The Goal Kicker – May 2009

Welcome to this month’s edition of “The Goal Kicker” – the monthly ezine produced by achieve-goal-setting-success.com - dedicated to helping you achieve your goals by providing goal setting related articles and reviews of the latest goal setting products available.

In this edition you’ll find:

• An article on “Take this Job and Love it!.”
• A review of two available training programs for “Emotional Intelligence”
• A review of the book “End your story begin your life”, by Jim Dreaver
• A review of this month’s Featured Link to www.businessballs.com
• ToolBOX Talk – how to get the best out of the ’Career Evaluation’ tool
• Our inspirational quote of the month explained.

And don’t forget that you can inspire others to achieve just by telling YOUR story of success or lessons learnt from a life experience.

Yours truly,

Sam Sander
Achieve Goal Setting Success
Your Money and Finance
The Success Squid

Have you downloaded your FREE gift for subscribing to “The Goal Kicker”? If not, please download and enjoy your FREE copy of “How to Make your Dreams Come True" by Don Loyd as a thank you for subscribing to our newsletter. As part of this subscription we also issue a mid-month mini-newsletter – “The Goal Kicker: Hot Topics”. This mid-month issue is part of the same subscription as the monthly “Goal Kicker” and will include a short punch-list of new releases, new websites and refreshers on a range of success topics.

”Take this job and love it!”

We’ve all hear the saying “Take this job and shove it!”, well we challenge you to embrace the 7 P’s of a successful career as outlined in this article so you can say “Take this job and LOVE it!”.

Here’s the Article…

We’ve all heard of the 7 P’s of planning – Prior Planning and Preparation Prevents P$#% Poor Performance. Well, these are the 7 P’s of career development:

1. Purpose – what is your purpose in life? Know yourself, be yourself and value yourself. And most importantly, invest in yourself and lever off your personal strengths to launch into your career.

A career built off your strengths will develop more rapidly than a career that demands you use your weaknesses. You can still improve on your weaknesses, but use your strengths as a catalyst for success!

2. Passion – what is your passion? Find it and live it. And passion isn’t power, possessions or prestige, it’s about ‘being’ and ‘doing’. And if you do something you love, you’ll never work a day in your life – but you’ll still be rewarded with a successful career and an enviable life. You want to be able to say, “Take this job and love it!”

3. Perspective – it’s all about attitude. As Zig Ziglar puts it, “It’s your attitude, not your aptitude, that determines your altitude.

The brain is an amazing thing and you can ‘trick’ it into making you succeed just by the power of positive thinking. Many successful people swear by the use of positive affirmations or self-hypnosis as a way of training your brain for success.

You have probably heard of the placebo effect – an example of this is when a doctor gives a patient sugar pills, but tells them it’s a cure for their ailment. And what do you know, the patient gets better! And no, sugar isn’t the cure-all solution for all ailments – this is an example of how your brain can take control of your body just by the power of positive thinking. If your brain expects something to happen, it happens.

So if you want to be successful, expect success - and it will come.

4. Planning – of course, nothing comes if you don’t prepare a plan. Afterall, the end result of any goal setting process is a step-by-step plan of how you are going to achieve your goal. It’s the same for career development goals.

And include goals that will stretch you and get you out of that comfort zone, as well as the nice easy to achieve goals that keep you heading in the right direction and give you those little wins along the way.

But it is the ‘stretch’ goals that will make the difference between a good career and an outstanding career. Take risks and don’t be afraid to try something new.

5. Performance - you need to perform. You need to be the best you can be, by keeping yourself skilled-up with appropriate training and delivering on your commitments.

Thrive on performance reviews and project specific feedback and use this information to leap-frog your career, by levering off your strengths and identifying relevant weaknesses that need work.

6. Perseverance and Persistence – many of the world’s inspirational success stories are examples of perseverance in the face of adversity. Albert Einstein, one of the greatest minds in modern times, was told by is schoolteacher that he’d never amount to anything. Read the tab on Successful People for other tales of triumph through persistence. Don’t give up, just because the road ahead of you isn’t well lit or is taking you into unfamiliar territory. Take the detours around those roadblocks if they still keep you heading in the right direction, but also know when you’ve taken a wrong turn and don’t be afraid to ask for directions.

