Free Audio – Why You Aren’t Achieving Your Goals

Hale Dwoskin, author of The Sedona Method, has created another free audio to share with you called Why You Aren’t Achieving Your Goals… and What to Do About It.

Hale’s previous audios have received more than 10,000 listens so far, so there’s been a lot of interest in them.

You can listen to these free audios here: Sedona Method – Free Audios

I’m continuing to listen to the Sedona Method Supercourse on my own, and I’ve been having some interesting realizations along the way.

I especially appreciate Hale’s distinctions between wanting and having. As I went through one of the exercises, I realized that I was distracted by something I was thinking about buying. When the new iPads came out in March, I considered buying one but figured my original iPad was still good enough, so I didn’t get a new one.

But as I would continue to use my old iPad, I kept having thoughts like, I’ll bet this ebook would look really nice on that new retina display, and It would be nice if I had something faster and more responsive, so I didn’t have to wait as long for apps and pages to load, and It would be really nice to dictate this email instead of typing it.

But I dismissed those thoughts as justifications for something I didn’t need. A new iPad is an extravagance I can live without, I told myself.

I also thought that I might justify getting a new iPad by giving my old one to my kids, who love using it for games and YouTube videos when they’re at my house. But of course that’s just an excuse to get something I don’t need, came the mental reply to myself.

But I can easily afford it.

Yes, but you don’t need it, so you shouldn’t have it.

But I think I would use it a lot.

You can use the old one. It’s fine.

I can’t have it just because I want it?

No, you can’t. You need a better reason than that. But any reason you propose would be invalid, so don’t bother trying to convince me.

As I did the Sedona Method exercise, I observed and released many thoughts related to attachment, resistance, and justification with respect to a seemingly simple purchase decision. As I did this, I could even hear my Mom’s voice when I was a kid, saying, “Awww, you don’t really need that,” as we left a store empty handed. I realized I had a good deal of conditioning from early childhood that said, You can’t have what you want. You don’t need it.

It only took about 10 minutes to unearth and release this emotional programming. Afterwards I put the decision aside for a day or two. Then I took a fresh look at my interest in a new iPad. I decided that if I still wanted one, I would get one. And if I saw that I didn’t really want one, then I would let it go and be content with what I had.

And if I wanted one and got one, there would be no need to justify the purchase, seek approval, or ask permission.

Once I got that emotional programming out of the way, my thoughts on the matter shifted. Instead of wrestling with the emotional aspects of the decision, I became more curious. I went to Apple’s website and looked at the features of the new iPad. I considered whether it would be a worthwhile and practical purchase based on my expected usage patterns. I talked to Erin about giving the kids the old iPad and asked if she felt they could share it fairly. I went about making the decision on more logical grounds, no longer so influenced by past emotional programming.

I no longer felt a strong emotional attachment to having a new iPad, nor did I feel any emotional resistance to getting one. Overall I felt pretty neutral about it, like how I might feel if I was deciding which stapler to buy.

In a fairly short period of time, I concluded that yes, this would be a sensible purchase, and I went out and bought one that day. I’ve been using it for a few days now, and I can see that this was a good purchase for me. I’m using it every day, I appreciate the higher quality display (much easier on the eyes), and the faster processor delivers a nice speed improvement in app launching and page loading. I don’t really care about the camera or some of the other features, but overall I’m content with the decision.

Now when I’m using the new iPad, I don’t feel distracted by emotional programming telling me what I can or can’t have. I simply use it.

This may seem like a fairly basic example, but it was still pretty eye-opening for me to experience the difference between wanting and having and to see how unconscious patterns were keeping me stuck. It’s good to know that those old patterns can be released — and without having to replace them with anything in particular. You can just let go of those old patterns, using effective techniques like those in the Sedona Method. Instead of being knocked around by emotional triggers, you can approach decision-making more sensibly and get out of your own way.

Incidentally, your past programming may be very different than mine, so you may even disagree with my decision, which is fine. I have no attachment to your approval or disapproval over this choice. But if this story triggered any emotional responses in you as you read it, take note that these reactions are coming from patterns stored in your mind, not from the story itself. The story is just a story and has no inherent meaning; if it meant something to you, then you’d surely benefit from releasing some of that conditioning since it can and will affect your behavior, such as by creating unnecessary obstacles for you when you try to pursue a larger goal.

Hale is right about one thing: Having is better than wanting. It’s more peaceful, productive, and intelligent to have an experience instead of wanting it, especially if it’s fairly accessible. It’s good to let go of attachment to false desires for experiences you don’t really want, but if you release that attachment and still observe the desire — this time as a more practical intention as opposed to an emotional trigger — then you might as well go get it instead of vacillating over whether you should or shouldn’t… could or couldn’t… would or wouldn’t…

Note that if this course sounds interesting to you, you can still get it for a 46% discount off the regular price.

Steve Recommends
Here are my recommendations for products and services I've reviewed that can improve your results. This is a short list since it only includes my top picks.

