5 Ways To Achieve Big Goals

All of us have dreams we’d love to make reality, and stretch goals that we’d love to accomplish. I have a friend who wants to learn how to play piano, proficiently, at the age of 55. Another is just dying to find some time off a grueling schedule to backpack China for a month. These dreams and goals are of course challenging exactly because they are stretches. Our life’s routine, and more tricky, our habits, tend to get in the way of actually achieving them.

Here are five things you can do to actually increase the likelihood of reaching your dreams and stretch goals.

1. Collect, Collect, Collect

You should have a central place where you track and manage those goals you have that are not for today. This can be in a notepad, in an Evernote notebook, or in a project in your ToDo list manager. Are you seeking to enrich yourself and find stretch goals? Look at popular websites like StumbleUpon, Pick the Brain, Guy Finley, Lifehacker, and our own TaskCurrent. When you come across something that inspires you–a goal or dream you wish to implement–make sure to write it down.

2. Out of Sight is Unfortunately Out of Mind

For your dreams and goals to be taken seriously, you must schedule a monthly review of your list. Try and keep the items on your list organized by how badly you really want to do them. Each month weigh the goals. Consider them. You will probably find that many of them are not actually top priority. Those that consistently float to the top of your list are the keepers, and it’s those we want to focus on turning into a reality. Over time, toss the dregs, and start highlighting the cream that’s floating on the top.

3. Make an Actual Plan

After a few months of keeping and reviewing your dream and stretch goal list, sit down with your calendar (and significant other if relevant) and start cobbling together an actual plan. If your dream is travel, set aside a piggy bank for some extra savings, and book time in a year. If you have a stretch goal–i.e., waking up and writing three mornings a week–start thinking about what it will take to actually achieve that goal. Importantly though, pick only one or two items to work on at a time.

4. Automate

To accomplish one of your dreams or stretch goals you’re going to need some help. Once you’ve decided on the item you want to pursue, and sketched a basic plan, use a reminder service like Remember the Milk, or even Google Calendar to keep it front and present. Remmeber, out of sight is out of mind. For fun, you can set a Monkey on Your Back [http://monkeyon.com/], which will nudge you until you do it.

5. Get Even More Help

Sometimes you need outside pressure to achieve a goal. Research shows that phone calls from real people are very powerful motivators. Therefore, ask a friend or family member to work with you to actually deliver on your goals. Moreover, ask them to be tough with you – reminding you regularly and pushing you to deliver on the commitments you’ve made to yourself. If you like, ask them if you can put a monkey on their back to help them remember. Most importantly, don’t get annoyed if they’re reminding you to do something that’s hard. That’s what you want!

You can accomplish dreams and stretch goals, but it’s not easy. Remember though, if you will it, it is no dream, and if you do it, then it will happen! The discipline above will help position you to be more successful in pursuing dreams and stretch goals. Let me know how it goes so that I can send a big congratulations to anyone who uses this to make a dream come true.

Source: http://www.pickthebrain.com/blog/5-ways-to-achieve-big-goals/

Aharon Horwitz is the co-Founder of TaskCurrent [http://www.taskcurrent.com], an iPhone/iPad application [http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/taskcurrent/id501131814?ls=1&mt=8] aimed at helping you discover and implmenet actions worth doing from across the web.

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5. The Principle of Rhythm

Everything flows, out and in; everything has its tides; all things rise and fall; the pendulum-swing manifests in everything; the measure of the swing to the right is the measure of the swing to the left; rhythm compensates

Rhythm (from Greek rhuthmos, any measured flow or movement, symmetry) is the variation of the length and accentuation of a series of vibrations or other events. Most popular in sound, rhythm is also apparent in life, as for example in the Circadian Rhythm, the 'daily cycle' in the biochemical, physiological or behavioral processes of living beings - human, animals, plants, bacteria, fungi.

The atoms in their vibrations manifest Rhythm. The ways of the planets and the earth around the sun manifest Rhythm. The phases of the moon manifest rhythm, as do the rise and fall of the tides or the frequency of our breathing. The swing of the pendulum is interrupted Rhythm. Completed Rhythm is represented by a circular movement, as a complete movement in an orbit.

The Principle of Rhythm is closely related to the Principle of Vibration and the Principle of Polarity.

From the Kybalion:

 
This Principle embodies the truth that in everything there is manifested a measured motion, to and fro; a flow and inflow; a swing backward and forward; a pendulum-like movement; a tide-like ebb and flow; a high-tide and low-tide; between the two poles which exist in accordance with the Principle of Polarity described a moment ago.

There is always an action and a reaction; an advance and a retreat; a rising and a sinking. This is in the affairs of the Universe, suns, worlds, men, animals, mind, energy, and matter. This law is manifest in the creation and destruction of worlds; in the rise and fall of nations; in the life of all things; and finally in the mental states of Man (and it is with this latter that the Hermetists find the understanding of the Principle most important).

The Hermetists have grasped this Principle, finding its universal application, and have also discovered certain means to overcome its effects in themselves by the use of the appropriate formulas and methods. They apply the Mental Law of Neutralization. They cannot annul the Principle, or cause it to cease its operation, but they have learned how to escape its effects upon themselves to a certain degree depending upon the Mastery of the Principle. They have learned how to use it, instead of being used by it.

In this and similar methods, consist the Art of the Hermetists. The Master of Hermetics polarizes himself at the point at which he desires to rest, and then neutralizes the Rhythmic swing of the pendulum which would tend to carry him to the other pole.

All individuals who have attained any degree of Self-Mastery do this to a certain degree, more or less unconsciously, but the Master does this consciously, and by the use of his Will, and attains a degree of Poise and Mental Firmness almost impossible of belief on the part of the masses who are swung backward and forward like a pendulum.

This Principle and that of Polarity have been closely studied by the Hermetists, and the methods of counteracting, neutralizing, and using them form an important part of the Hermetic Mental Alchemy. 

Source: http://www.corax.com/tarot/index.html?first-hermetic-principle