Ultimate Achievement Report by Peter Murphy All rights reserved. You cannot give this ebook away free or sell it. You do not have resale rights to this ebook. This eBook may not be reproduced in any format without the expressed written permission of Peter Murphy. All violators will be prosecuted. While attempts have been made to verify information contained in this publication, neither the author nor the publisher assumes any responsibility for errors, omissions, interpretation or usage of the subject matter herein. This publication contains the opinions and ideas of its author and is intended for informational purposes only. The author and publisher shall in no event be held liable for any loss or other damages incurred from the usage of this publication. Use this information at your own risk. (C) Copyright 2003 by Peter Murphy Peter@workwealth.com Contents Introduction 1 Effective Goal Setting 2 Reasons 3 Let Go 4 Progress Tracker 5 Certainty and Success 6 Mentor and Model 7 The Seven Secrets of Failure Introduction Achievement, success and goal getting – who else wants more? This report is designed to be a resource you can turn to whenever you feel stuck, whenever you are not making progress and getting the results you want. Just read through each section to see what you are doing wrong or neglecting. I have read hundreds of books on making the most of your life. Most of them say the same things in different ways so I decided to put the key elements you need in one report that gets straight to the point. This will save you hours of effort and research searching for good material and even more hours fighting your way through drawn out books that are full of fluff and filler. To get the most out of this report pick something immediate you want to change in your life right now. And hold this issue in mind as you read and use this report. Remember to use this report to help you get even more value out of the CEO Charisma course. In a lot of ways having this report at your disposal is like having access to the condensed wisdom of several hundred books and many, many expensive seminars. Read and learn about the key distinctions that are essential for your unlimited success. Any questions or comments just let me know by emailing me at Peter@Workwealth.com Have Fun, Peter Murphy 1) Effective Goal Setting: Goal setting can be a very frustrating process unless you understand some important distinctions. And if you get it wrong you set yourself for failure and disappointment before you even attempt to achieve your goal. There are several important steps in establishing a well-formed goal or outcome: 1) State Your Outcome In The Positive e.g. I want to feel able to make small talk when I meet new people. What would you like to have? As opposed to stating what you don’t want. I don’t want to feel uptight and tense when I find myself in a room full of strangers. 2) Consider Your Part In The Outcome i.e. specify what you can influence. What will you do to attain the outcome? e.g. I want to feel confident and relaxed when I attend a job interview, rather than -I hope the interviewer makes me feel at ease. 3) Be Highly Specific. Imagine your outcome as if you can see, hear and feel it in this moment, and describe it in words as to who, what, when, where, and how. For example for someone who feels self conscious in public. When I’m waiting in line at the supermarket and I see people looking at me, I want to feel capable and confident as I purposefully continue with my shopping. Vagueness gives your mind nothing concrete to focus on and means you’re unlikely to achieve your outcome – how can you if you don’t even know what your goal is? Finally make sure you set a date for when you want the goal achieved. If you neglect this stage the outcome setting process becomes pointless. A goal without a time limit is a dream that you will never commit to and make happen because of all the other distractions in your life. 4) Check For Ecology. Ensure that the outcome is right for you as a person and that you’re not setting yourself up to work towards attaining something that you don’t really want deep down. A great way to check for ecology is to ask yourself: if I could have this would I take it? If objections pop up in your mind or it just doesn’t feel right to you, then you need to change your outcome until it is appropriate for you. An example of an unecological outcome would be – I want to be so outgoing all the time that I can tell jokes, sing songs and dance wildly in public so that I will always be surrounded by appreciative friends! While that might certainly be a very noble outcome it may not be realistic long term since everyone needs rest time to themselves and if you are being honest you probably don’t really want all that attention. Only when you have designed a well formed outcome will you be in a position to take action on the elements in your environment which you can influence that are causing you discomfort, while also realizing which factors are outside your control. This awareness alone will immediately make a significant difference to the perceived stress and strain of your day-to-day life. You will be taking steps to change only those things that you can influence. This sense of control over your life can be a source of inner security and peace. Take a few minutes right now to make