Why Most Goal Setting Programs Are Doomed to Failure

by Stuart A Lichtman

Have you ever read a book or seen a movie that featured the
medieval punishment where the offender had each of their arms
and legs roped to a horse and then the horses were whipped to a
frenzy, pulling in opposite directions until the offender was
ripped into pieces?

Not nice.

But that's pretty much what we do to ourselves when we use a
traditional goal setting program.

Of course the results aren't quite as bloody but they are as
grisly: failure, stress, let down, headaches, insomnia, etc.

Instead of four horses pulling frantically in four different
directions, we usually have four major parts of our brains doing
the same thing.

Those four parts are:

- the left brain - the right brain - the midbrain - the
brainstem.

And each of these parts controls a major aspect of us.

The left brain is responsible for our conscious awareness and
our thoughts.

The right brain is responsible for our creativity, all sorts of
rhythmic behavior, putting together memory into useable chunks,
etc. And it does what it's always done in a particular situation.

The midbrain is responsible for our emotional energy - the
energy that powers us in getting things done and in creating
memories. And it does what it's always done in a particular
situation.

The brainstem is responsible for physical stimulus-response, for
jerking our hand away from a hot stove, for hitting the tennis
ball, for jerking our car away from an intruding other driver.
And it does what it's always done in a particular situation.

When these four parts aren't in agreement on an objective and
how to achieve it, failure is almost certain.

And that's the case with traditional goal setting systems
because they deal with only one of those parts, the conscious
mind.

It's something like asking someone who speaks only English,
another only French, another only Japanese and another only
Russian to perform a job that requires a high level of
coordination among the four of them to be successful.

The result is chaos, something like the old silent movies.

Or like a football team where each player is running a different
play.

Well, that's the case with traditional goal setting systems
because only the left brain understands words. The right brain
understands visualization and pattern, the midbrain understands
real or imagined emotions and the brainstem understands real or
imagined physical behavior.

That's why failure is so common.

But there is an alternative.

It's this: translate your objective into the different languages
each part of the brain can understand.

Once you have translated your written objective and modified it
so that all four parts of the brain are in agreement, then you
have made major progress toward successfully achieving your goal.

The second step you need to take to successfully achieve an
objective revolves around the fact that essentially no one can
maintain a conscious focus on anything for more than 5 seconds.

Yet most traditional goal setting systems tell you to keep
focused on what you want to achieve. That can't happen.
Conscious long-term focus is an impossibility.

But when the unconscious mind is focused on something - such as
keeping your heart beating and blood pumping, your body weight
reasonably constant or breathing - that something happens.
Otherwise, we'd all be dead.

Well, that kind of unconscious focus is required to consistently
achieve challenging objectives, too.

The third step to successfully achieve your objective is to
level out the unconscious road blocks that, otherwise, make
accomplishing things impossible. Since these roadblocks operate
without our conscious awareness -- like asthma, headaches, and
maintaining a constant body weight when you consciously want to
lose weight -- no level of conscious will power can overcome
them.

But when properly instructed by the conscious mind, the
unconscious will instantly change its programming from opposing
a result that you want to support its achievement.

If you accomplish all three of these steps - translation, focus,
and removal of road blocks - then you have almost a 100 percent
chance of consistently achieving your seemingly impossible
objectives.

About the author:
Stuart Lichtman is the best-selling author of "How to Get Lots
of Money For Anything Fast." Click Here to Discover How!

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