Not only will you get more out of life, but it will also give you a great and powerful lift to your mind and body.
Next week I am going to write more about this event with my brother and how it pushed me to see the bigger picture of life and death. It makes me much more accepting of our hardships and every day it pushes me to live in this “right now moment”. I’ll write more about my early life and goals that I set for myself, some of which I reached but not all of them!
Life’s Lessons in Failing
April 30, 2023 by MarkHaroldsen
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17 years ago, I wrote a letter for an advertisement that introduced a book I wrote. I then sent the letter to many friends and followers. I started with this:
Dear friend and reader,
This is my new book on the subject of GOAL SETTING–which I strongly believe I owe my prosperous lifestyle to!
And I still believe that! The book is also full of great stuff that is as useful today as it was then. The book I’m talking about is called How to Ignite Your Passion for Living and I still sell it here.
One of the highlights of the book is the stuff about trying, even if you might fail. It doesn’t take much thought to realize that life is really is too short to not try so we can live our lives with more passion!
Don’t be like those who look back on their lives and realize that they missed out on so many opportunities. The poet Alfred Tennyson said, “It’s better to have tried and failed than to live life wondering what would’ve happened if I had tried.” I do believe most of us would be happier to try and fail than never try at all.
Why is that? I think it’s basic human nature to want those long-lasting good feelings we get from success and, even if we fall short of our objective, knowing we tried. And yes, I certainly had my share of failures and tragedies. But I wouldn’t have it any other way because there is so much to learn from failure if we are paying very close attention. We have the opportunity to realize why we failed and what to do in the future so it won’t happen again that way.
Setting big goals in things that you are interested in is one of the biggest contributors to igniting your passion, even if you fail. I hope you see this and go for those big goals and other things that you want to do with your life. And, as I always preach, be sure to write your goals down. By doing that you are much more likely to achieve those goals. It really works!
Remember, if you fail, don’t give up. Keep trying and study what happened and why so you can keep it from happening again. That’s my challenge to you and to myself. I am, right now as I write this, recovering from heart surgery and doing great but even with this, I will still set some big goals to create more passion in my life!
The Wonder of Work
April 16, 2023 by MarkHaroldsen
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I’ve been talking a lot about retirement and how to keep busy and motivated. Not only is it helpful to create more goals, it’s also really smart to become friends with a word we mostly think of as a bad thing–work.
In the book, When All You Ever Wanted Isn’t Enough, Harold Kushner lists the many super benefits of working. He notes that, “we work for meaning as much as for money. We work so that our days will not be empty of meaning, but the key to our happiness, to our being able to find pleasure in our work, is the sense that we are using our abilities, not wasting them, and that we are being appreciated for it. Whatever it is in your power to do, do it with all your might.”
Wow. There is some real wisdom and truth in what he is saying and, of course, that’s a big reason we all should be involved in the kind of work that we have a real passion for, even if that kind of work doesn’t pay much. Kushner says, “If we are lucky, we will find ourselves at a place in life where we can derive pleasure from our work. Some of us, if we are lucky, will see ourselves launched on new careers in mid-life which will give us that elusive feeling of pleasure.”
Kushner, paraphrasing a couple lines from Ecclesiastes in the bible, also wrote, “If you are not going to win a Nobel Prize for your work, if it is not going to make you rich and famous, it still can give meaning to your life if you take it seriously and do it with all your might.”
I am absolutely convinced that work is a powerful and wonderful thing for our lives and makes us feel so much better about everything. As the novelist Wallace Stegner said, “More people than would probably admit it find in work the scaffolding that holds up their adult lives.”
After I read Kusher’s book some 12 years ago, I began to re-dedicate and re-motivate my life with the work I loved to do. Of course, I still spend plenty of time enjoying life so I’ll keep playing and traveling but let’s face it, you can’t realistically play tennis, work out, hike in the mountains, and watch movies for 8 to 10 hours a day, every day, but you can work that long!
In other words, if you’re feeling bored or aimless, you can find great fulfillment in the accomplishments found in hard work. You can also meet fascinating people, contribute to humanity and, as an added bonus, make a bit more money along the way. So don’t try to get away from work. See it as another wonderful thing that can lift your life to great new heights.
Breaking Out of the Boredom
January 22, 2023 by MarkHaroldsen
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Recently, I’ve been writing about how keeping a record of one’s thoughts through a journal can be very helpful down the road. I’ve also recently found a few thoughts in those journals about how bored I became when I retired and some of the smart things I did that helped me with that.
