Hi everyone!

We are almost there! If you have not read part 3, take a look at the previous post before you get rolling on part 4: Taking Action

I know, i know this is the tough part but hey, we had to get to it at some stage – nothing comes from nothing.

I often think of this mantra i heard once: Thoughts create Actions create Results. When you think about it, everything originated from a thought in someone’s head. This computer monitor you are looking at, the music you might be listening to, the socks you wear, the toothpaste you use! Everything started as a thought and it was the action that was taken that brought it into reality – Results!

Now i have hundreds of thoughts every day and i am sure you do too – most of them come when i am having a shower in the morning, when my mind is relaxed and open. For these thoughts to come into existence you need to take action.

When i say take action i mean doing whatever it takes! The action you take today will determine your results for tomorrow so dont just do the bare essentials – nobody gets ahead by doing the minimum required. You have to go to the next level and do whatever it takes!

The people who have the most amounts of results in life are the people who are willing to do more than most are willing to do.  The people who have the results in their lives that you don’t have in yours are the people who are taking actions that you are not taking just yet.  When you take those actions you too will have those results.  It is that easy!

This is where your goal sheets become your crucial tool; they go with you everywhere. Don’t leave home without them. Stay focused on what your end result needs to be and continue to ask yourself when faced at a crossroad, “Will this take me closer or further away from my goals?”

If you have followed the lessons so far you should have a number of goals and a number of actions you need to take to achieve them. When you wake up in the morning just choose 2 of those tasks that will get you closer to your goal.

When i wake up in the morning i ask 3 questions: What am i happy about today? What am i grateful for today? What 2 actions can i take today that will get me closer to my goal? When you ask yourself a question, your mind will not let up until it gives you an answer so make sure you are listening when you ask the questions.

One last thing – enjoy the process! Life is not a chore, its something we are blessed with every day so take action and enjoy the process of living your dreams.

Cheers,

Matt

Hi everyone

How is your goal setting going? We are going to be taking a bit more action with this post so if you have not already, please go back and have a read of part 2 of this series: www.findmattjones.com/5-steps-to-realising-your-goal-part-2/

How did you go finding your why? Was it easy tapping into your inner purpose or did you really struggle? Either way, take a moment to congratulate yourself for coming this far. Its not an easy task tapping into your inner self if you are not used to it and it may take a while to really find the burning desire behind your goals.

I will tell you a quick story about a very successful friend of mine. He spent many years building his business up and eventually had a break down; he reached a snap point in his life and began to question what his success was really for. He discovered he did not have a why behind it all and suddenly everything became meaningless. He ended up taking 12 months to step out of his business and life in general.

Over that time, he asked himself a question when he woke up and before he went to sleep. He asked this question every day for 9 months – he didn’t just ask the question, he pleaded for the answer! He basically cut himself off from the world to find the answer – the REAL answer to this question: “What is my purpose?”

Pretty simple question right? It doesn’t come easy though so don’t beat yourself up if it doesn’t come to you straight away. In fact, even if you did discover your why it may turn out to be something else down the track but its the fact that you made a decision to choose a path now that will lead you to the path you really need to be on.

Ok, enough chit chat here is Part 3: Navigate Your Course

Like anything, you need a plan of attack. Now, i am not talking about a full blueprint of the next 20 years i am just talking about what you need to do right now to get you navigating on the right path.

I am a big believer in having a system so here is what i want you to do: Prepare 10 pieces of paper – i am talking actual paper, not your computer screen. On the top of the first piece of paper write your 12 month goal and write the date 12 months from now. Then go ahead and write your goal on that sheet of paper – If you want some more tips on writing goals you can check out this previous post: www.findmattjones.com/s-m-a-r-t-goals/

Now you have the end result set in stone you can work backwards. The rest is a bit like filling a glass with rocks, pebbles sand and water… you have to start with the big rocks, followed by the pebbles, filling in the gaps with sand and finally the water. This is what you need on the other 9 sheets of paper:

9th sheet: Write the date 9 months from now and the bigger tasks that need to be completed before your 12 month goal is complete

8th sheet: Write the date 6 months from now and the bigger tasks that need to be completed before your 9 month goal is complete

7th sheet: Write the date 3 months from now and the bigger tasks that need to be completed before your 6 month goal is complete

6th sheet: Write the date 60 days from now and the tasks that need to be completed before your 3 month goal is complete

5th sheet: Write the date 30 days from now and the tasks that need to be completed before your 60 day goal is complete

4th sheet: Write the date 21 days from now and the tasks that need to be completed to achieve your 30 day goal

3rd sheet: Write the date 14 days from now and the tasks that need to be completed to achieve your 21 day goal

2nd sheet: Write the date 7 days from now and the tasks that need to be completed to achieve your 14 day goal

1st sheet: Write down what you have to do in the next 7 days to achieve your 7 day goal

It might seem a little repetitive but i have used this system for a number of years and i can tell you its the single most powerful task i do every week – apart from looking at my dreamboard

By setting the goal first and working backwards you are breaking the goal up into chunks, making it a lot more manageable and ensuring you are less likely to procrastinate. If you want to take it to the next level, team up with an accountability buddy to help you stay on track and committed to achieving that goal.

To get you started i have created a template of the 10 sheets to record your goal. Just click on this link to download them

Good luck and stay tuned for Part 4!

