A Lifelong Pursuit

“An investment in knowledge always pays the best interest."
Benjamin Franklin

Now that I’ve spent the last four weeks on goals, there is something on my mind I feel is extremely important that should be a life long goal or pursuit for each of us. That is continuously learning. Whether we are a full-time father working long and hard hours or a stay at home mother tending to the needs of a full house, I believe it is crucial we take time to be continuously learning everyday, and let me tell you why.

First, gaining knowledge is exciting and fun. When we learn knew things, we are blessed in so many ways. Learning new things builds our confidence, boosts our self-esteem, enhances our relationships and our understanding and compassion for others, challenges us, motivates us, and pushes us to reach our potential. I’ve experienced in life as I continuously seek to learn good things, my happiness in life grows. Thus, for me, the most important benefit of continuously learning is it enhances and enriches my life. For this reason alone, I am committed to learning each day.

A second benefit of learning is gaining knowledge that prepares you for the unknown. Life is full of uncertainties and unknowns. With the economy screeching to a halt and unemployment rising, we never know when we might be next without a job. Likewise, we never know when we might be able to help others in need, because of the knowledge we have gained. By always learning, we can open doors and windows of opportunity that perhaps would not have come our way. Learning enhances our skills, and it helps us to add value to others. As we continuously learn, we continuously prepare for the uncertainties in life.

One last benefit is learning helps us be more successful and better leaders. As mentioned above, as we learn, we gain confidence and knowledge. This confidence and knowledge helps us to lead others by boosting their confidence in us. Things in our world today change quickly; if we are not continuously learning, then we won’t be able keep up and earn the respect of others. Always learning helps us to stay on top of important changes and discoveries in our world. The more we learn, the better we can lead and the more success we will have in life.

So how do we find time to always be learning in our overly busy lives? By making it a priority! If this is difficult, set goals and track your progress, surround yourself with others who will encourage and challenge you to learn, and find things to learn that interest you. The benefits of always learning are abundant and something each of us should take advantage of. As we make a commitment to continuous learning, our lives will be enriched and our ability to serve others will grow. Let’s make learning a lifelong pursuit!

Goal Achieving--Back to the Basics

“Goals. There’s no telling what you can do when you get inspired by them. There’s no telling what you can do when you believe in them. There’s no telling what will happen when you act upon them.”
Jim Rohn

The beginning of a new year is one of my favorite times of year. I get energized and excited by the possibilities a new year will bring, the changes that may occur, the challenges I may face and overcome, and the progress I will make in becoming a better me. The last three weeks I have focused on New Year’s resolutions, and today I wish to continue on the theme of goal setting.

One of the main reasons I get excited around this time of year is because I always review my goals from last year and set new ones for the coming year. I do this individually, with my family, and at work. Facing the prospect of accomplishing new goals in these three areas of my life, and working together with those around me whom I love, gets my heart racing, my mind focused, and my energy level high. Goals have a way of motivating us, and the challenge of it all is exhilarating. Today I wish to share three very basic things I do each year that personally help me accomplish my goals.

#1 Tracking

While setting new goals, one of the first things I do is I develop a way to track my goals. For me, it is hard to get excited about a goal without a scoreboard. Though I’ve used different tracking methods, the one that works for me now is a simple spreadsheet that allows me to mark whether I am accomplishing a goal or not. This spreadsheet provides a quick picture of my progress and success. The spreadsheet has each month across the top and then based on the type of goal (whether it is a daily, monthly, or a goal with a specified deadline) it allows me to track my progress. Each morning when I wake up, the first thing I do is fill out the spreadsheet based on how I did the day before. This allows me to see how I’m doing, and it reminds me at the beginning of each day what I need to do that day to reach my goals.

Closely tracking my goals also helps me to not only remember them, but it forces me to think about them often. Seeing my progress, or lack thereof, continually motivates me to do better. Without a solid and consistent way to track my goals, I know I would fail; but because of it, I am much, much more likely to succeed. Indeed, I cannot emphasize enough how important this is in obtaining goals! So find a way today that works for you to consistently track your goals!

