“ If you don’t know where you’re going, any road will get you there.”
—YOGI BERRA
WHEN I WAS 20 YEARS OLD, I set off to see the world. I had not graduated from high school and I had no marketable skills. The only jobs I could do were laboring jobs—washing dishes, working in sawmills and factories, living on farms and ranches, and working in construction, among others.
I worked my way across the country from the West Coast to the East Coast, got a job on a Norwegian freighter to cross the North Atlantic, and arrived in London at the age of 21. From there, I rode a bicycle across France and Spain to Gibraltar, pooled my money with two friends to buy a Land Rover, and then drove across the Sahara Desert and south through Africa, finally arriving sick and exhausted in Johannesburg, South Africa, in 1965.
After this trip, I began asking the question, “Why are some people more successful than others?” This question, and my search for the answer, changed my life. From that moment on, I read every book I could find on success, listened to audio programs, attended seminars, and immersed myself in the subject. Very soon, I found that the primary reason some people were more successful than others was quite simple: They thought differently, made different decisions, took different actions, and got different results. This insight opened my eyes forever.
When I got into sales, after struggling for many months, I began asking, “Why are some salespeople more successful than others?” I began asking for advice from the top sales-people, and they gave it to me generously. I started doing what they told me to do, and my sales went up. Soon, my sales were so high that I was invited to become a sales manager.
I then began asking, “Why are some sales managers more successful than others?” I went to the other sales managers in my industry and asked them for advice, which they gave me. I then did what they told me to do, and within a year, I had recruited, trained, and fielded 95 salespeople. I went from rags to riches. My life changed completely.
What I discovered, in retrospect, was the law of cause and effect. This law says that there is a cause for every effect. If you can be clear about the effect that you want, you can then trace it back to someone who at sometime did not have what you want but has now acquired it, and if you do the same things that he or she did, you will soon get the same results.
The law of cause and effect is also called the iron law of the universe. It was first taught by Aristotle in about 350 B.C. and called at that time the Aristotelian Principle of Causality. This principle went on to become a basic tenet of Western civilization.
The law of cause and effect is the basis of the scientific method. All other laws and principles in the fields of mathematics, science, medicine, mechanics, technology, aeronautics, and economics all fall under the law of cause and effect and are subsets of this law.
In the Bible, the law is called the law of sowing and reaping. This version says that, “Whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap.” In other words, what you put in, you get out. Sir Isaac Newton called the idea the law of action and reaction; that is, for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. Ralph Waldo Emerson called it the law of compensation. He said that for whatever you do in life, you will be compensated in equal measure sooner or later.
What this law means for you is simple. If you can be absolutely clear about something that you want, you can then find other people who have already achieved it. If you do the same things that they did, over and over again, you will eventually get the same results.
The flip side of this principle is simple as well. If you do not do what other successful people do, over and over, you will not get the results that they get.
If you do what other successful people do, in any field, you eventually get the same results they do. There are virtually no limits.
Perhaps the most important application of this law, which is one of the foundation principles of all religion, philosophy, metaphysics, psychology, and success, is this: “Thoughts are causes, and conditions are effects.”
Your thoughts are creative. Whatever you think about emotionally, positive or negative, creates a force field of energy that moves you toward your goals and moves your goals toward you.
The law of belief, a subset of this principle, says that whatever you believe with conviction becomes your reality. Nineteenth-century Harvard psychology professor William James said, “Belief creates the actual fact.”
If you believe that you are destined to live a wonderful life and be happy, healthy, thin, and prosperous, and you hold to that belief long enough and hard enough, it will eventually become your reality.
Your beliefs act like a program in your mental computer. They direct and guide you to do more of the things that make your beliefs come true and avoid doing those things that might hold you back.
And how can you tell what your true beliefs are? Simple. Look at your behavior. It is not what you say, or wish, or hope, or intend that indicates what you truly believe, but only what you do moment to moment, especially when you are under pressure of some kind.