a list of what you want to achieve in the next seven days, next month and in the next three months. Brainstorm and write down whatever pops into your head. Next, take each one of your top five goals and one at a time run them through the steps to creating a well-formed outcome. Take special care that you have ecology for each one, if you don’t -modify the goal so that it is right for you or else select a different goal from your goal storming list. 2) Reasons Jim Rohn, the personal growth expert, likes to make the point that if you have a big enough reason you can achieve anything. Many people who want more in life miss this distinction. They dedicate themselves to bettering themselves, they even set goals and still they never seem to achieve as much as they really ought to given their abilities. Why? Very often it’s because nobody explained to them the importance of aligning their goals with their priorities in life. If you still find you are not having the success you want in life despite having spent hours and hours analyzing the issue, and after reading magazine articles and books that tell you to just take action and make it happen then you know that something is missing. You now know specifically what you want after defining your outcomes in section one above. In this section we absolutely must align these goals with your priorities in life before moving onto further success distinctions in subsequent sections of this report. The big why in your life comes down to what you value most in life – your values. People will go to extraordinary lengths to ensure that their behaviors are consistent with their highest values. Furthermore you will attempt things you would otherwise not consider, take on major challenges and overcome just about any obstacle once you both know what your values are and act upon them. Have you ever noticed in your own life or in the life of a friend how fear can instantly evaporate when a deeply felt value kicks in? Take for example the case of a mother whose child needs urgent medical attention; she will do whatever it takes without a moment of hesitation to ensure her child is taken care of. Any obstacles or problems simply don’t matter because her values take charge in the moment and direct her behavior. In this case love of her child takes priority over all else. So what are other examples of values? Values include human qualities such as honesty, integrity, love, fairness, justice, harmony, peace, success, control, security and acceptance. Rather than just list all the values I can think of, it will be far more profitable for you to uncover your own values. What are your values? Without knowing where to start discovering your values could take you hours of pondering and deep thought by the end of which you could well be totally confused. Is that a value of is it just a belief? Do I value that all the time or only some of the time? I’ll help you by offering some guidance. To reveal your life values ask yourself -what is most important to me in life? The answers will surprise you at first and will lead you to a greater understanding of why you do what you do. It’s time for pen and paper again. Steps to values elicitation: 1 Ask yourself -what is most important to me in life? 2 Write down the first answer that pops into your head 3 Repeat the question and write down the answer 4 Allow twenty minutes to cycle through this question 5 Look over the list of values and select the top five values Putting your top five values in order is easier than it seems. First of all pick out the least important ones so as to leave fewer to sort for the top end of the list. Then of the remaining values ask yourself: if I could only take one, which would it, be? Then repeat that question with the remaining values until you have selected only five. You can then rank the five values you have left by asking yourself: which is the most important to me? Or which one would I take if I could only have one? That will give you number one; repeat the process to fill position number two and so on until all five are ranked. Once you have done this exercise you will have joined the ranks of the most successful men and women in the world. The most successful people are different from everyone else for several reasons and one of the key differences is an awareness of personal values. Values drive your behavior, once you understand that you can focus on taking actions that take your life in the direction that is most important to you. In terms of success this means that you will be able to identify which changes you really want to make and then to structure these changes in terms of your values so that you only concern yourself with what really matters. You can simply rank your personal growth goals on the basis of your values. A lack of success becomes overbearing when you generalize it to your overall life whereas once you get more specific about how and when it limits you it loses some of its control over you. The next step is to decide which specific changes are of utmost importance to you. These are the changes that you will make once you know an effective strategy. Take a moment now to look over your top five goals. Consider these goals from the point of view of your highest values – how will attaining these goals satisfy your values? For most people this allows them to see everything