Article extracted from a workshop & book called:
DO YOU BELIEVE IN YOU - by Dieter Luske
... all following articles, are written as workshop manuscript
... questions were asked to stimulate active participation.
Find a topic related practitioner :
Counselling - Psychotherapy- Coaching - Hypnosis - NLP
ARTICLE NUMBER - 30 - CHAPTER FOUR
Goal Setting - Dream your Life
DISTINCTION QUESTION 4:
DREAM YOUR LIFE:
Money and health seem to cause the most drastic
restrictions on people's ideas about life. Let's lift those
limitations and therefore let the ideas run free.
(I will deal
about general health and diet in the diet section ).
You are in perfect health and you will stay that way, isn't
that nice?
Furthermore you have an unlimited supply of
money—even nicer!
Now, start dreaming, lean back, relax and dream about a
life without financial limitations.
What would you do with all
this money? Just spend it?
Or could it bring a totally new
meaning to your life?
Having finished your dream, what did you come up with?
If not satisfied, why not dream another one?
What would
you do with your life now? Once again, what stops you?
Why don't you do it now, or why don't you create goals to
make it happen?
If your new life and goals rely heavily on large amounts
of money, that's fine, there is nothing wrong with money. I
am sure you will get the money. If your goals have desire as
a driving force, then you will come up with strategies to get
the money, either by yourself or you will get the money from somebody who likes your goals.
With anything worthwhile, there will be people who would like to be part of it, either with money or with other
help, technical, ideas, material, anything.
By now you should have a variety of new goals,
outcomes and ideas in front of you, and remind yourself that
there are no limits, there is no failure—only success and participation.
Congratulations—you
have succeeded in finding new goals and more will follow.
Are you ready for the next exercise?
This first part, the three questions, plus the four
distinctions belong to the hard core.
The next question will
go more into the easy and fun part of your goals.
Like the
last question, this part will be suited for dreaming.
-
WHAT WILL YOUR PERFECT DAY BE LIKE?
Start dreaming now. How will this day begin?
Where will
you be? Who will be with you? Where will you go? What will
you do? How will you feel when you get out of bed in the
morning and through out the day till you go to bed? What will you look forward to in your special day?
-
What goals have you created already to make this
special day happen?
What, if anything, is stopping you from
having this special day?
Why not create a few special days
with enough goals to make those special days come true?
What stops you from having some kind of a special day every day?
Talking about your special day, let's take it one step
further.
A special day is something to look forward to. Is
your future something to look forward to?
Do you look
forward to the future? Or would you rather avoid the future?
As it can be considered an advantage to have something
to look forward to, we will now look with our goals to the
future. This will also give you more ideas about your goals.
YOUR FUTURE, GAIN OR PAIN
You need a future. Whether you want to lose weight, stop
smoking, invest wisely or get along with others, you need to
create a goal. You make a decision or commitment now and continue with goals and strategy into the future.
Having a pleasant future, something to gain, motivates
you to move toward that future or create goals to reach that
future.
By gain, I am talking about anything you would like
for your future—love, peace, health, fitness, money, purpose—anything.
Some people will find it easier to work from an opposite
direction, instead of moving towards gain, you may prefer to move away from pain.
Pain in this sense stands for things
you definitely don't want for yourself in the future. I guess
we all have something about ourselves we would like to
improve, and moving away from pain is one way to do it.
Obviously it always has to be in conjunction with doing
something you like.
By example, if you are overweight now. If you look into
the future, (while continuing doing what you always do), it
would mean, that you would be even more fat in the future.
This is painful. By moving away from that pain, you would
have to decide to change something about yourself now.
Having done that, you take one more step and choose
something to look forward to, a gain. This gain could be the
figure plus the fitness you always wanted.
The flip side of gain therefore is pain. Pain can motivate
you to move away from things and to move into a more
compelling future. This would motivate you to eat less and
start your exercise program.
To make that work, the pain or the gain must be strong
enough to motivate you over a prolonged time. Using the
pain and gain technique has the advantage of the pain
pushing you and the gain pulling you.
If that doesn't get you
going, nothing will.
I will give you an example of a painful future, although it
will be only a short time into the future.
Close your eyes,
and imagine you are sitting at home right next to your radio
speaker, Hi-Fi or whatever music system you have. Not only
are you sitting right next to it, but you then put you ear close
to the speaker. With your radio switched off you now set the volume control to its highest setting. (You probably never
did that before, as it would be deafening).
Now comes the question, will you switch that radio on,
remembering that your ear is right next to the speaker? (My
guess is that you would not. ( Don't do it))
If you can make something so strongly painful or gainful,
that it will create enough motivation to move mountains, you
will be able to move those mountains, so to speak.
To return to those of you with a weight problem. Seeing
yourself as a total flop, not able to get up the stairs will
make you stop overeating for the rest of your life. To
generate a long term compelling future for yourself, you
must first construct a full visual mental picture of yourself
being in the future.
The 'you' that you will create, is the 'you'
from your future, and is completely dependent upon what kind of action you are taking in the present for that future
wellbeing. The only person who can tell you what you have
to do now, at this very minute is your future self.
Your future self will know exactly how you will be in five
years time if you continue to do what you have always done.
How will it know? Yes, your subconscious mind has all the
information from the way you lead your life now. If nothing
is changed, it can predict the future as dearly as anything.
This next exercise will bring you in touch with your
subconscious mind, and you will clearly see how you will be
in five years time if you continue to do what you have
always done. That is, whether you are failing to save money;
disregarding your relationships or health; overeating,
drinking; smoking; blaming; putting yourself down; not
doing enough exercise; staying in a victim position—it is in
the future you that will most pay for it!
Start now.
Sit comfortably, allow yourself to relax and
as you take a deep breath, some parts of you will start to
feel relaxed already and will continue to do so. Take
another deep breath and hold it, and as you breathe out,
allow yourself to relax completely and take yourself five years into the future.
Five years from now, see yourself, look into the mirror,
how do you look? See your face, stand back a bit and allow
yourself to see yourself from top to toe. What do you see?
Take a deep breath—whatever you see, you have the power to change in the present.
When you can see yourself
clearly, imagine moving into yourself and physically becoming
that future you. Feel how it feels to be there. Feel what it is
like to be in your future body. Take a deep breath again and
explore the sensations that go along with being five years
older. Now step out again, see your future self again, and now
ask the future you what it wants from you now.
Listen well to the answer. If you do not listen and
respond to your future self, who will? Whatever your future
self wants from you, write it down now:
Before you can continue to create your future, you
must have a close look at your present situation. Before you
go somewhere, you should at least know where you are coming from. Not only that, looking at what you have now,
in detail, will actually help you to determine: what you want
more of and what you don't want at all. You are going to assess yourself both in a positive and negative way. This will
give you a base whereby you either move away from what
you don't like or move towards what your do like.
... to be continued . next >> Goal Setting - MY PRESENT SITUATION