If you are retired, you probably know what I’m talking about and if you are totally busy, working hard, long hours plus taking care of your home and family responsibilities, you might not hit that boredom thing very often. It’s funny how so many of us think of work as a negative thing, when, really, it’s a blessing. I think many retired people would agree.
So, what do you do if retirement has you bored out of your mind or, if you are not even close to retirement, you find yourself bored way too much with what you are doing now? Retired or not, what I’ve found, and continue to find, is that there are many different ways to cope when boredom becomes part of our lives, but there is one approach that I think works best.
One of the best solutions to any kind of boredom is to get busy and stay busy with projects you are passionate about. You want to push yourself to do things that are not just fun but that challenge you. Specifically, you want to projects that are well thought out and that fit with what you like to do, what you are good at, and what you find exciting and fulfilling. This might be a big goal, maybe something you’ve always dreamed of doing, but haven’t tried yet out of fear.
A big goal can really wipe away boredom. The challenge of trying something big, even the fear that might come with it, can give you a real mental boost. I remember how fulfilled and not at all bored I was when I decided to have a new house built for me in Kauai. No, I wasn’t the guy who poured the cement or swung the hammer, but I decided on the floor plan that fit my personality and figured out things what things fit my lifestyle—like good indoor-outdoor living spaces. Then, just about every day, there were decisions to be made and new things to learn so I could make the best decisions, and that stuff that kept me really busy so that I was rarely, if ever, bored.
I also went back to work after retiring. I wasn’t working like I used to, but I did enough to keep me busy, starting new and exciting projects. Since I was retired, I could choose to work on things I had always thought about doing but hadn’t had the time for yet. So, I wrote another book, started this blog, and set new, bigger travel goals.
So, if you’re a bit (or a lot) bored, may I suggest you look for something challenging and new to keep you busy? If you don’t have anything in mind right now, that can be your first big goal—to come up with a list of things you want to try or do. If you are just totally busy and never bored, then don’t change anything and be thankful. But also know that circumstances can change, so keep any eye out for that awful boredom and keep busy with exciting new goals.
Journaling Gratefully
January 15, 2023 by MarkHaroldsen
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As promised in my last week’s blog, here are some great and smart affirmations from Sujatha Lalgudi’s very clever book called Gratitude Journal. This little book convinced me to write in my journal much, much more and be more aware of how life lifting it is to have a ton of gratitude for so many things in our lives. She encourages all of us to devote “a few minutes a day to develop thankfulness, mindfulness, and positivity.”
I’ve kept a journal for many, many years and I must admit it has been a big help in my life. Not only has it raised my spirits and mood, but it has been a very good motivator to do more and more with my life. I have seen it make a big difference in my relationship with friends and family and even with a few strangers!
The author also encourages readers to “invest 90 days of daily practice to cultivate happiness.” One of the other things she offers is a list of great affirmations to live by or to use to build your own list:
- My potential to succeed is infinite.
- I take pride in the progress I make each day.
- I am proud of myself and all that I have accomplished.
- The world is a better place for me in it.
- I go for goals with passion and pride.
- I am never a burden.
- I am smart.
- I am capable and valuable.
- I am at peace with myself.
- I am unique in my own wonderful way.
- I am focused, persistent, and will never quit.
- I am in charge of my own happiness.
- I have the power to create change.
- I take pride in my achievements.
- I have courage and confidence.
- I don’t need to be perfect.
- I love myself.
- I can make a difference.
- I am in charge of my life.
- I set goals and I reach them.
- I am proud of my own success.
- I am my own superhero.
- I love myself.
- I can do anything
- I can make a difference.
- I am in charge of my life.
- I am in charge of my own individuality.
- I am my own superhero.
- I am free to be myself.
- I trust myself.
- I live each day to the fullest.
These are most of Sujatha’s affirmations and I am sure they would be great and help any of us humans if we could live by this list and or even your own list. In addition to this, she lists many, many pages of items that we should pay attention to. These also are a good source of ideas for making your own list of things to pay more attention to or even to come up with more affirmations.
Sujatha also gives out her email address so that anyone that wants to can comment on her wonderful little book or share their stories. I hope you get this book and that you like her directions and ideas. I sure do!
