The Goal Kicker – March 2008 Edition

In this edition you’ll find:

• An article on “Using the expectant power of the brain to succeed”
• A review of “The Secret”
• A review of the book “The Power of Failure”, by Charles C. Manz
• A review of this month’s Featured Link to www.selfgrowth.com
• ToolBOX Talk – how to get the best out of the ’10 Year Heath Plan’
• Our inspirational quote of the month explained.

Sam Sander

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”Using the expectant power of the brain to succeed”

A positive attitude and self-belief as the secret of success is more than just motivational hype – it is a powerful phenomenon of the human brain. Find out about the expectant power of the brain and how you can use this to drive you to success.

Here’s the Article…

There are many examples of optimism and a positive attitude breeding positive outcomes - in sport, massive swings of power are determined by positive and negative emotions. The same exists in everyday experiences - but the scoreboard is not as defined.

Of course, blind optimism is dangerous too – and that’s where goal setting works. It gives you the direction and the plan to achieve your personal success, and combined with a little motivation and a positive attitude – there’s just no stopping you!

Think of goals as your destination, action plans as your road map and motivation and attitude as the fuel for your car. How does attitude make a difference?

Quite simply, if you believe in something enough – so it will be!

I’m sure you’ve all heard of the placebo effect – a doctor gives a patient a sugar pill, but tells them it’s a cure for their ailment. And what do you know, the patient gets better! Why? It’s not because sugar is a magical cure for everything, but it’s because the brain is so powerful, it can cure the body – but only if it believes it can.

This is known as the expectant power of the brain – if it expects an outcome, it will make that outcome happen. If your brain expects you to succeed – you will!

I remember writing a paper for a conference. There was a prize for the best paper and I initially thought to myself – I’m going to write the best paper and win that prize. So I wrote the paper. After presenting the paper at the conference, my confidence wavered – there were lots of good papers and mine just didn’t seem to stack up.

But despite my last minute jitters and doubts, my paper won – because I wrote the paper with a winning attitude [my doubt only crept in after it was all done and dusted].

So as far as I’m concerned – self-belief and a positive attitude really works!

But you need to REALLY believe – not just pretend to believe. You can’t trick your brain into expecting something if at the back of your mind you don’t think it will happen. You need to do more than just say it to yourself, you need to convince yourself – and this isn’t always easy to do.

And this is the secret of ‘The Secret’.

You may have heard of ‘The Secret’ – a system that guarantees you untold wealth and success. The system is based on the concept of the expectant power of the brain – believe and you will achieve!

More specifically, the system of ‘The Secret’ is:

Step 1: Ask – ask the “Universe” what you want. Whether it’s a promotion at work, a new house or even a better car park [as claimed by proponents of ‘The Secret’]. This step requires you to define exactly what you want.

Step 2: Believe – this is the crux of ‘The Secret’. You need to really and truly believe that you are going to get what you want. There’s no point pretending to believe to trick the universe [actually, your brain] into giving you what you want. You need to truly and honestly believe that this is going to happen.

Step 3: Receive – once you believe, then you will receive what you want!

But whether you believe the hype of ‘The Secret’ or not [I still can’t quite swallow being able to get a parking space using this system!], it does highlight the power of positive thinking and the expectant power of the brain – believe and you will receive!

And this power used in conjunction with a personal strategic plan for your success, which you can develop through the proven process of goal setting – is what will make you a success. For more information on how a positive attitude fuels your success, refer to the ”Attitude and Motivation” section under the ”Life Skills” tab on the NavBar.

Product of the Month – “The Secret”

You may remember the buzz surrounding “The Secret” – it has been marketed as and age old secret known only to a select few. The Secret of attracting abundance and wealth based on the law of attraction. Available as a 2 hour movie and a book, it sold over 500,000 copies in 6 months.

You can get your own copy of “The Secret” from the official website at “http://thesecret.tv/index.html” but you may be able to get it cheaper on Amazon as a book, DVD or downloadable video.

Even though there are many genuine success stories, there is still some scepticism over how “The Secret” can really be applied – can you really attract wealth just by visualising the balance of your bank account? Well, the promoters of “The Secret” say you can, but for logically minded people like me – I just can’t swallow it!

But I DO believe in the power of positive thinking and the expectant power of the brain – but in conjunction with good goal setting and planning. I am much more confident in believing in my success if I have a strategic action plan in place to achieve it!

And that’s where the Science of Getting Rich seminar series is a leap forward. This ‘sequel’ to “The Secret” is based on the fundamental concept of the law of attraction, but shows you HOW to apply it. This program is expensive, but there are some genuine success stories [and I mean tremendous success stories] using this system.

The Science of Getting Rich program is being hailed by success gurus and celebrities such as Oprah, Larry King and Ellen Degeneres, as a breakthrough in how people can empower themselves to success through using the law of attraction. And because this program actually shows you HOW to apply “The Secret” in your day to day life, it is having much more success than the original version.

