So you feel like it can't be done?

One of my favourite past times is spending time with my family and it is something I plan into my week. What I want to pass on today is the reinforcement of the need to set goals but more importantly the need to break them down into a step by step process. It may sound like an extra job but taking the time to do this will be a vital part of your success. My daughter is going to be used to highlight my point.

Sabina (eldest daughter) was casually remarking to me how it would be so hard to count over 100 and how she couldn't do it. I calmly took her to the number chart on the wall and highlighted to her how easy it was to count to 1000 if she could count to 100; and how easy it was to count to 100 if she could count to ten - which she can do. From that point on she started counting and made it right up to 200. This was monumental for her, small for you I know, but there is a lesson to learn from this.

Are you trying to lose weight, get fitter, strengthen your back, prevent disease, stop illness or make a million dollars on the stock market?

Where ever you are in life the big dreams can seem too big and out of reach. In reality it is only a matter of breaking the dream down into achievable segments that will take you to your destination. The power is in the process as Sabina found out. Once she new counting in blocks of ten could lead to making it to 100 she worked on counting to ten, then 20, then 30 and so on. Same with you, break it down and you have the motivation to go and achieve because you can see a path to take you there. The key is making your path clear and visible.

Try it get your goal and follow these steps.

• Think big - get your goal out in the open of your mindset and don't disbelieve it. When your thinking says it can't be done, correct it to be, "it is possible and I will find the way"
• Break it down - what is it that you need to address that will allow you to get that dream or outcome. There is always three or four things if not more you need to attend to.
• Get a strategy- Four each area of challenge or concern put together 4 or 5 (or more) strategies that will help you improve the areas needed to be addressed that will drive you to your end point.
• Commit to you and honour it - by following the strategies to the letter and all of a sudden the points to come out of the 'Break it down' phase are being improved and addressed. Then sticking to the strategies consistently will drive you to your dream.

There you have a simplistic and broken down approach to getting your desired outcomes. Constant attention to the process and details will ensure massive results, guaranteed.

What is the attraction with sin?

On a recent trip to Las Vegas I saw things from a totally different perspective. As I have been fortunate enough to have been there a few times before I could look at things from a different perspective this time and ponder a question that the answer still alludes me. But after reading a book titled 'As a man thinketh" and then visiting Vegas I feel the answer to my question is nearer. The question by the way is, 'Why do we continue to indulge in practices that we know aren't good for us'?

Witnessing Las Vegas from a parental perspective, plus being in a completely different place in the self development phase forced me to view things differently. Seeing gamblers in action at all hours of the day and night, drinking, smoking, violence, stealing as well as sex, drugs and homelesness openly displayed really made me ask why is this place so appealing? Not to mention the cheap and nasty food options on tap. My findings are that the majority of us (humans) are fixated with satisfying our desires by indulging in what is perceived to be pleasurable and satisfying past times. Unfortunately the satisfaction is short lived so we go back again and again for more in a bid to feed our desires and try and find happiness. Only to find that feeding desires makes us more unhappy and unsatisfied. I feel the only form of happiness can ever come from within and when this occurs we will never have to rely on external sources and indulgences to satisfy us.

Learning to control our mindsets, to be one of complete abundance and to serve, rather than to desire, want and indulge ourselves and promote our importance in front of others, only serves us to continuously keep seeking external sources of satisfaction that will never fill the missing void of internal happiness. Do you constantly feel like there must be more to life? Well I reckon there is but it isn't external; it's internal. I won't go on too much but I feel if you can follow a few guidelines to start with you may start to see what a difference changing your mindset can make and sinful desires will slowly lose their appeal.

1. Become a servant to a cause or others
   
2. Don't get angry learn to forgive instead
   
3. Drop the opinions - who says you are right all the time
4. Learn to be happy inside before looking for happiness externally

If you begin to implement these four principles into your line of thought your actions will follow suit just as the fruit follows the seed.