Sign up for Sharon’s free weekly Ezine Unlimited Success For Women and have professional success strategies and personal development how-to’s sent directly to your email inbox.

If you’re ready to recognize what may be holding you back and to seriously build on your strengths and talents, you’re ready to coach with Sharon Michaels. “I believe you have the answers to your success inside of you right now, it is my job to ask the right questions. I ask great questions!” Here are details about Sharon’s coaching programs: http://www.sharonismymentor.com

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Sounds simple enough yet I’ve found focus can become one of the toughest obstacles to goal achievement. A key question in goal achievement becomes: Why do we lose focus and end up losing interest in achieving our goals? 

Logically we know we need to accomplish those things that will keep us growing, paying the bills, heading toward the future and giving us motivation to keep going forward day-to-day. Why then, do so many of us lose interest in working a well-thought out plan that can take us step-by-step toward what we want? 

American Heritage Dictionary defines focus as: Close or narrow attention; concentration. 

• When I think of focus and concentration I think of giving a task my “undivided attention.”  In order to give something undivided attention it has to be important and be of value. If you’re not achieving goals then ask yourself, “How important is this task or goal to me personally, professionally, emotionally or spiritually?”

• I believe we also lose concentration when we are not focused on the emotional “payoff” of achieving the goal. It’s difficult to work on a goal for an extended period of time if we can’t imagine the joy or satisfaction of completing it. Could this inability to experience satisfaction stem from not feeling deserving of achieving and enjoying your goal?

• Then there are some on us who seem to thrive on the disorganization and drama of making goal setting and achieving an emotionally draining experience. Why the drama? It’s almost as if feeling uncomfortable and stressful about going forward has become an acceptable comfort zone.

I’m not criticizing – I’m just asking you to take a look at why you may be losing focus when it comes to working day-to-day, week-to-week and month-to-month on achieving your goals. 

Here’s the goal setting/achieving bottom line: It’s a fact of life that every day you’re going forward toward the next day, the next month and the next year. You have choices, you can either go forward with some control and direction or you can wander around without a plan and see where you end up. 

Working toward your goals gives you some control over the direction you’re taking and the outcomes you’re expecting. I’ve found a key to goal achieving is focusing on the outcome, the “prize” at the end of the journey. Stay focused on what you want and why you want it. That laser-beam focus will see you through and help make goals reality.

Copyright © 2009 Sharon Michaels – All Rights Reserved

For over twenty years Sharon Michaels has been writing, speaking and empowering women to achieve greater personal and professional success. Sharon mentors/coaches women entrepreneurs about learning to recognize the things they’re doing that may be keeping them from the things they want.

Sign up for Sharon’s free weekly Ezine Unlimited Success For Women and have professional success strategies and personal development how-to’s sent directly to your email inbox. 

If you’re ready to recognize what may be holding you back and to seriously build on your strengths and talents, you’re ready to coach with Sharon Michaels. “I believe you have the answers to your success inside of you right now, it is my job to ask the right questions. I ask great questions!” Here are details about Sharon’s coaching programs: http://www.sharonismymentor.com

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Here are seven reasons I’ve found that people may be reluctant to set goals – do you have more to add: 

1. Many people are afraid they will let themselves or someone else down. They don’t like to be disappointed nor have someone disappointed with them. 

2. They are unsure of how things will change if their goals do become reality. 

3. Unconsciously they do not feel they are worthy and deserving of achieving and enjoying the rewards of their goal(s) becoming reality. 

4. They are emotionally uncomfortable with success and succeeding. 

5. They emotionally feel that achieving goals takes too much time and effort and the payoff is not worth it. Emotionally they see more pain in achieving goals than pleasure and gain. 

6. They believe either unconsciously or consciously that if they succeed, someone else has to fail or lose. They see the pie of abundance getting smaller, not larger. 

7. They don’t want to make a commitment to the future. Many people have a difficult time making a commitment to a task or plan and staying with it until completion. 

Many of us view success as an emotional and physical struggle. Success doesn’t have to be a struggle. Goals are simply motivational guideposts toward the future. 

Those are seven of my thoughts – what would you like to add or comment on? Please add your comments below. We look forward to hearing from you.

Copyright © 2009 Sharon Michaels – All Rights Reserved

For over twenty years Sharon Michaels has been writing, speaking and empowering women to achieve greater personal and professional success. Sharon mentors/coaches women on learning to recognize the things they’re doing that may be keeping them from the things they want.

Sign up for Sharon’s free weekly Ezine Unlimited Success For Women and have professional success strategies and personal development how-to’s sent directly to your email inbox. 

