Think about it : When you go on holiday abroad and I was to ask you a few questions such as:

Where are you going?

France

Where about in France?

Paris

What hotel?

Hotel De Crillon

Who are you going with?

My wife and two children

What Airline are you using?

American Airlines

Where are you flying from?

JFK

What time is your flight?

2pm

etc etc etc

When you go on holiday you are totally confident about where you are going to.  You don’t necessarily know what’s going to happen when you get there, or if there are going to be delays, but no matter what, you are booked on a trip and you know exactly where you are going.

Why don’t we do this in life?

Book a goal and just go there.  It doesn’t matter how you get there, but just be confident that you will get there.  Don’t worry about it being realistic, just book it and starting walking toward it.

This is not another motivational article saying ‘dream big, visualise, see it in your mind and it will manifest itself’.  This is an article about being confident that you are going to reach your goal.

When I coached a client recently and asked them what they want to do in life, I got back the answer: I would love to be an artist.  I asked them if they had painted anything and he advised he had, I then congratulated him on becoming an artist.  Somewhat confused he said he hadn’t sold any of his work so he is not an artist.  ‘Ah’ I said, so you don’t want to be an artist, you want to be someone who gets paid for their artwork? Isn’t that what all artists want? ‘Not necessarily’ I replied, artists paint because they love to paint, they don’t necessarily need the recognition for them to be confident about their artwork.  He replied he wanted to be recognised as a great artist.  I asked him, recognised by who? An art critic who has never painted in his life or by someone who doesn’t recognise the meticulous brush strokes he used when creating his artwork only for them to buy it because it would go well with their bedroom colour scheme.

If you want to be an artist, paint a picture and call yourself an artist and brush up on your skills whilst painting more pictures (pardon the pun )

If you want to be a writer, write a book and call yourself the author of (fill in the blank) and keep writing because you love to.

If you want to ride in the Tour De France, get of your arse, start peddling and make it happen

The need to over (everything), it

We have this need sometimes, to over analyse things and put barriers in our way.  If you have a goal in life all you need to do is be confident about your goal, know, within yourself, why you are doing it, get passionate about it and keep your eye on the goal at all times.

Deal with the hurdles as they turn up, but don’t create the hurdles before they turn up,

Deal with the stress when it arises, but don’t create the stress before you get there,

Listen to others opinions about your goals, but don’t let the opinions put you off,

Deal with what you will do when you get there, when you get there, but don’t analyse what you will do before you get there, as you will never get there.

Don’t stop to think about it, go with the flow whilst your goal is hot and passionate and turn your ‘I’m going to……’ into ‘I am….’

If you don’t take action, you will regret it, whatever it is you need to take action for. You are someone who is filled with the get up and go to change your life in so many fantastic ways if only you would get up and do something about it.

Here are 8 ways you can get up and take action:

Wipe the slate clean – If you have too many projects on the go, clear them all and start from scratch. When you have wiped the slate clean, concentrate on thing at a time until it’s finished and then move onto the next. If you can’t clear everything, just drop them temporarily, concentrate on one thing until it’s finished and then move on. You will find you move a lot quicker through everything you need to get done.

List everything – Make a list of everything you would like to do, whether it be cleaning the house to taking the dog a walk. Write it down.

Prioritise – Pick the most important thing you have to do for the day, or week or year, and then pick the next most important thing and so on until you have reached the bottom off your list.

Eliminate distraction – No I don’t mean kill your partner! Eliminate the things you do from day to day that distracts you from taking action for example TV, books, computer. When you eliminate distractions, your mind wants something to do and this makes you more inclined to take action on the things you want or need to do.

Take a day off – Maybe a bit contradictory this one. It’s a simple piece of advice but one that is hard to do. Just take a whole day off, the world will still turn, the work will get done and nobody will die because you are not there. You will come back refreshed and ready to take action again which means you will be a lot more productive than you would have been should you have kept going.

Clear the clutter – Clearing the clutter, whether it be from your desk, your house, or your wardrobe. When there is clutter in your life there is clutter in your mind, clearing the clutters clears your mind.

Analysis paralysis – This is the term given to people who are analysing things too much and it keeps them from moving on. Stop analysing and just do it. There comes a time when you have to stop evaluating something and just bite the bullet and do it, if it doesn’t work out do something else and start again.