in a new light, all of a sudden you can see, feel and know why you will and must makes these changes in your life. You now have purpose as well as a sense of direction; all that is missing is a strategy to get there. The more reasons the better! One final point. It is very worthwhile to make a list of all the reasons why you want to achieve your goal. Get a pen and paper and just start brainstorming. Keep adding more reasons until you can’t think of any more. The more reasons you have to achieve a goal the easier it will be to get started on making it happen, and the easier it will be to persist when you get stuck. Write down one hundred reasons and you will feel motivated, write down two hundred reasons and you will be unstoppable. From time to time read through your list of reasons to keep on track. 3) Let Go Now that you know what you want and why you want it you ought to be motivated to take action. Otherwise you need to review the section on goal setting and the previous section on reasons to achieve the goal. Only read this section once you feel a magnetic attraction to having your goal. In this section I want to discuss the missing link in goal attainment. The challenge with traditional goal setting is that the more you want something and the more motivated you feel the more tension you will have in your life. You set a goal, get motivated and get stressed to achieve it. Once you achieve the desired result you feel happy or so you think. In fact that feeling is more likely to be a feeling of relief and the absence of tension because the goal has been achieved. As time passes you feel dissatisfied until you pick another goal to work on and the whole cycle starts all over again. If you have ever felt empty and without purpose after achieving a major goal then you know what I am talking about. It is not until you find a new goal that you feel alive again. This approach has a major drawback – you never feel relaxed! You feel the tension of motivation to achieve your goal, you feel the worry of failure and you only enjoy a brief moment of satisfaction when you attain your goal. There must be a better way! There is! Advanced goal setting incorporates the principle of letting go. Many spiritual traditions talk about the importance of letting go or surrendering your problems, goals and life to a higher power. This is a difficult concept for many of us to grasp and can seem even harder to implement in our lives. When you let go you still have goals and purpose in life only you get to enjoy the journey more. And you feel more relaxed and at peace. There are two effective ways to let go. 1 Hot Air Balloon Technique Picture your goal as achieved in your imagination. See it in great detail as if it is already attained. Then add sound and feelings so that is seems so real you could reach out and touch it. Imagine how good it feels to know you have achieved the goal. Now imagine that this picture is on the side of a huge hot air balloon and pretend this balloon is slowly rising higher and higher into the atmosphere until it disappears out of sight. Then imagine that you are cutting the rope that is attached to the balloon to let it go. What you are doing, when you take a few minutes to perform this exercise, is telling your unconscious mind to let go while still keeping focus on making the goal a reality. Anytime you start to get stressed and worried about achieving your goal take a few minutes to let go using this exercise. 2 Releasing The Goal This technique works on the principle of emotional releasing. You hold your goal in mind and ask yourself the following question: Could you let it go? Then be aware of your feeling response, not your intellectual response. What do I mean? Typically your response will be either “Yes” or “No” – when this happens feel where the answer is coming from. It might be a feeling of tension in your stomach, a sense of relaxation in your head or a sensation in some other part of your body. Then repeat the question again and again, each time waiting for the feeling response, until you feel a sense of peace about your goal. This may take ten minutes or up to forty minutes depending on how stressed out you are. It is also good to repeat this exercise every time you feel wound up about the goal. At this stage you will have a sense of not minding if you achieve your goal or not – this tells you that you have let it go. However you will still want the goal only the tension is gone. You can now proceed to take steps to make it a reality without the usual stress and worry. It’s like the difference between reluctantly doing what your boss tells you and having a ball working at your hobby on the weekend. In each case you have goals only one scenario involves tension while the other is a labor of love. Letting go is essential if you want to enjoy the journey and not just that brief moment of elation when you attain your goals, which after all is often just the relief that the tension has passed. Use one or both of the two releasing techniques above. If you prefer one over the other then use that one however it is best to become skilled with both techniques for those days when you just don’t feel like using a particular approach. On those occasions you can use the other strategy. One final benefit of letting go. When you let go you will think more clearly and you will find it easier to find solutions to tough challenges because your limiting emotions will not cloud your judgment. It is always easier to cope with setbacks when you feel at peace. 