When you are put under severe strain or have a setback, difficulty, or emergency, your true beliefs emerge in your behavior. As Epictetus, the Greek philosopher, wrote, “Circumstances do not make the man; they merely reveal him to himself” (and to others, as well).
The law of expectations says that “whatever you expect, with confidence, becomes your own self-fulfilling prophecy.” In other words, your innermost beliefs and convictions shape your expectations and cause you to approach the world in a manner consistent with them.
If you expect to be successful, happy, prosperous, and popular, you will act in a way consistent with these expectations and they will become your self-fulfilling prophesies.
You are always telling your own fortune by the way you think and talk about the way things are going to work out for you. Successful people develop an attitude of “positive expectations” no matter what is happening around them. As a result, they are more positive and effective in everything they do. They make more money, are happier with their lifestyles, and are more popular than people with negative attitudes and beliefs.
The law of attraction says that you are a living magnet. You invariably attract into your life the people, circumstances, and resources that are in harmony with your dominant thoughts, especially those thoughts magnetized by the power of emotion, either positive or negative.
One of the great dangers of experiencing a sudden reversal or unexpected transition in your life is that you can very easily interpret the experience in a negative way. When you do this, quite innocently, you set up a force field of negative energy that attracts even more negative experiences into your life. This is the meaning of the saying “When it rains, it pours.”
These principles have been taught for more than 5,000 years and are the foundations of the thinking of many of the greatest men and women in history.
The bottom line of these laws and principles is this: You become what you think about most of the time. This is an astonishing idea for most people, especially people whose general tone of thinking is negative or critical. People don’t want to believe that their own mental attitudes are largely responsible for most of the problems in their lives.
The good news is that the only thing in the world that you can control is your own thinking. When you discipline yourself to keep your thinking focused on what you want and off of the things that you don’t want, you remain positive, optimistic, and in control of your life. When you ask successful, happy people about their habitual ways of thinking, you find that they are almost always thinking about what they want and how to get it.
By the law of substitution, which says that you can substitute one thought for another, when you think about what you want and how to get it, you immediately become positive and focused, and all negativity disappears. You think with greater clarity, make better decisions, and take more effective actions. You get better results. The achievement of positive results triggers the release of endorphins in your brain, nature’s “happy drug.”
The more positive and happy you feel about your accomplishments, the more endorphins are released and the happier and more positive you become. This then motivates you to do even more positive and constructive things, which gives you even better results, which repeats the positive process over again. That’s why people say “Nothing succeeds like success.”
Successful people are intensely future-oriented. They think about the future most of the time. They think about where they are going rather than where they have been. They think about what they want and how to get it.
Future-orientation is the mark of the leader, in any area. As management guru Peter Drucker said, “The responsibility of the leader is to think about the future; no one else can.” Michael Kami, a well-known strategic planner, says, “Those who do not think about the future cannot have one.” Author and management expert Alec Mackenzie agrees, saying, “The best way to predict the future is to create it.”
Future-oriented people practice a special behavior called idealization. When you practice idealization, you project forward and imagine that your future is perfect in every way. You create an exciting vision of the kind of life you want to live and the kind of person you want to be.
When I do strategic planning for corporations, I begin by asking the executives in attendance to describe what this company would look like in five years if it were the very best in that industry. I go around the room and ask for a contribution from each person, which I then write on flip charts and post on the wall. When I have exhausted all the positive, descriptive words and phrases regarding product quality, customer service, leadership, reputation, financial strength, growth rates, respect for individuals, and others, I then revisit the list.
I ask lots of questions. Which of these descriptions are causes and which are effects? What are inputs and what are outputs? What do we need to accomplish before we accomplish something else? We then organize the list of attractive features in order of priority with a clear description of this company as if it were perfect sometime in the future. I then ask the executives this key question: “Is this possible?”
One by one, each of the executives begins to nod and say, “Yes, these are all possible. Maybe not in one year, but they can definitely be accomplished within five years, if we commit to achieving them.” For the rest of the strategic-planning session, often taking two or three days, we discuss and agree on the specific steps that we can take, starting today, to create the ideal corporation of the future in that industry.
