Some Examples of a Purpose:
• To add value to others
• To wake people up
• To encourage people
• To lead others to spiritual maturity
• To be wealthy
• To advance the gospel
• To help the less fortunate
• To be healthy
• To be happy
• To feed the hungry

Some Examples of Goals:
• Finances: To earn $100,000 a year; to become a millionaire; to retire by age 40
• Physical Health: To reduce my weight to 175; to lose 5 inches around my waist
• Relationships: To go on two dates a month with my spouse, to attend one social function every other week
• Career: To get promoted to sales manager in two years; to finish college; to go back to school
• Spiritual: To pray every day; to go to church every week
• Possessions: To buy a new home by the end of next year; to buy a black Lexus LS460

A goal is a precise, measurable outcome that you wish to attain; it has a specific beginning, middle and end. Goals have deadlines. That is one of the main distinctions between a goal and a purpose. Deadlines are important because when we don’t commit to a deadline, we tend to procrastinate.

What would happen if Christmas Day wasn’t on a calendar? What would happen if you were told to just have Christmas every year when you could fit it in your schedule? Can you image how messed up the holidays would be? Instead, a wonderful holiday happens every year because December 25 is a firm deadline on the calendar. You should do the same with your goals.

Finally, the object is not to go to your goals, but rather for your goals to take you to your dreams or purpose. A purpose is less specific. It may have intangible aspects to it and therefore is not always as easy to measure. It can be an ongoing and unfolding intention or desire. It will almost always encompass specific goals, but a purpose in and of itself has no end. It continues unless you modify it or decide to change it completely. The biggest indicator of a purpose is that it is tied to the service of others. If it does not serve others, then it is not actually a purpose and is simply a goal.

I think goal setting has gotten so much hoopla over the years that a lot of people no longer take it seriously. I think the main reason for this is most people don’t really understand what they’re doing when they set goals. As a result, they don’t think goal setting is important.
If you simply think of setting goals (destinations) as programming your GPS, you may have a different perspective on the importance of goal setting as a practice in your life.

For instance, if you had to figure out how to navigate to a strange address in a big city, wouldn’t you program the GPS? Would you say, “Oh, I know what my goal is, I don’t need to write it down”? No way. The act of programming the destination is simple but critical to get the “universal GPS of your mind” to calculate your route.

You should view goal setting in much the same way. If you’re one of those people who never fill out worksheets or set goals, that may tell you something about why you haven’t reached some of your destinations by now. You haven’t arrived where you want to be or something in your life isn’t going as you’d like.

Surely, it can’t be as simple as writing things down, can it?
Well, I won’t say that it’s that simple, but I will say it is mandatory. If you program a destination into your GPS, you still have to pay attention in traffic and you still have to stop at red lights and turn left when it’s time. You still have to maintain your vehicle, change the oil and get regular tune-ups, etc. But the whole trip starts with programming the destination.

I like to think of it this way: you don’t set goals because of how your mind works; but it’s because of how your mind works that you set goals. Perhaps Zig Ziglar put it best when he said, “If you want to reach a goal, you must ‘see the reaching’ in your own mind before you actually arrive at your goal.”

I went through an exercise with a personal coach and took my mission statement of several hundred words and condensed it to three. Those three words forever changed my life. Those three words were not a goal; they were a direction – and a purpose. When you decide on a direction, the goals you need to program will become obvious and you won’t need to set them at all.

You will just accomplish them.

The three words from my exercise with the personal coach were: “Waking People Up.”

That was the direction I wanted to go. The minute I reduced it to a simple direction, my subconscious gave me all the goals I needed to start working on. What I’ve accomplished is a result of knowing that direction. I’d had a goal to write a book for more than 10 years, but never got started. Once I had a clear direction and purpose, to “Wake People Up,” I wrote my book, The Success Compass, in about two years.

Joseph Murphy, an author and lecturer on the subconscious, says, “It is not the thing believed in, but the belief within your own mind that brings about the result.”

Here is a simple snapshot of how your mind works: Anything you believe with your conscious mind is what your subconscious mind will accept. When your subconscious mind accepts the belief or thought, it begins to execute a plan to bring the thought into reality. All your thoughts and beliefs are recorded onto your conscious mind (like a DVD). Your subconscious mind (like a DVD player) plays it out as your reality, and it shows up on your TV screen.

To begin changing what is being played on your DVD player, you must determine your Program.

And for that, you must decide your destination – where you’re going. Once you have that information, then insert it (i.e. program it/write it down) into your mind and spirit. Don’t worry about making your destination extremely precise, at least not at first. You should, however, have a general idea of where you want to go before you start your journey. I think people have been told they must know exactly where they want to go in order to achieve their goals, or for the Law of Attraction to work or to activate the subconscious mind. Sure, doing that may be more effective and quicker, but too many people end up doing nothing because they don’t know exactly where they want to go.

Let’s put an end to that right now.

Research on the significance of setting goals is overwhelming, well-documented and convincing. However, along the path of my life’s journey I made some discoveries that allowed me to exercise more flexibility when it comes to setting goals. And speaking of flexibility, ask any athlete about its importance. If you aren’t flexible and you haven’t stretched, then you risk injury, possibly a serious one.

There’s something to be said about that when evaluating the goals you want to set and the destinations you program into your GPS.
But I’ve loosened up on goal setting in recent years. I didn’t relax my pursuit of goals. Instead, I relaxed how I pursued them. I used to think that if I didn’t write down that I wanted to earn one million dollars per year, live on Maple Street in San Diego by the time I was 30 and drive a red Ferrari, then I wouldn’t accomplish it. Horse patootie!

Instead of setting a goal that contains an exact address, city name or dollar amount, I found it much more productive to set a direction.
I don’t believe in getting hung up on a purpose or a goal nearly as much as getting hung up on a direction. Why? When we set goals with no regard for the direction we’re taking, we usually end with goals that take us in a direction we may not want to go. For example, when I was new to personal development and success principles, many of my “goals” were tangible things: a new car, a home, a mountain bike, a watch, etc.

Goals like this can strap us financially and keep us from going in the direction we really want to go. Considering the direction first allows us to make more mature, accurate and beneficial decisions. Furthermore, real satisfaction and fulfillment, which is what we all want, come from the direction we are moving much more than the goals we attain.

Goals are important, but put them in the proper perspective. They serve as important mile markers that confirm we are traveling in the direction we intend to go.

Many things – cars, computers, airplanes or the human body, for instance – work the way they’re supposed to because a system behind them functions properly.

When you’re driving and your alternator gives out, your car will stop dead in its tracks. What really happened? Did the entire car “break down,” or did one specific component of the system that sustains the car break down?

Things that work well typically have a good system behind them. Things that work in an average way? Well, they probably have an average system operating in the background. But if something isn’t working? Then there’s either a malfunction in the system or – even worse – no system at all.

When it comes to your personal growth and application of success principles to your life, putting a system in place (an excellent system!) can move you in the direction you want to go.

The scary thing is delving through tons of information – have you seen how many resources are available around success and achievement topics?! – and coming up with a plan.

You need an easy-to-use thinking system that narrows down all that terrific information into a usable, organized format that you can apply.
In my new book, The Success Compass, I talk about how my self-study and application broke down because I didn’t have such a thinking system in place. It took me years to figure out how to apply all the knowledge I gained through seminars, books and other media – and I narrowed the system in my book to three main components: Program, Drive, Arrive.

Are you ready to get started? Ready to use all the knowledge bouncing around in your head and back it up with a thinking system to become successful?

It’s time.

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