Jack Canfield on Goals and Purpose

I'm part of a network of Coaches across Europe called Eurocoach. Mostly the discussions are from Coaches from UK and Ireland. It's also a great go to place and rich in discussion and Learning. A great guy called Martin Goodyear shares his blog posts and I want to acknowledge his as the source of this by offering a link to his website: www.martingoodyer.com. Last week's video was also from his site. Jack Canfield is well known as the "Chicken Soup for the Soul" guy. I'd not heard him speak before and this video is a short clip from a talk he gave on Goals and linking that to our on Purpose. He's also linked to "The Secret" (a book I possess but have to admit have not yet read). What he says makes a lot of sense.




The Video clip is powerful as it offers simple pointers under 3 headings:

- Ask, Believe, Receive. The focus of the Video segment is on "ASK"
Firstly, he suggests to take stock of the things we want to change ad be mindful of the language. Focus on the positives. What you want not what you don't want. We attract what we think about. The practical step I liked was to make what he calls an "Irritation List". List all the things that annoy you, big and small. Start with the SMALL stuff and get it cleared...Why...? This is powerful, if you clear the small stuff you don't settle for seeing it not done. If you get the small stuff done you'll get to the bigger stuff. Do the small stuff regularly and monthly or quarterly attack the bigger stuff. Your horisons widen and you gain momentum. That IS insightful.

Then, list the 101 Goals you want to achieve in your lifetime. Then break into smaller, closer goals this year, this month this quarter etc. Make them SPECIFIC and MEASURABLE. I want to book a family holiday for last week of October. "I want to lose 5K by September 30th" etc. Beware, vague inputs = vague outputs. There are 7 categories that we can put Goals into and most of these are familiar.

The final piece I really liked was this exercise is about getting clear on the "WHAT" you want to achieve. This lies at the heart of "PURPOSE". Once we're clear on these things and have put some actions in place to make them happen, the Universe works alongside us to make the "HOW" happen. These are the nice coincidences, the serendipitous things, the unlikely occurrences that visit and enrich our lives. I see that as payback for taking the time and effort to become clear and committed to what's most important to us and how we can make our best contribution with the gifts and talents we have.

This impressed me more than I expected and it offers a neat and easy to apply framework to make this happen.

Your views on this topic would be very welcome.