The Power of Personal Questioning
December 4, 2022 by MarkHaroldsen
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Last week I talked about having a great passion and how, especially when you lose that passion, it can be really hard to move forward and chase what you want. The uncertainty and fear and can be such a big hurdle. So, as I promised in my last post, here are some things you can do to move forward.
First of all, doing some writing for yourself can be a huge boost in helping you reach your goals and improve your life. Ask yourself specific questions, like the ones below, then, don’t just think about them. Write down the thoughts that these questions bring up to make them more substantial and harder to ignore.
- Do I want to significantly raise my level of contentment and fulfillment?
- Do I want to become a better person?
- Do I want to be known as a person of accomplishment?
- Do I want to be in great physical and mental shape with ideal health my entire life?
- Do I want to live a very long, active life?
- Do I want to make a fortune—a million dollars, $10 million, or even $100 million? (Just think how much good you could do with that much money!)
- Do I want the increased choices and possibilities in my life that making my own fortune could give me?
- Do I want to leave the world a better place than I found it?
- Do I want to help others as I help myself?
- Do I want to travel and experience the world and its cultures?
Again, write down your honest responses to these self-searching questions. Develop some of your own “life questions” and answer those as well.
If it’s really about the missing passion in your life or because you are feeling unfulfilled, try answering these questions instead of, or in addition to, the ones above.
- What do you have a true passion for in your life?
- What part of your recent or past life—even during your childhood—really got you excited, to the point that you totally lost track of time when involved in it?
- Think about specific things you love and how they make you feel. Do you get excited about music, art, ballet, sports, outdoor adventures, writing, gatherings, social interactions, running your own small business, helping others…?
- What kind of breakthrough would you be ecstatic to have in your life right now? Would it be in the area of health, wealth, personal expression, spiritual development, or something else?
- In what would you love to excel?
Think about all that. You may find, after taking time to really go through all your interests, that you have many unfulfilled passions. Which ones do you get the most excited about?
After all this questioning, take some time to contemplate and think about it, then write down what you believe to be your true, unfulfilled passions.
If you are doing something you are passionate about, there are a few more questions you should ask.
- Am I actually doing that special something that I have a great passion for?
- If so, am I doing it for the right reasons?
- What are those reasons?
Asking questions gives us the opportunity to really come to understand ourselves, what we are thinking, and maybe even what we want. But mostly, asking and writing our thoughts down make them more concrete and can jumpstart a plan to get more out of life, to find or chase a passion you may have been ignoring because you were afraid, uncertain, or just let life distract you.
The new year is just around the corner, so this is the perfect time to define what you want and start in on a plan to make that happen for you so you are living a fulfilling and passionate life in 2023.
Rallying for Passion and Against Fear
November 27, 2022 by MarkHaroldsen
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I’ve written about turning dreams into reality before and I do think there are lots of things you can do to really make those dreams come to pass in your life. It’s been said that “Lucky are those who have a passion for life, but blessed are those who have passion ALL their life.”
I don’t know about you, but I believe one of the most important keys to staying young, in nearly every way, is to flood my life with passion. For me, that comes from pursuing what I want out of life, really going after my dreams full force, keeping an eye on my priorities, and doing those things that I love to do with all the energy I can muster!
I set very specific and tough goals for myself, and I go after those goals like my life depends on it, because, you know, I really DO believe my life depends on it. When I write those goals down, I am much, much more likely to follow through and reach those goals. You see, I loathe the idea of living a life of insignificance. It’s like wasting the most precious resource in the entire world. A human life. My life!
If you don’t feel the same way, then ask yourself, “Why don’t I know what I want in life?”
That question is particularly bothersome if you once had a great passion for something and then you lost it somewhere along the way. Far too many people give up on life when that happens, fearful of the outcome if they try something else. But they’re losing out on so much more when they don’t try.
Here are 3 common fears that can slow us down or stop us from going after what we really want and dream about. Are one of these stopping you?
1. Fear striking out aggressively in a new direction because we don’t know what it will be like.
2. Fear of taking risks because risks include the possibility of failure.
3. Fear of the possibility, real or imagined, of losing what we have already.
When we give into these fears, we end up just sitting on our hands. We give up on having what we really want and totally miss out on having long-lasting fulfillment and contentment in our lives.
I’ve talked to many very, very successful people that freely admit they had an enormous fear of becoming a total failure, but they pushed themselves forward anyway and, most of the time, they were very successful, despite their great fears!
