Why was it so hard for me to get out of bed to exercise?  Why was I constantly making excuses to sleep in for an extra half an hour when I knew what I wanted to achieve?

And then I worked it out!  “Looking good” just wasn’t high enough on my list of values!  Instead I had things like “achievement”, “success”, and other such values.

So how did this help?

Well, I realised that I needed to do something that would not only be congruent with my list of values, but one that would give me a sense of achievement or success.

So I signed up to compete in a triathlon!  Eeeek!

In 72 days I will compete in my first ever triathlon!  I’m not in it to win it (although that would be nice), but to just complete it will bring me a great sense of achievement!

Finally I have found something that gives me reason to get out of bed and exercise!  I don’t feel like it’s a chore because I’m working towards something that I want to achieve.

So what can you do to help you acheive your goals?  What can you work towards so that it no longer seems like a chore?

The reason I think this is because achieving any goal, no matter how small it is, will give you some sense of achievement. As you gradually create bigger and better goals, you will begin to see some dramatic changes in your mindset too.

You will consider some challenges as “nothing” when once upon a time, the same challenges used to scare the life out of you! The standards you set for yourself improve too.

Setting goals and striving to achieve them is also a lot of fun! What is your biggest goal? What can you do each day to get you closer to your goal? How excited do you feel as you get closer?!

So if you have goals, when was the last time you reviewed them? (You have written them down, right?).

Sometimes as we go through life we kind of grow out of some of our goals, and that’s perfectly ok – as long as you replace them with new goals!

Set up a time over the next week to really focus on your goals and give them the attention they deserve – you will be glad you did!

If you’ve got some huge goals that you have absolutely NO idea how you’re going to achieve them, visit The Thrillionaires. This site is officially launching on August 24 (the date has changed, for anybody who has already taken a look) and it’s free to join.

The idea is to fill out your own goal list and then start living all of your wildest dreams.

Depending on what you want to do, the Thrillionaires community even helps you find the funding to pursue those dreams. People are joining all over the world–with incredible stories and achievements, so be sure to at least check it out and sign up for free.

On May 19 I came across a somebody called Barry Walls on the Warrior Forum (a forum for internet marketers). Somebody had started a thread that talked about her celebrating her success after being awarded $20 commission on a ClickBank sale. She had been working at it for 7 long months.

Most people responded with encouragement and congratulations, except Barry.

Barry wasn’t all that “congratulatory”! In fact, he said he could have worked in a third world country during that time and walked away with more money! This generated many harsh comments towards him, but I realised that he was 100% right in what he said. Ok, he didn’t have to be so harsh, but what he said was 100% true.

So many people work their butts off for very little reward, and he was simply pointing this out.

He went on to say was that he could teach her to make more than that (he even suggested up to $1000 per DAY!) within a few months. He even offered her FREE coaching!

She did not take him up on his offer. I, on the other hand, wanted to know more – a LOT more, so I contacted him.

I wanted to know what he had to offer. He told me what he had been coaching people face to face and they had all experienced amazing results. I wanted in, so asked him how much I could pay him to coach me.

He told me that he almost had ready an online version of his coaching program, and he’d offer me a discount if I was prepared to be a “guinea pig” so to speak, and to help him by offering feedback on each module as they came through.

My credit card was out within a millisecond and I got started! I was THAT desperate to lose my full time job and work from home, I was prepared to try anything that worked!

So I began the course, which taught me how to get work writing articles for other business owners. Prior to this I had been writing and submitting my own articles to article directories, and of course on my websites, so this wasn’t anything new, although I’d never written for somebody else before.

What I love about what I do now is the fact that I get to choose who I write for and therefore the type of writing I do, so many of my clients are fellow Life Coaches!

6 weeks after I began the course, I was making enough to quit my job. I was pretty well-paid before in my job, so to see these results in only 6 weeks – well, I’ve never experienced that before and I’ve done a lot of courses!

This post wasn’t supposed to be all about the course I’m doing though. It’s supposed to be about the goal I had written down only a few months ago.

I was extremely passionate about my goal because this goal was about life change for me. I no longer wanted to get up at 5am, work all day and go to bed at night without having the time or the freedom to spend with my children. They mean everything to me, and I was being deprived of my right to enjoy being with them!

We all have choices in life, and my choice was to take my life into my own hands and make some drastic changes. It took a long time, but it was so totally worth it.

My goal was to be working from home and making more money than I was in my job. At this point it didn’t matter how much more – I just wanted it to be more! The date I had written on my goal card was June 30.

I left my job on June 26! How good is THAT!!??

Now I truly believe that if I hadn’t written down my goal and wasn’t as specific as I was, then I really don’t know if Barry Walls and I would have crossed paths. If we did, I’m not sure I would have tracked him down and insisted that he coach me!

So whatever your goal, be specific and write it down, and be sure to give your goal a due date to generate a sense of urgency – you will be glad you did!

