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Ah, goals and planning! What an often misunderstood and mysterious concept.

For most people, they know they need to have goals to reach their maximum potential yet many are not sure how to really start the process and stay on track.

So instead they never start.

Here are four foundational principles and accompanying coaching tips that will make starting a successful goal setting and planning process effective, painless and fun!

In my coaching work with some of the world's top business leaders we are constantly setting, planning and achieving increasingly larger and greater goals.

I would like to share with you the essence of those four principles so that you too can begin to reach your FULL Potential!

Principle No. 1: Create an Accepting Attitude Towards Change.
The most insidious barrier to successful goal setting, planning and achievement is the wrong attitude towards change. Many people get tricked into thinking, "Why plan? After all, something always happens that changes my plans anyway."

To illustrate how destructive this thinking is, and how it blocks achievement, let me ask you a question. How confident would you feel boarding a plane after hearing the captain say, "I was in a rush this morning and did not have time to lay out a flight plan. Don't worry though, the weather looks pretty good out my window here. We're hoping to end up in San Diego. Let's see how we can do."

I have the feeling that you'd be off that plane so fast the boarding ramp would be smoking, right? So why expect anything different with your life? If you have no goals, no target and no plan how will you know how to adjust to get back on track?

Don't allow yourself to fall prey to this pattern of thinking. Breakthrough now because change will just happen faster every day with the three factors of information, technology and competition compounding to dramatically increase how quickly our world is changing.

According to psychologists the feeling of being out of control and not being able to adjust to change is a major source of stress and anxiety in people's lives today. Many people mistakenly attempt to control the changes going on around them and wonder why their lives feel so out of control and out of balance. Change cannot be controlled. We can only control how we respond to change.

How we respond to the rapid changes in today's business environment will determine how successful we become. Our response to change will determine how wealthy, satisfied and balanced we are in our lives. How we respond to change is rooted in our goals and planning.

Coaches Insight: With proper goal setting you can control the direction of your life. Think of it like being on a sailboat out on the ocean. You cannot change the direction of the wind, but you can set the sails and thereby direct the boat.

The action of setting goals and planning for your life or business is analogous to you being the captain of your own ship. Your goals make sure that you continually have a reference point to look for so that the "storms of life" do not knock you off course. Your adjustments and plans form the sails that catch the winds of change in your life and harness that power to get you where you want to go.

Setting clear goals assures you that changes in your life are positive, always taking you in the direction towards your goals.

Coaches Tip: Change is exactly why you need goals. If you do not set goals and plan, you will never reach them except by "chance". Pilots file a flight plan and follow that plan throughout the entire trip.

Winds and storms may knock them off course, but they adjust (related to the original plan) and reach their target exactly. The same is true for your life and goals. Stop trying to control change and start focusing on how you adjust to those changes so you can still reach your goals.

We cannot expect to control change. We can only control how we respond to the changes going on around us.

Principle No. 2: Become a Treasure Hunter.
Treasure Hunters know they are not going to find gold and diamonds just lying on top of the ground so they search and dig to uncover hidden jewels. In the same way you must become a treasure hunter to un-earth the natural talents and skills that you already possess.

Be careful though, your talents may not always look like treasures. Sometimes they are like diamonds that look like dirty rocks until they are cleaned, cut and polished. It is the same way with our natural abilities. You have to work at "polishing" those talents and skills. That takes some work, but the gem you will have when you're done is well worth it!

Coaches Tip: Think outside the box when you are searching for your hidden talents and skills. If you work for someone, ask yourself, "If I were to be compensated only on results, what type of work would I feel confident doing?" What results would you produce? If you own your own company, ask yourself "What type of client can I serve best?" What am I doing that keeps people coming back? What does my team tell me they admire about me?"

The answers to these questions will lead you in the right direction to discover skills and talents that you can "un-earth", cut and polish to bring real value to your business and life.

Principle No. 3: Understand Your Behavioral Strengths.
The next step is to thoroughly understand your behavioral strengths (the way you communicate and the values most important to you). If you take the time to identify and understand your behavioral strengths, you'll know where to focus your energy for exponential results. The most successful people in the world put their entire energy and focus into their natural strengths.

Coaches RAPID Acceleration Tip: Successful business leaders take the necessary steps to accurately identify their own "soft skills" (communication style & driving values/attitudes) in an unbiased way.

There are accurate/validated assessment tools available to business leaders just like you to help accelerate your own achievements as well as assist you in accurately identifying soft skills in others. Armed with this valuable scientific information, top leaders accurately identify the "right" people to hire, develop a project or build a powerful/effective team .

Leaders don't guess or leave anything to chance. They intentionally choose to work with people who complement their strengths by having strengths in areas that they do not. (Want to learn for yourself how you and your business can "leap ahead" by 9-12 months? Drop me an email. We'll schedule a time to talk and I'll show you exactly how you can do exactly that! JPM@RPMsuccess.com )

Principle No. 4: Define Your Passion and You'll find Your Niche.

No one person can be great at all things. Once you determine your natural skills and behavioral strengths, the next step is to match them with your passion and define your niche. This will allow you to put your energy into something that is fun. A person who has matched their passion and behavioral strengths with well-developed skills in their niche will stand before great leaders, not before obscure men.

Developing goals in a niche that you are passionate about and utilizing your natural strengths will catapult you to new and higher levels of success - no matter how successful you are already!

Coaches Tip: To find out if you have truly found your passion, answer this question: "If money was not a factor, and I was not getting paid for my work, would I still make the same choice?" If you're excited to do something on a continual basis without the promise of a paycheck, it's a good indication that you have found your passion.

Line up your skills with your passion and you will become unstoppable. You will operate consistently and naturally in a state of peak performance, reaching more and more goals. Work will no longer be work. It will be fun!

Once you have these four principles set, you will have laid the foundation to successfully reach more goals in 12-months than you have in the last seven years! Next, you will be ready to start a step-by-step goal setting and planning process!

Our RED-Line Learning'ÿ Tele-Class "Boosting Your Business GPA: Goals, Planning & Achievement" is the systemized approach you've been searching for to make successful goal setting, planning and achievement easy. In six one-hour sessions you will learn how to reach twice as many goals in one-third the time - and make it fun! This course is currently fully booked through Memorial Day. To learn how you can be one of the first notified for the next 6-week session in June send an email to: teleclass@rpmsuccess.com and reference "Boosting Your Business GPA" in the subject line. We will put you on the RED-Line Learning update list so you can register to take advantage of the next session!