7. Priorities - careers can be made or lost depending on how you prioritise your work tasks as well as your career development tasks. Avoid tasks that are just not important to do, and prioritise tasks that are important first.

So embrace these principles and tell your boss – “Take this job and LOVE it!”

For more information on what makes a successful career, click on the ”Career Goals” tab on the NavBar.

We’re also getting some career related stories from our readers. I recommend ”Straight talk for success” - it gives a concise overview of the critical factors for having a successful career.

Product of the Month – “EQ Training Programs”

And if you’re a manager or team leader in any function and you’re serious about implementing emotional intelligence in your team, then check out these training videos. They are a bit more costly than other DVD’s available, but they are worth it because they aren’t BORING!

And as adults, we all learn best when we are motivated, interested and have a reason for learning. These training videos set the perfect training environment and make EQ interesting and fun. Your team will be practicing EQ in no time!

There are two training programs available:

BRAINS! Harnessing the Power of Emotional Intelligence

NO MORE BORING TRAINING VIDEOS!

How Does Hollywood Teach Emotional Intelligence? BRAINS! excites, entertains, and engages your group as they learn. Just as emotional intelligence is an important part of everyday life, it's present in the movies, television, and historical figures we've all come to know. Viewers discover practical strategies for building EQ that come to life right before their eyes.

BRAINS! Helps people with…

• Self-awareness
• Decision making and planning
• Efficiency and time management
• Customer service and positive attitude
• Communication and interpersonal skills

The complete kit includes reusable training resources for 10 participants, including:

• BRAINS! Video on VHS and DVD
• Leader Guide and Handouts
• PowerPoint Presentation
• 10 Reminder bookmarks
• 10 Brain stress balls
• 10 Flashing lapel pins
• Signed copy of the Emotional Intelligence Quickbook

Follow reporter Gabe Garrett as he investigates Emotional Intelligence (EQ) in the workplace. Daily Show meets The Office approach; corny humor teaches the principles of EQ. You will giggle and actually might learn something about yourself or your crazy co-workers.

This DVD borrows from a 'Jon Stewart'-like news format and entertains as well as educates. It's very easy to watch and leaves you with some great information to help understand the basis of EQ and how it can be put to work in any organization. I've seen other training videos - all BORING - but this one sets a new standard.

So if you’re REALLY serious about EQ, then check out these great training programs. You’ll find more EQ resources including DVD’s in the Library.

Book of the Month – “End Your Story Begin Your Life”, by Jim Dreaver

If you would like to be more productive, feel great as you get your most important tasks done, and spend more time with your family, your hobbies, or simply enjoying your life, without having to pay a fortune to go to an expensive seminar, then this e-book is definitely for you.

This book teaches you step-by-step everything you need to do to manage your time better.

‘End Your Story Begin Your Life’ by Jim Dreaver is an inspiring, life-transforming guide to the depth of inner freedom that is also known as awakening, enlightenment, or self-realization.

Through his words and his presence on every page, Dreaver invites you to shift from the limited perspective of the ego, of “me, myself, and my story,” to experiencing the whole of life from the global perspective that is your true nature.

You have a story, in other words, yet you are not your story. What you are is the spacious, all-seeing awareness, the luminous consciousness, which sees , which creates the stories, and which is reading these words right now.

In this book you will discover the revolutionary practice that allows you to step back with your awareness and gain an immediate sense of release from stress, anxiety, and tension. You will also learn to…

• Experience a deep sense of peace and well-being that shines on its own, that doesn’t depend on beliefs, circumstances, or conditions of any kind.
• Find your identity in being itself, in the beauty, love, and creative energy that is your real nature.
• Tap into your true purpose and use the power of thought and intention to accomplish it.
• Honor your desires, feelings, and emotions without being controlled by them, and without creating any story or drama around them.
• Learn to welcome problems, challenges, and setbacks as opportunities for growth and learning.
• Live in increasing gratitude for the gifts, blessings, and lessons that come your way.