If you like to write and would like to know more about Barry’s course, visit http://use-sell.com/2/s81718/1512454ig/101847

Our lives are quickly passing us by and it is little wonder that tasks such as reviewing our goals get pushed aside but they are important, so must be treated as such!

So here’s something you can do over the next week or so.

Set aside one hour to review your goals. Are they still relevant? Are you on track? Have you achieved part or all of them? Do you think you could now achieve more? If so, modify your goal and make it more challenging!

Are there more things you want to achieve that you didn’t think of last time you sat down and looked at your goals? Write them down too!

There is no better way to improve your outlook on life than to have something to strive for. And once you get there, you also have that wonderful sense of achievement!

So reviewing your goals on a regular basis is definitely something you should do on a monthly or bi-monthly basis.

He has always been sporty (unlike myself!) and loves working out, going to the gym and keeping fit, so it was no surprise to me when he mentioned his goal. I wondered what had taken him so long!?

Becoming a qualified personal trainer is expensive and requires a lot of hard work, so today we set about finding a way to help him achieve this goal, and of course we did!

We found the best course for him and he will confirm tomorrow if he can do distance study and he is on his way!

Often when we have a goal that requires a large financial cost, we find we tell ourselves we “can’t afford it” or “it’s too much”. But if the goal is something you really want, then changing these words to something more like “how can I afford this?” or “what can I do to make this happen?” will definitely put a different spin on things.

You will also realise very quickly that just by changing how you look at situations like this, you automatically create alternatives for yourself. It’s amazing!

You really, really must want what it is you are working towards to get it.

Now think about this. If you’re not exactly clear about what you want, then how can you truly desire it?

So here’s what you need to do:

Go away and work out exactly what it is that you want.

Don’t say something like “A million dollars” because money is just a means to get what you want.

What would that million dollars get you? What kind of lifestyle would it give you? What could you do if you had that money?

What kind of life do you truly desire?

I think this is a great way to help you remain focused and I will personally go about changing my passwords this week! Yay!

Do you think this is something that could work for you??

Let me first go through the process I follow when I really want to achieve something:

• First I need to have a goal and I need to be pretty specific about it too
• I write my goal down, in the present tense (eg.  I write something like, "I am so happy and grateful now that I am doing whatever, each and every day"..)
• I visualise myself achieving that goal (I usually do this at night, just before I go to sleep)
• I summon up the feelings associated with achieving that goal (I also do this just before I go to sleep).  I usually have a smile on my face at this point in time! 
• I write in my grateful journal how happy I am to have achieved my goal, all the while summoning up those feelings (I pretend I have already achieved the goal while I am doing this)
• I really begin to believe I will achieve my goal
• Finally, I detach from the outcome.  More about this below.

Detaching can be a difficult concept to grasp but once you master it, amazing things start to happen.

All too often we want something so badly we obsess about it.  It’s all we think about, and we know we would be devastated if we didn’t get it.  Our life is consumed by this goal, and we find ourselves losing sleep over it.  What if I don’t achieve my goal???  ARGH!!!

There is a better way!

Remaining focused on your goal is definitely a good start.  You may meet obstacles on the way, but remaining focused on the end result will help you to deal with those obstacles.

Having 100% belief you will achieve that goal is also good.  But it’s also good to have a "Plan B".

At first, I thought this would be detrimental to my goal because it was like I was thinking I wouldn’t achieve it, so I resisted this for so long, but my experience tells me this is not the case!

For example, in 2006 when I was pregnant with my second child,  my husband and I wanted to buy a house.  Thanks to my former husband’s actions in previous years, our loan was rejected, and we ended up having to face several obstacles.

At this time I realised that I was absolutely obsessed with getting this house and I would be devastated if we didn’t. 

While I had the belief in my head that the house was ours, I also had this niggling worry that the sky would fall in if we didn’t get it.

I decided to look at rental properties with air conditioning (long story, but I HAD to have air conditioning!) and found quite a few that would suit us if for some reason we did not get our loan.  I realised then that I would be ok with the outcome of our loan application, regardless of what it was – I had my Plan B in place if everything went pear-shaped.  In fact, I just wanted an answer and I really didn’t care what it was!

The following day we were approved.

So you see?  As soon as I was able to detach from the outcome, I stopped being obsessed by it and therefore the negative feelings I had around it disappeared and my goal was able to be achieved.

Has anything like this happened to you or someone you know?

It has taken me four years but I’ve finally done it!  I set the goal to get my qualification back in 2005 and I didn’t quite get there by my due date, but I continued to believe I would get there, and I did.

Achieving this goal has really given me a sense of accomplishment. Achieving your goals – especially long term ones – can also really give your self confidence a boost. 

I’m feeling on top of the world right now, so I am living proof that this is true!

What are your long term goals?

I’m not feeling nervous, which is surprising – I expected to be, but maybe I’ll start to feel a bit nervous in the morning.

I can’t wait to get this over with – I will feel like a weight has been lifted off my shoulders, but more importantly I will feel a huge sense of accomplishment.

It’s been four long years! Wish me luck!