4) Progress Tracker One of the key success distinctions I have learned in recent years is the importance of monitoring your progress on a regular basis. It is all too easy to set goals, take action and then to hope for the best. So as to avoid disappointment or a sense of failure it is often common to neglect to measure how you are doing in the short term. My millionaire mentors take it for granted that you must measure the progress of every project to make sure that your plans are running to schedule. They check in regularly to anticipate future problems and to keep the project on track. You have to keep your eye on the ball or else another week, another month and another year flies by without you getting what you want. Think about all those goals you had two years ago that you have still not achieved -nothing will have changed in two years from now unless you monitor your progress and change your approach where necessary. The secret is to monitor your progress with a sense of fascination and a desire to learn. Some approaches worked and some did not. Identify what you can do differently in the future. Your intention should not be to give yourself a hard time because you have not made as much progress as you would have liked. We live in a cause and effect world. Identify the actions you took and the results you got. If you don’t like the results you are getting you just need to take different actions. Look for ways to improve your effectiveness. Make it a game to always find new and more powerful ways to move ahead quickly. I recommend that you review your progress against your goals at least once a week. And this is easy to do. Consider your top five goals and think about the actions you took over the previous seven days to attain these goals. Are you moving closer or farther away from these goals? Think for a moment. Do you still want these goals? If not pick new ones that you really do want. For the goals that you still want just ponder what you need to do differently to make more progress and to achieve the goal by your deadline. It helps to make notes so that you remember the ideas that pop into your head. When you review your progress for the previous week, month or year you will focus on results. As well, on a daily basis I encourage you to focus on effective actions you can take to move closer to the attainment of your goals. Three Actions A Day A good approach is to take at least three actions a day towards the attainment of your goal. Let us say your top career goal is to get promoted you might take three actions each day to acquire more skills, to network and to become more productive. For each of your top five goals you could take three actions. Fifteen actions a day! Each action can be a small task that will move you ahead. For example here are five different actions for different parts of your life – clean the garage, exercise for twenty five minutes, buy my wife flowers, make one new key contact at the office, and take the kids to the park. These actions would help you move forward in goals to improve your home environment, your fitness, your relationship with your spouse, your career, and your kids happiness. Over time you will find that you stop doing things that are not taking you forward in life. And you will notice that you need to cut out activities that take time from the daily actions that will give you what you really want. For example you might need an extra hour each evening to get fit so you give up an hour of TV or you decide to eat more healthily because you need more energy to enjoy what little free time you have with your family. Little things mean a lot when you stack them up over time and when these little actions point you in a particular direction you can make consistent progress towards the attainment of your goals. Most people fail not because of a lack of ability – they do not succeed because they will not persist long enough. Three actions a day for each goal becomes ninety actions in a month, two hundred and seventy actions over a three month period and one thousand and ninety five action in a year. Make sure each action is a deliberate choice to take you closer to your goal and your progress will astound you. 5) Certainty and Success Have you ever got excited about your goals and then slowly over time lost enthusiasm? Most people do. The difference is that the winners in life are able to relight that passion and desire to keep on going until they get what they want. What are these successful people doing differently to everyone else? They know how to build an internal state of certainty that they will succeed despite any shortteer challenges. You can have this same sense of certainty by visualizing your top five goals as already achieved at least once a day. Picture your goals as already achieved and enjoy the feelings of satisfaction. Hear people complimenting you on your success and really soak up the feelings of success. Make the pictures, sounds and feelings as lifelike as possible. Keep going until you feel with certainty that this goal is going to happen for you – as sure as the sun will rise in the morning! If the success of the goal seems uncertain