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Module 1.3

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Whether your outcome is to buy a home of your own, or to create world peace, to create a family who love each other or to earn a million dollars, the secret is the same. Check some people who’ve succeeded at what they do, and you’ll find they always use goalsetting.

NLP Trainer Dr Harry Alder interviewed more than 150 business leaders to create his study Think Like A Leader. He says “Leaders seem to know where they are going in both a personal and a business sense. They are quite happy with goals and objectives…. It appears to the impressed follower that the leader can quickly get to the core of a matter, is able to see the longer term implications, or somehow knows just what the important questions are. All of these often-quoted features of good leadership relate to an ability we all have, to visualize, that can be improved with practice. In people decisions, it comes over as sound judgement. Or a leader might be seen to remain cool in the heat of a crisis. In fact, for the leader, the crisis has already been ‘experienced’ in the form of visualization – it comes as no surprise. For the leader it is just another scenario that has turned into reality.” (Alder, 1995, p 18, 20).

Movie Director Steven Spielberg decided at the age of twelve that he wanted to be a film director. But then, so do a lot of kids. What Spielberg had that made him different was the ability to set a clear goal and plan action towards it. As Spielberg tells the story, when he was seventeen he went on a guided tour of Universal Studios in Los Angeles. Instead of following the guided route, Spielberg sneaked off by himself to watch an actual movie being filmed. There he managed to meet up with the head of the editorial department, and have an hour long discussion about his dream.

That would have been enough flexibility for most people, but Spielberg was willing to keep acting until he reached his goal. He was totally motivated, and he knew what he wanted. The next day, wearing a suit and carrying his father’s briefcase, he strode back into the Universal site. Out the back were some caravans used by actors when staying at the site. Spielberg found one that was empty and put up a sign on the door: “Steven Spielberg, Director”. This is how he did it. The rest of that summer he spent getting to know editors, directors and film writers. Three years later he had put together a home made film, based on what he learned there. When Universal saw the film, they offered him a seven year contract, and he was on his way to becoming the most successful film director of all time. He had a goal, he took action, he checked his results, and he had the flexibility to keep learning. That’s what it takes!

A successful goal meets seven criteria, listed here under the acronym SPECIFY.

Goalsetting - SPECIFY

Goalsetting – SPECIFY

We’ll deal with the last of these criteria in more detail soon, but for now, lets consider the first six.

1. Sensory specific: Describe exactly what you plan to see, hear, feel, do, or say, instead of using general words (eg. say ‘I want to be able to say no when my friend asks me out, and I’m intending to study’, instead of I want to be more assertive’).” Steven Spielberg had to imagine exactly what he’d say as he walked in the gate as a director, exactly what he’d see on his door.
So, when you think about your goal, what would you see, hear or physically touch. How much exactly.

2. Positive: In defining a problem, you may have said what you don’t want.
Now say what you do want, positively (eg. say ‘I want to arrive on time for classes’, not ‘I don’t want to be late’). For Spielberg to say “I don’t want to just have a labouring job” would not be enough. He needed to know positively what he wanted.

Let me show you something about how the brain works. Don’t think of a blue tree. Got that? Don’t think of a blue tree. Keep not thinking of a blue tree…..  Now, what are you thinking of ? Unless you first thought of the blue tree and then crossed it out or thought of another coloured tree, you’re thinking of a blue tree. If you want your brain to achieve your goal, the way to do it is to tell it what it will think of not what it won’t. If you tell it don’t get anxious, in order to understand what you’re saying it has to think about getting anxious. To get it to stop, you tell it “Do get relaxed.”

3. Ecological: Ecology is the study of consequences. What consequences will this goal have for other parts of your life? Ensure that all the parts of you can agree that this goal is appropriate. (‘I want to find ways to relax in the week before my exams’ may work better than ‘I want to forget about the exams’, for example.) Spielberg had to check several consequences of his decision to become a director and to stay at Universal Studios that summer After all, he’d usually be at the beach many of those days.

4. Choice Increasing: When people change successfully, they add new choices that are so successful that they wouldn’t bother with the old problem. A person giving up alcohol, for example, doesn’t just remove the choice of drinking; they need to add many new choices to support a life of sobriety.

5. Initiated by You: Describe how you will act, not how others will act.
Working out what you can actually do about a problem is a lot more enjoyable than developing theories about what someone else should do (eg. say ‘I want to find new ways to reply when my father criticises me’, rather man ‘I want my father to stop criticising me’).

6. First step identified: How many times have you heard a smoker tell you they’ll give up next year?
It’s a great goal, but what they need are small, achievable steps along the way. When someone sets a goal, I always ask them “What small first step will you take today?” Notice that Spielberg took action within 24 hours of his trip to Universal Studios!

Bearing in mind these principles (sensory specific, positive, ecological, choice increasing, initiated by self and first step identified) write 4 goals you have for this course, on page 1 of your manual.

To practice the goal setting further I’d like you to write 4 more goals, for your life in general, checking that they are sensory specific, positive, ecological, choice increasing, initiated by self and with a first step identified.

Mahatma Gandhi smiled. “The reason it took me three weeks to find the right words to say is very simple. You see, three weeks ago, I too ate imported sugar…. I knew the right words. But while I myself had not reached that goal, I could not say them the right way, with the passion that comes from achieving that goal myself.” Passion for your goals is contagious.