You can do this same exercise in your own life. Begin by imagining that you have no limitations at all. Imagine for a moment that you have everything you need: all the time and all the money, all the education and all the experience, all the friends and all the contacts, and that you could be, have, or do anything you wanted in the whole world in the most important areas in your life.
Create a “five-year fantasy” and practice “back from the future” thinking. Project yourself forward five years and imagine your life is ideal in every way at that time. What would it look like? What would you be doing? What would you no longer be doing? What would you have, for yourself and your family? If your life were perfect in every way, how would it be different from today?
From this vantage point in the future, in your own mind, look back to where you are today and imagine the steps that you would need to take to get from where you are to where you want to be. Especially, determine the first step. Then, have the courage to step out in faith in the direction of your dreams. The willingness and the courage to take the first step is often the turning point in your life.
There are seven main areas of life. Imagine you could wave a magic wand and make your life perfect in each area. What would it look like?
If your business, your career, and your company were perfect five years from today, what would they look like? How would they be different from today? How much would you be earning? What would you be doing? With whom would you be working? What would be your level of authority and responsibility? How would you be spending your time, day in and day out? If your work life were perfect, what would it look like?
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If your family life were perfect in every way, what would it look like? How would it be different from today? What kind of a lifestyle would you be living? What kind of a home would you live in? What sort of things would you want to do for and with your family? What sort of vacations would you take? Most of all, how would you feel in your relationships with the most important people in your life if your family life were perfect in every way?
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If your health were perfect sometime in the future, how would it be different from today? How much would you weigh? How fit would you be? What kind of energy levels would you have? What would you be doing differently with regard to diet and exercise? What changes would you have to make in your health regimen today for you to have superb health and fitness sometime in the future?
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If you were financially independent, how much would you have in the bank? How much money would you have invested? Most of all, how much passive income would you be receiving each month and each year from your accumulated savings and investments? What is the amount that you will have to have working for you so that you can retire on a comfortable income and never have to worry about money again? What steps could you take, starting today, to accumulate this amount?
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What additional knowledge and skill will you need to be able to earn the kind of money that you want to earn, so that you can enjoy the kind of lifestyle that you want to enjoy? Remember, whatever got you to where you are today will not get you any further. To become someone you have never been before, you must learn and practice skills that you have never had before. What are they?
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If you could wave a magic wand, what would you like to be doing in your country or community? What causes would you like to support or work for? What would you like to achieve?
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If your life were perfect, how would you spend your time to achieve ever-higher levels of inner growth and peace of mind? Think of the times in your life when you have been the happiest and felt the greatest sense of inner peace. What could you do to duplicate and increase those moments?
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CONGRATULATIONS! Most people have never asked and answered these questions in their lives. You now know more about yourself and what is really important to you than perhaps ever before.
When you think about these questions and answers, there are three enemies that may emerge to sabotage your hopes and dreams. These have been the three greatest enemies of mankind from time immemorial.
The first enemy is the comfort zone. This is the natural tendency of most people to become comfortable and complacent in their current work or lifestyles, and to resist changing in any way. But change is the law of growth, and growth is the law of life. If you don’t move out of your comfort zone, you cannot make any progress. Remember, the more you do what you are doing, the more you will get of what you’ve got.
You must continually force yourself to move out of your comfort zone into your discomfort zone. There is no other way to change or improve your life in any way. The trap of the comfort zone is one of the greatest of all enemies of success and progress.
The second enemy you must face is called learned helplessness. Learned helplessness is triggered by the fear of failure or by the fear of loss of some kind. The fear of failure is the major reason for failure in adult life. It is expressed in the words I can’t.
Whenever you think of something new, different, risky, or uncertain, you may immediately think of all the reasons why it’s not possible. You may think that you don’t have the resources or the ability. You may feel that you don’t have the money or the contacts. You will think of the possibility of loss of time, money, or emotion. The fear of failure makes you freeze inside, like a deer caught in the headlights, and triggers the reaction of learned helplessness.