You can pick up a copy of “End Your Story Begin Your Life” from the author’s website.

Featured Link of the month - www.businessballs.com

The site specifically includes a lot of information on human resource development including team building [lots of team building games and activities and ice breakers], personality profiling and theories on learning styles and personal development. The site can be a little difficult to navigate because there is just so much stuff on it, but there is a Google ‘Search the site’ function which makes it a lot easier.

There’s also a sub-domain called ‘Business Space’, which allows like-minded people to share their thoughts of the business world and upload business/ career development resources to share – you’ll find some of our resources in ‘Business Space’, under the profile called ‘goal-setting-succes’ [yes, I know I spelt it incorrectly!].

There doesn’t appear much in the way of censorship in Business Space, and there are some profiles that aren’t business related – like the one called ‘Male Strippers’. But for the most part, there are some very interesting profiles and resources in this space.

So BusinessBalls.com is definitely worth a look, if you’ve got some time to cruise!

ToolBOX Talk – how to get the best out of the ‘Career Evaluation Tool’

In the section on “”Career Tools” you’ll find a Career Evaluation Checklist. The purpose of this tool is to evaluate your current career and give you guidance as to whether you are progressing your career as planned – or are you in a rut?

Like other life aspects, achieving success in your career relies on you stepping out of your comfort zone and stretching your boundaries. So career development relies on setting yourself stretch goals and preparing a plan to achieve those goals.

Now, back to the Career Evaluation Tool.

By providing prompts to trigger your self-evaluation of your career, this Tool will guide you through the critical aspects of your career and how it’s progressing, including:

• How this job fits into your passion or your dream career
• How this job plays a part of your career advancement – or doesn’t it?
• Are you in a career or job rut? Are you being challenged?
• How your skills are developing
• How your job is making the most of your strengths and strengthening your weaknesses

The one thing this tool eludes to, but doesn’t have a prompt for, is where do you go from here – and this really is the whole point of doing this evaluation. From the tool, you’ll have a great snap-shot of your current career status, so it’s now a matter of working out a course of action.

• Do you need to move on from this job/ role or career to stretch your comfort zone?
• Do you need to get more out of your current job/ career?
• Do you need to expose your self to more opportunities within your current job/ career, or an you only get this from moving on?
• Do you need to make better use of your strengths, either in this job or a new one?
• Do you need to work on any weaknesses that may be holding you back or putting you at risk?

So the message here is don’t just do the evaluation and file it with the last one you did. Once you’ve completed the Career Evaluation Tool make it work for you and your career advancement by preparing an action plan for where YOU go from here.

So give this tool a go and see where your career is – what are the 3 most important actions to come out of your evaluation?

For more information on looking after your career, refer to the “”Career 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…

I heard this on a TV advertisement for a financial institution, and it is quite a snappy little quote for summing up two important aspects of goal setting.

Firstly, it implies that you need to intend on becoming something – you need to have a vision, a dream, a desire – the something that YOU want to be. And this can be several things – a family man/ woman, successful career executive, elite sportsman – whatever is YOUR desire.

It can also be what you plan to become tomorrow, next week, next year or by the end of your lifetime [what will be on your tombstone] – so represents the goals you want to achieve in life and along the way.

But whatever you plan to become, it needs to be what YOU want to become, although it will involve other people along the way.

The second aspect of goal setting that this quote reinforces is the need to PLAN. It’s great having a vision of what you want to become or achieve, but unless you have an achievable PLAN – you just aren’t going to get there.

And for a plan to be effective, it needs to include:

• Specific action items – WHAT you need to do and HOW are you going to do it.
• A deadline – WHEN are you going to complete each action item – and make sure it’s realistic. If you don’t set a deadline, it will just get put off for another day.
• A measurement system – you need to be able to measure your goals so that you know when you’ve achieved them. A goal without a defined finish point will never be achieved.
• Resources required – what do you need to achieve your goals? Time, money, information, support, etc. Work out what you need and where you can get it from.

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.