play with the picture in your mind until it does feel certain. Compare how you picture, hear and see your goal with your expectation that the sun will rise tomorrow. Making the picture bigger, closer, brighter and more colorful usually helps to make it seem more realistic. When you do this each day you are telling your unconscious mind to keep searching for ways to achieve your goal and you will consistently be motivated. You will also find that your intuition guides you and presents you with ideas that will help you to move ahead. Is used to bother me picturing my goals as already achieved to the point of certainty. I feared that it would make me lazy since my brain would believe the goal would just turn up. And I used to think if I thought of the goal as certain I would be fooling myself into believing I would achieve it despite immediate evidence to the contrary. However the opposite is true. That sense of certainty propels you forward to create what you are imagining. Like an artist expressing himself with paints you become an artist creating your goals in the world around you from the inspiration inside your mind. Plus when you are off target it stands out a mile because your results are so inconsistent with your expectations. You are then compelled to get back on track. You will never have a 100% guarantee that you will succeed however the more certain you feel about your future the more energy you will invest in achieving your goals. And the corresponding actions you take will naturally improve your chances of success. A number of years ago I saw Donald Trump, the New York property developer, been interviewed on TV. I paid close attention to the way he communicated as well as to what he said. He positively exuded certainty when he spoke about his next big development. Every fiber of his being proclaimed that the new venture would be a huge success. Trump exudes certainty and this success aura attracts investors and encourages other people to believe in his vision. You can be sure that when he pictures his goals he does so with certainty. Start small if you like and as your confidence grows build up to bigger goals. Remember to make this a daily habit and you will be able to keep on going even at times when you face setbacks. 6) Mentor and Model Have you read “Think And Grow Rich” recently? This book is a classic personal development book and its message is relevant to you whether you want more money, a better family life or to make a bigger contribution to your community. One of the most important messages in this book is the advice to get a mentor -someone who has already achieved what you want to attain. Interestingly enough I met one of my mentors recently and he told me that the quickest way to get ahead in business is to find yourself a mentor. In fact he recommends that you find a successful businessperson who has only recently retired. Find someone, who is still energetic and sharp, who is twiddling his or her thumbs and missing the business world. You can then take years off the learning curve by getting advice from a mentor and you can avoid a lot of time consuming and frustrating mistakes. The mentor gains too because he or she will feel useful again as well as being part of something worthwhile. If you want to knock you head against a wall and make painfully slow progress towards your goals then don’t bother finding yourself a mentor. If you prefer to act on tips from people who do not know what they are talking about despite good intentions you will face a long arduous route to get where you want to go. Where will you find your mentor? Ask! You already know people who could give you good advice or your friends do. You just need the courage to ask. Not everyone will have the time to talk so be prepared to contact several people. You will find someone who is happy to help as long as you persist. Only a mentor can help you devise a great strategy to get you where you want to go. You need one even more than you realize! 7) The Seven Secrets of Failure This section is a bonus for you. My intention is to give you something to think about! Although this was originally written as a joke we all probably relate to the seven secrets a little too well no matter how well we think we’re doing! Failure leaves clues and if you adopt the following beliefs and strategies you too can experience more pain and dissatisfaction than you ever dreamed possible! 1) PROBLEMS: Avoid dealing with problems whenever you can. If you can't dump it on someone else either blame somebody or make an excuse. Never accept responsibility. 2) DIFFICULTY: If at anytime things don't work out smoothly-just give up! 3) SOCIETY OWES YOU A LIVING: There is such a thing as a free lunch. Do as little as possible and complain unless you get all that you want. 4) I AM NOT WORTHY: It's easy for successful people; they got all the lucky breaks or were born with the right connections. I'll never have what I want. 5) TOMORROW IS THE DAY TO CHANGE: Never do today what you can put off until tomorrow. Never do tomorrow what you can avoid doing. And if you can avoid it, pass the buck. 6) WAIT FOR THE PERFECT MOMENT: It'll come someday only then do you want to do anything about your goals. 7) NEVER SET GOALS: You'll only be disappointed. It's better to be unhappy, broke and alone than to work on attaining your goals.