The way you get out of your comfort zone and overcome your fears of failure and helplessness is by setting big goals and then by throwing your whole heart into their accomplishment. Your ability to set goals and make plans for their success is the true master skill of success.
The third enemy of success is the natural tendency to follow the path of least resistance, to continually seek for fast, easy, enjoyable ways to do things. Following this path leads to searching for get-rich-quick methods and easy money.
Anything worthwhile takes a long period of hard work and single-minded concentration to achieve. You must resist the siren song of the path of least resistance and discipline yourself to do what is hard and necessary to achieve the goals that are truly possible for you.
As quickly as you can, in 30 seconds or less for each question, write down your answers to the following.
1. What are your three most important business and career goals, right now?
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2. What are your three most important family and relationship goals, right now?
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3. What are your three most important health and fitness goals, right now?
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4. What are your three most important financial goals right now?
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5. What are your three most important educational or learning goals right now?
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6. What are your three most important social and community goals right now?
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7. What are your three most important goals for spiritual development and inner peace right now?
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WHEN YOU ONLY HAVE 30 seconds to write down the answers to these questions, your answers will be as accurate as if you had 30 minutes or three hours.
Once you have written down your answers, you should sit down and share them with your spouse or another important person in your life. If you are married, have the other person answer these questions privately, and then compare your answers. You will often be surprised at what each of you has written.
In a famous study in 1953, often refuted, the graduating seniors of a major university were asked if they had written goals, and plans to achieve them, after they left the university.
It turned out that 3 percent had written goals and plans. Fourteen percent had goals but they were not written. The other 83 percent had no goals or plans at all, aside from getting out of the university and going on vacation that summer.
Twenty years later, in 1973, they followed up on the graduates in this study and asked them, among other things, about their financial situations. They found that the 3 percent of students who had clear, written goals and plans upon graduation were worth more than the entire other 97 percent of graduates put together.
Not to be outdone, another major university that had heard about this survey asked students graduating from its own business school in 1979 the same question: Do you have written goals and plans for your future when you leave this university?
Again, the results were identical. Three percent of the graduating seniors had clear, written goals and plans. Fourteen percent had goals, but they were not in writing. The other 83 percent had no clear goals at all.
Ten years later, in 1989, it followed up on these students to find out how well they had done in the previous decade. They found that those students who had goals that were not written down were earning on average twice as much as the 83 percent of students who left college with no goals at all. But to their surprise, they found that the 3 percent of students who started off with clear, written goals and plans were earning on average ten times as much as the other 97 percent put together.
Here is an example that demonstrates the importance of goals. Imagine that you have two drivers, each with a brand new Mercedes-Benz. They both set out to travel across the country toward a distant destination. But one of them, in his haste to get going, sets off with no road map and on roads where there are no road signs.
The second driver takes the time to plan his trip carefully, using a road map and getting advice about the road ahead. He is thoroughly supplied with food, gasoline, and water. He takes a little bit more time before starting out, but when he starts out he is thoroughly prepared.
Which of these two drivers is most likely to reach his destination on schedule? The answer is obvious. The first driver will drive north and south, and east and west, and often go around in circles, using up all his gasoline and making no progress at all. The second driver will drive straight and true, like an arrow flying through the air, toward his clearly defined destination following his road map every step of the way.
Life is very much the same. People with clear, specific goals and plans that they work from each day, accomplish, on average, ten times as much as other people with equal education and abilities, but who have no clear idea of where they are going or when they want to get there.
Here is a powerful goal-setting formula that you can use to accomplish any goal that you can set for yourself.
Step One: Decide exactly what you want and write it down in the present tense. Be specific. Your goal should be so clear that a child could read it and explain it clearly to another child.
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Step Two: Set a deadline for the achievement of your goal. Because of the fear of failure, many people set vague or unrealistic goals and avoid committing themselves to a timeline. As a result, they have no benchmarks or standards to measure their progress, and they eventually give up and quit.
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Step Three: Determine the obstacles that you will have to overcome to achieve your goal. Identify the major constraints that hold you back from achieving your goal at the present time. Fully 80 percent of the reasons you are not achieving the goals are internal. They result from your lack of some quality or ability, which is largely under your control. Only 20 percent of the obstacles or difficulties that are holding you back are external, in other people or situations.