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In fact, goals scare me. I feel if I don’t achieve my goals, I’m a loser. Some people see goals as motivating but I see them as stress producing. Any suggestions? 

In my coaching/mentoring I hear this quite a bit – goals create stress and pressure instead of motivation and excitement for the future. 

Stress is often created by placing unrealistic expectations on yourself. It’s not the goals creating the stress, it’s the emotional expectations you’ve created about achieving goals. 

Here are a few suggestions: 

1. Set a short-term goal that has significant meaning to you. Choose a goal that can be completed within the next six-months. Choose something that is realistic within this timeframe. Example: Change eating habits to make sure you have a healthy breakfast before leaving the house or, clean out and organize the hall closet or, attend at least three new networking events to promote business —- see what I mean. 

2. Take out your calendar and schedule a date to begin working on your goal. Let’s take the closet as an example: Schedule every other Saturday morning for two to three months for cleaning out “junk” and then several Saturday’s after that for organizing and arranging the closet. The key – break your goal into bite-sized realistic and doable pieces. 

3. Make an emotional and physical commitment to completing your goal! Goals are not achieved if you’re not committed 100% to making them reality. Your goal has to be important enough that you’re willing to commit time, energy and money to making it reality. On a scale of 1 – 10, ask yourself how important is this goal? Why is it important? How will achieving this goal change life for the better? 

4. Who can support you and hold you accountable? I’m not talking about someone who will guilt or shame you into achieving goals – I’m talking about someone who will support you in achieving goals. Accountability is often an important element to goal achievement. Who will support you with encouragement and want to hear your updates? 

5. How will you celebrate when your goal is complete? The human mind loves rewards! When the unconscious mind believes success is fun, it wants to achieve more successes. As part of setting a goal it is important to visualize how you’ll celebrate its completion. How will the clean closet look each time you open the door? How will you feel when you can find things easily and effortlessly? The key is to paint a vivid picture of success in your mind’s eye of how life will be “better” when your goal is reality.

Start small and work up to long-term goals. Give yourself one goal achieving victory at a time. Eliminate the stress and make room for success!

Copyright © 2009 Sharon Michaels – All Rights Reserved

For over twenty years Sharon Michaels has been writing, speaking and empowering women to achieve greater personal and professional success. Sharon mentors/coaches women on learning to recognize the things they’re doing that may be keeping them from the things they want. Sign up for Sharon’s free weekly Ezine Unlimited Success For Women and have professional success strategies and personal development how-to’s sent directly to your email inbox.

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Watch my video and then take a look at some of the resources I’ve compiled for you – here’s to your success!

Here’s video 4 in our 4 part series on How To Create A Goals Vision Board:

Additional Resources -

** Computer Generated Vision Boards:

I’d like to recommend a company called Visualize Your Goals/Orange Peel – I’ve used this company to make the vision board on my own computer for a couple of years – you can even add your favorite music. Here’s a direct link: Visualize Your Goals/Orange Peel

**Articles I’ve written about Vision Boards:

Why Create A Vision Board – A Vision Board is a powerful and effective way to formulate, articulate and clarify your goals. Vision Boards help to picture the who, what, where, why and how of setting and achieving your goals. There’s an unstoppable power of purpose that comes from clearly visualizing the future. Click here to read the entire article – http://www.bellaonline.com/articles/art15387.asp

Vision Boards – Picturing Success – The human mind thinks in pictures. Everday we visualize the world as it is and how we perceive it to be. Vision Boards direct your mental motion pictures toward the positives in life. Think of a Vision Board as your personal storyboard of the wants and goals for the future. Click here to read the entire article – http://www.bellaonline.com/articles/art52735.asp

** Books:

The Vision Board – The Secret To An Extraoridinary Life by Joyce Schwarz – This isn’t just another book about making a vision board; this is a textbook about using vision boards, mission statements, affirmations and visioning to live an extraordinary life.

This book is visually beautiful. Full color illustrations and photographs on every page. It’s also very reader friendly – room for notes, bullet points to help sort through the content, plenty of real-life success stories and well placed side bars of tips and quotations.

It really doesn’t matter if you are a novice or have been creating a vision board for years, this book is a must read. I highly recommend!!! Here’s a direct link to Amazon.com if you’d like to read more or to purchase this book:

Copyright © 2009 Sharon Michaels – All Rights Reserved

For over twenty years Sharon Michaels has been writing, speaking and empowering women to achieve greater personal and professional success. Sharon mentors women on learning to recognize the things they’re doing that may be keeping them from the things they want. Sign up for Sharon’s free weekly Ezine Unlimited Success For Women and have professional success strategies and personal development how-to’s sent directly to your email inbox.

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