How did they do that? Well, everyone has their own specific methods, but next week, I’ll give you some ideas on how to push your fears aside and push yourself to go after the things you really want in life.
Daily Joy
May 1, 2022 by MarkHaroldsen
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Years ago, after successfully building my wealth, I retired so I could enjoy the “good lifeâ€, including traveling and having plenty of time to spend with family. That is the kind of life everybody would love to live, right? Well, it did not end up being what I thought it would be. I was shocked at how unhappy and depressed I could get. Sometimes I didn’t even want to get up in the morning. I just didn’t see any joy in my day.
This situation was a mystery to me at first. Why would leisure make me so unhappy? I researched my symptoms and tried various methods to improve my health and my mind. Some techniques I found worked, to an extent, but if I thought back to my earlier years when I had been working really hard to build my wealth, there was no comparison.
The thing was, when I worked long days fixing up homes or, later, negotiating huge real estate purchases, I was happy, regardless of all the toil and pressure of those times. I had goals and a bright future, and I was intensely passionate about what I was doing. It was while pondering the past that I realized, for all the great things I had accomplished, for all the wealth and love I had in my life, life was not worth waking up for without a purpose and a passion.
As it turns out, I enjoy life the most when I am helping others better their own lives and knowing that led me to a solution for what I was feeling. With so many years of experience and knowledge, and having already written books on succeeding financially, writing another book, one that would help people not just become wealthy, but would help them reach any goal they desired, was just a natural choice. Once I decided to write the book, my days came alive again.
It was a long, arduous road, but eventually I published How to Ignite Your Passion for Living in 2008. It wasn’t long after publication that I began to see and hear the stories of people whose lives were changed because of the words and techniques in my book. It turned out, however, that the book would be just the beginning of a new chapter in my life, one where helping people find their passion and better their lives became a focus for my life.
To this day, I continue to work towards spreading these ideas through whatever channels I find, including this blog. I continue to hope that, through these posts, I can further inspire and motivate people. And I always love to hear the stories of struggle and success from my readers, so if you have one or more to share, please do write to me.
My readers are my purpose and passion now, the driving force that gets me jumping out of bed in the morning, looking forward to all the new day has in store. I hope you have found or are looking for that something that brings joy into your life every day as well. Joy really is working towards something you truly believe in.
Of Repetition and Courage
February 6, 2022 by MarkHaroldsen
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In the foreword of my book, How to Ignite Your Passion for Living, I included a great quote from my friend and mentor Paul J. Meyer of Waco, Texas. He said, “Rather than read a thousand different books, find a few that are powerful and life-changing and read them many times. Wait between readings for the material to sift through your brain, then read the book again. With the repetition, you’ll remember more of the information and more of what you learn will really sink in.†Being taught this from my wonderful friend helped my life in so many areas that I couldn’t count them all, but one of the big things this practice has done for me is to boost my courage to do the things I want to do.
In Chapter One of my book, I explained that “it doesn’t matter how old you are—you can be a young buck or an old fart. However, sometimes the young may lack the courage to go for something BIG or they may doubt they have enough experience or knowledge or resources to make it happen. And those who are older sometimes fall into the thinking trap that it’s too late—that somehow they’ve run out of time.â€.
In that same chapter, I also observed that a tragic thing can happen to your life as you’re on the way to your death. That thing that some call a midlife crisis can hit you hard. During this time you can begin to run out of steam, stagnate, lose confidence and trust in yourself, and even give up on life. Because of this, many people die inside long before they’re buried. I have to admit that most of these things started happening to me as well, although not until about the age of 70.
Make no mistake, even young folks can experience this! There are too many in their 30s and younger who quit on themselves and never reach their full potential. Others think they have all the time in the world and never quite grab a hold of their lives or find direction and true purpose. But it doesn’t have to be that way. Anyone can greatly improve their life and find the courage to rebuild their passion for living. I’ll talk about that next week.
One more thing. Are you as amazed as I am when so-called coincidences pop up? While writing this blog, another great friend, a basketball buddy (and the guy on our high school team that was key to our winning the finals game in the last 20 seconds of our tournament in Rome, Italy), Ed Beckcom called. And you know where he called me from? Waco, Texas, where Paul J Meyer is from! Wow. I do think that these things we call coincidences are really our brain waves traveling all over the globe to bring us the most unexpected connections.