Change the narrator of your thoughts – Do your thoughts predominantly sound like Elmer Fud on dope; ‘Yeah, I have to get up but I can’t be arsed, I’ll do it tomorrow’. Change Elmer Fud to someone who gets you going, someone who can motivate you into doing something. It can be anybody from your best mate to your wife or a film star, anybody as long as they can motivate you. This can be quite amusing and the results can be great.

Why has nothing happened for you?

Simply put, you’re too lazy to do anything about your personal development. There I’ve said it. I can hear screams of reluctance and abuse at me now, but it doesn’t matter, you’re only fooling yourself and you know who you are.

Therefore, for 2008 I would like to present the GOYA method for personal development.

No, it’s nothing to do with Francisco Goya or surfing. GOYA is an acronym for:

Get Off Your Arse!

To do something, anything, you have to take action, to take action you have to get off your arse first and make a start. That’s what this article is about.

I don’t want to hear whines, excuses, or anything else just read this through and then GOYA.

Getting to the stage of SOYA

A lot of us will have gotten to the stage of SOYA (Sitting On Your Arse) at some point in our lives. Indeed it’s good to have a bit SOYA time but too much can lead to a permanent state of SOYA and your arse gets flatter with all the sitting, the only exercise you get is flicking the remote and eating those packets of cheese and onion crisps. The younger SOYA’s among you will get a little more exercise with the Nintendo Wii and PS3 and Xbox 360s but you’re still at the SOYA stage and need to GOYA more before your life becomes a virtual world and soon the Matrix will have you.

For those of us on board the Nebucadnezzar it is still useful to read this just for a little jolt.

For those of you who don’t think you’re at the SOYA stage of life answer these questions:

1. Is your Arse permanently flat?
2. Does it take you about half an hour before you can walk properly getting off your couch?
3. Do you make old man noises when you get off the couch?
4. Do you make old man noises when you go to sit on the couch?
5. Do you have some goals that involve GOYA?

If you answered yes to any of the questions above it’s time for some GOYA.

GOYA in action

There are at least two voices inside you at any one time. One voice saying ‘take the easy option just turn the TV on and SOYA’ and the other, less dominant voice, saying ‘come on, I need some GOYA time’.

The trick to getting off your arse is making the GOYA voice more dominant than the SOYA voice.

Quick Exercise

I want you to think back to a time, recently, where you were in two minds to go and do something but instead elected to stay in bed or sit on the couch and watch TV. For example, you need to get up and tidy the house but instead you stayed in bed or watched TV or read your book. What did the little GOYA voice sound like inside your head, if you can’t remember listen for it next time. The SOYA voice sounds like MR T ‘Sit on your ass fool, ain’t nobody gonna clean the house’ and the GOYA voice sounds like Mickey Mouse on Helium ‘Oh shucks, that’s a shame coz the house needs a good clean’.

Listening for the SOYA and GOYA voice

You will soon begin to hear the little voices whenever you have to do something. Recognising them is the first stage and when you hear them, it will be a revelation. Now when I say hear them you don’t literally hear them you hear them in your head. You might not think they are there but they definitely are. Any time you have to do something they are there.

The next stage is switching the voices around.

This can be tricky at first but when you do it once it becomes very easy all the other times and you will see a dramatic difference in your life. Now I know I am being a bit tongue in cheek here but I do mean this. When you switch the voices and use the SOYA voice for the GOYA voice i.e. MR T voice is now the GOYA voice and Mickey Mouse on Helium is the SOYA voice you will see an amazing difference in your productivity, you exercise routine, everything you need the GOYA voice for.

Another exercise for today

To try this method out try hearing the new GOYA voice telling you what to do whenever you are procrastinating about something. Obviously, it doesn’t have to be MR T’s voice but you want a commanding voice, have a little fun with it. Eventually the voice will be your own voice and you begin to do things you have been putting off.

List a few things you could do today and listen to the voice and GOYA and do them.

Have a fantastic New Year.

All there is for me to say is good luck and let me know the successes you have with this method. I hope you have a fantastic New Year and I look forward to speaking with you in 2008.