Cheers,

Matt

Hi everyone and welcome back to Part 2 of this powerful series of posts. If you missed the first one click here to read part 1

I hope you all found the time to sit quietly and focus on what you want; if you haven’t don’t beat yourself up about it. I know as well as anyone that life gets in the way sometimes and its important to not use that as an excuse. Congratulate yourself for coming this far and reset your thought patterns and go again. It is critical to always associate positive feelings whenever you are creating your goals. If you see them as a chore, your subconscious will never really believe you so always make the experience pleasant. When setting your goals, do something you love, play your favourite music, go to your favorite spot; the more positive emotion you associate with your goal setting the more likely you will succeed in achieving them.

Ok that’s enough on that lets move on

Part 2 – Know your “Why”:

Remember i said in the last post to write freely without inhibition when discovering what your goals are? Well now you have got them out on paper you need to discover your “why” behind having them.

You see, i know for a fact that you really don’t want a lot of money -truthfully i know you don’t want to be a millionaire. Now, i know what you are saying, “Matt, you don’t know me from a bar of soap and you are wrong on that one.” Well i can tell you that you don’t want the money, you want all the things you can buy with the money. Money is just a concept that we all choose to believe in and collectively we agree to its value. So don’t focus on the money, focus on what you can do with it.

I am going to stay on the money topic for a second as its an easy example to work with. Lets say one of your goals was to have another $50k in your bank account by the end of the year. The money itself is a meaningless goal to strive for; you need to attach some passion and purpose to that goal… you need a “why”.

What are you going to do with that $50k? Will it buy you an overseas trip? Will it pay off the mortgage? Will it buy you a new car or boat? Will it mean you can take 6 months off work to be there for the birth of your child? These questions all bring purpose and context to the goal and purpose precedes your goals.

Once you have come up with your “why” make sure it truly gives you a burning desire to achieve your goals. The more powerful the why, the faster you will get there.

Really focus on this for a minute.

Get in touch with your soul and find out what really moves you to succeed; is it your kids? is it your parents? What is it that makes you get up and say, “I want this goal so much that my life depends on it!” Because in truth your life does depend on it; if you are not moving forward, striving to be a better person you are not evolving anymore, you are dissolving! Without passion, purpose and a “why” you are just going through the motions… just existing without actually living.

I want to share with you what my goal and my why is. I set a 5 year goal to be financially free by the time i am 40. I have exactly 3 years and  3 months left to achieve this goal.  Financial freedom for me is having a passive income that exceeds all our expenses and provides us with the lifestyle we choose to live.

My why and my burning desire to achieve this goal comes down to this: My wife and i would like to have kids. Its the one thing that i have wanted all my life. And when that special day comes in the not too distant future i want to be completely devoted to the experience of being a Dad. I don’t want to miss one minute of them growing up and i especially don’t want to miss anything because someone says i have to go to work.

This purpose behind being financially free is what will make it a reality. The purpose is a fire within that i only need to think about briefly and it gets me motivated to take action… consistent daily action

One other thing – when you set your goal, don’t worry about how it is going to happen. If your ‘why’ is strong enough the ‘how’ will show up on its own accord. I am constantly amazed how opportunities present themselves to help you achieve your goal when you never would  have guessed that the goal was possible.

I hope this was helpful and remember to associate plenty of passion and purpose with your goals. Your emotions are the turbo chargers of your thought.

Bye for now

Matt

I truly believe that everyone has greatness inside of them yet a lot of us have never been taught how to reveal each of our gifts to the world. So here is a series of posts to get you on your way to help you bring out the best in you by setting your goals and smashing them!

Part 1 – Know where you are going

Confucius says, “The person who aims at nothing is sure to hit it”

The first step to achieving your goal is to first know what it is and this is often the hardest part. So often i have procrastinated about writing down my goals, often from fear of not being able to achieve them or worse, fear of achieving them! For some people knowing their goals is quite simple, something is already burning inside them and they know what they want. For others like me, i have to really work at it.

So i have devised a system to help you get your goals our of your head and onto a piece of paper – its nothing special and you may have tried it before. Here it is:

Grab a a blank piece of A4 paper and a pen and find a quiet spot where you can be alone and content with yourself without any interruptions – that means no phone, no internet, no tv or radio…. yes you will survive without these things

Write at the top of the page: “Having no limitations in my life, I have…..”

Take a few deep breaths and ask your subconscious to open up and deliver all your hopes and dreams from your mind to your hand. Now  start writing for 5 minutes without stopping. Just write freely without inhibition. Write all the thoughts and feelings that come into your head after you read the sentence at the top of the page.  Make sure you write for the full 5 minutes, its often the last few seconds where you get the most insight.

By doing this you are revealing the power of your subconscious and all the things you are capable of. Do not fear what you write, it will manifest on your page as it needs to, you might even be surprised with what you come up with.

This process is such an important step for achieving your goals; if you dont bring them out of your thoughts and into reality they can never manifest.

Did you ever play “Pinyata” as a child? You remember right? Someone gives you a big stick and puts a blindfold on you and spins you round 3 times. Then you whack the hell out of this dangling paper mache animal to make all the lollies fall out.. man i love that game

Anyway, playing Pinata is like chasing your goals without writing them down – you whip yourself up into a frenzy trying to smash these damn lollies out of the animal but you just cant see what to hit!

Now i have a massive sweet tooth and when i set a goal i chase it down like a greyhound chasing a rabbit at the dog track. But to win that prize i first have to know what i am heading for.

Your goals must be crystal clear to the point you have them memorized with total clarity. In fact every time you read them it should bring up emotion and excitement within your body. Being attached physically, mentally and emotionally to your goals ensures your success.

Start getting your goals onto paper and i will see you back here for Part 2!

Cheers,

Matt