Creating Your Target is easy.What I use to help create these targets is what I call SMARTS targetsSMARTS stands for:
- Simple, Sensory, and Specific
- Measurable and Meaningful
- As If Now
- Realistic
- Time Framed
- Smiley Factor
Some more about what these all mean:
“S”: Simple is exactly that. Simple. Do not make it too complicated, or long and drawn out. Most people should be able to understand what it is. If it is a goal around some specific field, most of your colleagues should be able to understand your target.
“S”: Sensory involves all of your senses. You use your sense of vision. You hear things in this picture and movie. You smell things in your movie of your target. You feel things, both with your hands and with your emotions. In your picture, you have the internal voice in your head that you always have. You put all of these different senses into your picture, as well as the most important one, the inner knowing of your heart brain. Make sure to get that in the picture or movie as well.
“S”: Specific. This is best illustrated with an example. I have moved many times in my life. Every time I moved, I created a list of what I want. And every time there was a fireplace on that list. The first time, I was looking at a place that had everything I wanted but a fireplace. I mentioned this to the landlord and she laughed. She took me into the unfinished basement, and there was a plastic fireplace in the basement. I learned from this, and when I was looking for the next place I put a real fireplace on my list. I found a place that had everything except a fireplace. I said this to the landlord and he said that there was a fireplace. It was just boarded up behind the wall. The next place I moved into, I put a real working fireplace on the list of what I wanted. I found a place with a real working fireplace this time, but the landlord would not let me use it. So finally I put on my list “a real working fireplace I can use.” And the next time, I got it. You need to be specific.
“M”: Measurable. There must be some specific way in which you measure the results, a quantifiable way that you know the goal is achieved.
“M”: Meaningful. The target, the goal must be meaningful to you. It must be something you want and desire. If it means nothing to you, there will be no reason to keep going for it. It does not work to have it be something that someone else wants for you.
“A”: As If Now. Write your movie in the present tense, as if you are describing a situation that is happening now. Tomorrow never comes. It is like the sign “Free money tomorrow.” You come back the next day and the sign still says, “Free money tomorrow.” Tomorrow never comes. If you write your goals in the future, the future never comes.
“R”: Realistic. Your target must be believable to you. If you do not think you can attain it, chances are you probably will not attain it. Now, this means two things. One, if you have a faulty belief system about what you can and cannot do and you want to change it, you might want to try my CDs. Two, “realistic” is different for everyone. For some, making a million dollars in one year is totally attainable. For others, it is not. Make sure your target is realistic to you.
“T”: Time Framed. Put a definite date on your target. Put the date as if today is the date, and write your goal with that date now. This is similar to As If Now, but with an actual date or time frame.
“S”: Smiley Factor. Make sure that you are smiling and happy in the picture, that your goal includes your being happy. Here is an example of why: You have a goal to be in Italy within five years, but no smiley factor. You get some rare cancer that the only know treatment for is in Italy, and you have to fly there to get your cancer treated. This is not what you want.
Make sure you do not have negatives in your goals. It is not good to say something like “no more pain,” because remember, what you focus on is what you get. So if you are focusing on “no pain”, “pain” is actually what you are focusing on. If you don’t want this or that, you have to put it in your target as a positive. Like if the pain were gone, what would be there? You might be feeling great, or have free movement in your neck or whatever. Just make sure you put all the things you don’t want in terms of what you would have when they were gone, so you can focus on what you want, because that is what you will get.