Getting Rich with Ebooks - Earn passive income from ebooks
Sedona Method - Free Audio - Learn to release blocks in a few minutes
Site Build It! - Start your own money-making website
Lefkoe Method - Permanently eliminate a limiting belief in 20 minutes
Paraliminals - Condition your mind for positive thinking and success
The Journal - Record your life lessons in a secure private journal
PhotoReading - Read books 3 times faster
Life on Purpose - Discover your life purpose

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Space Rockets and Agile Programmers Are Doing It…Why Aren’t You?

Are you like everyone else when it comes to setting goals? Do you define what you want to achieve and then start working towards your big goal?

You work hard on a daily basis to reach that goal, but at some point you start to feel frustrated, because you’re not making any noticeable progress after all.

This makes you very confused and angry, yet you can only blame yourself for this situation. You have made a classic goal-setting mistake.

Do you know what it is?

Let me tell you about a real experience I had couple of years ago. This happened when I was competing in a national level triathlon race.

A triathlon consists of three different sports (swimming, cycling and running) and every race starts with the swimming part. As soon as the start signal goes off, all the contestants run into the water and start swimming.

After myself and the rest of the contestants had swam for some time, I realized that this one guy was swimming in the wrong direction. He kept going and going, until at one point he stopped. He realized that he had swam in the wrong direction and now everyone else was in a completely different place. Naturally, he had to change his course and catch up with the rest of us.

This kind of scenario can happen in your life, whether you are a triathlete or not. You set a goal and start taking action on it, but unfortunately this is not enough. If you don’t know your current position in relation to your goal, then you are going to be like the triathlete I just mentioned; you will keep going and going but your actions will only take you further from your destination.

When you get further away from your goals, most likely there is one critical piece missing in your goal-setting process. Eventually, this missing piece might get you lost — and even make you quit on your goal.

Now, you don’t want that to happen, do you?

When a rocket is launched into space, do you think it just follows a straight line from earth to its destination in space?

Nope, it doesn’t.

It makes small adjustments to its course along the way. This is how it stays on track and reaches a very specific but distant destination in space.

It’s the same with agile programmers: they know exactly where they are in relation to their end goal (a finished application). They make necessary adjustments to their actions along the way if they find that they are on the wrong track.

Back to you: do you know why you get lost so easily? Well, it’s because you are not adjusting your course like that space rocket, or not following procedures like those agile programmers.

In both of the previous scenarios, adjustments are made all the time. In contrast, you just set your goal and take action on it, without stopping to correct your course. If you don’t reflect on your current progress and just keep doing your work, then the confusion is inevitable.

Finally, you should also pay close attention to your attitude.

You might think that pausing to reflect is a waste of time (it’s slowing you down), even if you understand the need for it. If you think like this, you clearly need to change your attitude towards the reflection time and understand its true value. Stopping down for a moment could save your whole project. Instead of just blindly taking action, you’ll start to see where you have deviated from your goal and you’ll be able to take corrective action immediately.

When you are on the right track, you are more motivated to keep on working towards your goal instead of quitting.

Let’s talk some Scrum. It belongs to a family of agile software development methodologies and one of its characteristics is a daily 15-minute time-boxed meeting called The Daily Scrum.

Every day during the 15-minute period, the team has a meeting stood up, where everyone reports their progress by answering three questions:

What have you done since the last meeting?What are you planning to finish by the next meeting?Is there anything standing in your way?

With these questions, it’s easy to see what everyone has been up to, what’s going to happen next, and if there are any issues that might be stopping the developers’ progress.

“Ok, so this stuff is for software developers,” I hear you say. “How does that help me?”

This is exactly what we are going to find out next.

Daily Scrums can be applied on your own work as well. Let’s see how to do it:

Know your goal and sub-goals. It goes without saying that you should have a clear and explicitly defined goal, as well as milestones related to your end goal. If you don’t have this plan set, then do it now.Schedule and location. Schedule a 15-minute block on your calendar, which occurs every day, at the same location, at the same time. To make sure you don’t exceed the 15-minute limit, get a timer, set it to 15 minutes and start it as soon as your meeting starts. The best time for this is before the end of your working day. This way, you have some kind of idea what you have done, if you have encountered any issues and what you  want to do next. The fixed location helps you to form the Daily Scrum habit.Have your meeting. Answer the three Scrum questions I mentioned earlier and write them down in a document. Then, spend some time figuring out if you are on the right track in relation to your goals.Take action accordingly. Once you have had your Daily Scrum, form a plan for what to do next. Do you need to do something differently? What does it take to remove the obstacles in your way?

Take a moment to think about the best answers to these questions.

As you can see, daily reflection is very important so that you can see where you are in relation to your goal. Otherwise you could be working hard for nothing. In a worst case scenario, you may have to start your work all over again.

With a 15-minute daily meeting, you can stay on track and take corrective action right away, instead of doing it weeks or even months after starting your work.

Over to you: how do you keep track of your current situation in relation to your goals? Do you review your work in any way? Please share your comments and experiences on the comment area.

(Photo credit: Old Compass via Shutterstock)

Timo Kiander, a.k.a. Productive Superdad, teaches WAHD super dad productivity for work at home dads. If you want to get more productive in your own life, grab 222 of his best Tips for Becoming a Productivity Superstar.

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