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Step Four: Identify the additional knowledge and skills that you will need to achieve your goal. The fact is that you have gone about as far as you can go in life with the skills you have now. To go any further, you are going to have to improve in certain areas and develop additional skills.
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Step Five: Identify the people, groups, and organizations whose cooperation you will require to achieve your goals. Include your boss, your customers, your family, your friends, and your sources of finance.
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Step Six: Make a plan out of your answers to the previous questions. A plan is a list of activities organized by sequence and priority. A list organized by sequence means that you decide what you must do before you do something else. When you organize your list by priority, you determine what is more important on your list and what is less important. What should you do first, and what is most important? Write your list in order of priority.
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Once you have organized your list, you have the winning combination of a goal and a plan. With a goal and a plan, you will accomplish extraordinary things, and far faster than you can imagine today.
Step Seven: Take action on your plan immediately. Step out in faith. Once you begin, do something every day that moves you in the direction of your most important goal, whatever it is at that time. What one action are you going to take immediately?
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Here is a goal-setting exercise that can change your life: Make a list of ten goals that you would like to accomplish in the next year or so. Write them in the present tense as though you had already achieved them. Start each goal with the word I. You are the only person in the universe who can use the word I in reference to yourself. Follow the word I with an action verb of some kind: “I earn,” “I weigh,” “I achieve,” “I drive,” or “I acquire.”
When you precede a goal statement with the word I plus an action verb, it is like pushing down on the plunger of a dynamite detonator. This command activates your subconscious and superconscious minds, triggering ideas and energy that begin to move you toward your goal, and your goal toward you.
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Once you have completed your list, review your list and imagine that you have a magic wand. Imagine that you could have all of these goals sooner or later if you wanted them long enough and hard enough, but you could have one goal within 24 hours.
Which one goal, if you achieved it immediately, would have the greatest positive impact on your life? Which one goal would help you to achieve more of your other goals? Which one goal would bring you the greatest happiness and satisfaction if you could accomplish it immediately?
Whatever your answer to that question, put a circle around that goal. This goal then becomes your “Major Definite Purpose” in life. This goal becomes the central organizing principle of your life and activities. This becomes the goal that you think about most of the time.
Take a clean sheet of paper and write this goal down in the present tense.
Set a deadline. Make the goal measurable.
Determine the obstacles and difficulties you will have to overcome to achieve this goal.
Determine the knowledge and skills that you will need.
Determine the people, groups, and organizations whose cooperation you will require to achieve this goal.
Make a list of all of your answers and organize them by sequence and priority.
Finally, take action immediately on your plan. When you get up in the morning, think about your goal. All day long, think about your goal. At the end of the day, review your progress toward your goal.
As you think about your goal more, you activate all your mental powers. By the law of cause and effect, your thoughts about your goal are the causes, and the achievement of your goal will be the effect.
By the law of belief, the more you believe that you will achieve this goal, the more things you will do to attain it, and the faster it becomes your reality. By the law of expectations, the more you expect your goal to materialize in your life, the more things you will do to make it come true. By the law of attraction, the more you think about your goal—with confidence and enthusiasm—the more you will magnetize your mind and attract into your life the people and resources you need to achieve your goal.
In times of transition, when you are reinventing yourself, your ability to set clear goals for your future and then to work toward the achievement of those goals every day increases your self-esteem, self-respect, and personal pride. It fills you with a sense of forward motion and accomplishment. It gives you a feeling of personal power.
When you develop absolute clarity about your goals and work on them everyday, you take complete control of your life in every area.
1. What one goal would you most like to attain in your job, career, or business?
2. What one goal would you most like to achieve in your family and your relationships?
3. What one health and fitness goal would you like to achieve?
4. What one financial goal would you like to achieve?
5. What one subject or skill would you like to master?
6. What one contribution would you like to make to your country or community?
7. What one thing would you like to do to increase your peace of mind?