Refer to the ”Software” and ”Systems” tabs on the NavBar for more reviews on other goal setting software and systems available.

Book of the Month – “The Power of Failure”, by Charles C. Manz

“The Power of Failure”, published in Australia in 2002 by Penguin Books and written by Charles C. Manz. Under the “”How to Achieve a Goal” tab on the NavBar, we talk about reviewing our goals and in particular about learning from our success and failures. This book provides simple discussion on this topic so that you can learn and adopt the pattern of success, and avoid the pattern of failure.

But more importantly, it encourages you to see ‘failure’ as something that shouldn’t be feared, but rather as an opportunity to learn and excel.

So if you are afraid of failure, or regularly make the same mistakes without learning from them, or just want to improve your skills in learning from your set-backs – then this book will help by giving you some real practical advice that you can apply.

You can pick up a copy of “The Power of Failure” from a good bookstore, or order it online from Amazon.

Featured Link of the month - www.selfgrowth.com

SelfGrowth promotes itself as an ‘Online Self Improvement and Self Help Encyclopaedia’. This site is certainly one of the most complete guides to information about Self -Improvement, Personal Growth and Self Help we’ve found on the internet.

The site also profiles self-help experts from around the world – nearly 3000 of them as of March 2008 - with links to the expert’s website for even more self-help information.

So as a seeker of information on success, achievement and other self-growth topics, the SelfGrowth website offers a wealth of information in the form of articles, inspirational quotes and through the discussion board forum. And if you can’t find what you’re looking for in the articles on forums, you can always try one of the many links to other self-help websites.

And if you have your own self-help website, SelfGrowth acts as a directory [with FREE URL submission], a site where you can upload your own self-help related articles and an opportunity to register as an ‘Expert’ and have your profile displayed on the site.

So next time you’re cruising online, check out www.selfgrowth.com .

ToolBOX Talk – how to get the best out of the ‘10 Year Health Plan’

The purpose of this plan is to give you a birds eye view of major health events in your life. More specifically, it can be used to record:

• Major illnesses or injuries – record what the illness or injury was? When did it occur? How long did it take to recover? What treatment was required including any hospitalisation, rehabilitation and medication required. This information is important in case there are future recurrences related to this injury or illness.
• Recurring illnesses and problems – if you notice recurring illnesses or problems such as regular bouts of tonsillitis, a gammy knee that plays up now and again or other niggling health issue, record when these occur and under what conditions they occur, so you can get a picture of the frequency and when you are most susceptible. This information can help your doctor with a diagnosis and treatment plan.
• Health alerts – these might just be little things that happen that you think may have a health impact in the future. Things like exposure to asbestos or chemicals, a holiday to an exotic location or an animal bite. Also record any family health problems that may be hereditary – for example if a parent or sibling develops cancer or a genetic disease.
• Lifestyle changes – changes in living location, working conditions and stress levels, and general environment can influence your health. You may not notice any changes straight away, which is why it’s worth noting any significant lifestyle changes on your health plan.
• Routine health checks and vaccinations – make a note on the health plan when you have a routine check-up [skin check, bowel cancer screen, breast/pap/prostate check, general health check] or vaccination boosters and more importantly, mark on the health plan when you are due for your next check-up or vaccination so you don’t forget.

This is particularly useful for your doctor in diagnosing ‘mystery’ illnesses and conditions [that hopefully you never get!] that may be related to historical events such as holidays in exotic locations.

Of course, a more detailed health plan may be beneficial if you start to notice recurring problems such as headaches, fatigue and the like. You can record exactly when and under what conditions these problems occur, which can be very helpful for your doctor in making a diagnosis.

For more information on looking after your health, refer to the “”Health Goals” tab on the NavBar.

Have you got a better goal setting tool that you’d like to share with the world? Well, send it in and we’ll add it to the ToolBOX – kudos to you of course!

Our Quote of the Month – explained…

Well the popular ending to this quote of the month is “….try and try again”. After all, it took Edison over 2000 attempts to design the incandescent light bulb so imagine where we would be if he had given up after his first or even 1000th failure!

The message here is don’t give up. NEVER. EVER.

But perhaps we should look at a better ending.

“If at first you don’t succeed - analyse, review, plan and re-try”. In other words, don’t keep trying the same old thing if the same old thing doesn’t work. Look at why your first attempt wasn’t successful, review your strategy, plan how to do it better and try again.

This process of ‘analyse, review, plan and re-try’ can be done over and over again (2000 times in the case of Edison and his light bulb) until you succeed.

Not sure how you can apply this principle? Checkout the ‘’Success/ Failure Analysis’ Tool in the ToolBOX– it gives you a step-by-step guide on how to do it - and how to learn the pattern of success through your experiences.

Also read the book review above on “The Power of Failure”, by Charles C. Manz.

But don’t worry, the next edition of “The Goal Kicker” is only a month away.

We would love to get your feedback on “The Goal Kicker”– what do you like? What don’t you like? - so we can make it even better.

Catch you next month!