#2 Routine

The next thing I do is I establish a routine. This routine helps me to stay on top of goals, and itallows me the opportunity to work toward accomplishing my goals each day. This routine is not so rigid that it prevents me from addressing unexpected important matters, but it is consistent enough that working towards my goals becomes a habit. For example, as mentioned above, one of my routines is to check my tracking spreadsheet each morning. Developing a pattern for my days and planning time to work toward my goals greatly improves my success. I’ve also learned that having an established routine in my life helps me to accomplish more and stress less.

#3 Write it Down

Studies have long proven that writing down goals can dramatically increase our potential to fulfill them. Thus, I always write them down and keep them in a place where I will see them frequently. Doing this serves as a constant reminder and motivator to me of what I am trying to accomplish. Failing to do this simple step will often result in failure.

I hope you love this time of year as much as I do. It is a brand new year, what’s not to love about it!? New challenges, new opportunities, and endless possibilities. So how will you have changed at the end of this year? What great things will you accomplish? Who will you become? Learning from and reviewing the last four blogs on burntham.com on achieving goals will help anyone accomplish their goals this year—and hopefully that is exciting to us all!! Just think of the possibilities… And when you look back at the end of this year, you will feel proud about what you’ve accomplished and who you’ve become, and you will be energized to do it all again the next year. I hope these three simple personal insights and the last four blogs on goals help you in your efforts to accomplish goals this year and in the years to come. Make 2009 an excellent and successful year by achieving your goals!

Read More on Goals
Stop! Don't Make That New Years Resolution
Do Make That New Years Resolution
Smart Ideas For the Perpetual Goal Setting Underperformer

Smart Ideas for the Perpetual Goal Setting Underperfromer

“The only thing that stands between a person and what they want in life is the will to try it and the faith to believe it possible.”
212 Degrees

My blogs thus far this year have focused on setting and achieving goals. I believe this subject is extremely important, because I know that setting goals help us to improve ourselves and reach our potential. For this reason, I will focus my blogs for two more weeks on strategies to help us reach our goals.

Today, I want to offer some simple advice that will help anyone increase their chances of reaching their goals but especially will help those who have repeatedly failed when setting goals. The following are four good ideas to finally help the perpetual underperformer accomplish their goals:

# 1 Narrow it Down

Often we think we have to set several goals to be successful; however, this is not true. If you’ve struggled to achieve your goals, then simplify by narrowing your list to one goal. Accomplishing one goal that is truly important to you is much better than setting 10 goals without coming close to reaching even one of them. Many times, having too many goals at once can be distracting and can cause unnecessary frustration, stress and hopelessness. So instead of trying to do it all, focus on one goal that is most important to you. Once that one is realized, you can then move to another. Simplifying the goal achievement process by narrowing your list to one goal will help you become a successful goal achiever and ultimately a better you.

#2 Break it Down

Another mistake goal seekers often make is they strive to accomplish a big goal too fast. I strongly encourage people to set big stretch goals;however often by setting these goals, people get overwhelmed and lost, not knowing where to begin or what step should be taken next. To help, it is a great idea to break down big, audacious goals into simpler steps. For example, if my big goal was to write a book, perhaps my goal would be to complete an outline, as setting a goal to write a book seems very overwhelming. As we break down our big goals, it will provide more clarity and direction, motivating us more while helping us progress and believe our big goals are possible.

# 3 Be Honest

When setting goals, if we want to increase our chances of success, we must be true to ourselves. This means we must set goals we truly want to achieve. Many times people are conditioned by society to set certain goals regardless if they truly want to accomplish them or not. Just because a particular goal is trendy or popular, if you don’t really want it, then don’t set it. Setting goals that you are not passionate about or do not have a great desire to achieve is not worth it, because the probability of actually obtaining it is low. To be successful, we must be honest with ourselves by setting goals based on what we want to accomplish and not based on influences outside of us.

# 4 Don’t Delay

Once a goal is set, do it! Don’t procrastinate or put a goal off. If you have been honest with yourself and have set a goal you really want to accomplish, then don’t let yourself be distracted. This may mean you will have to shift priorities in your life or eliminate certain activities or let some things go undone, but this is OK. Too often we allow the unimportant to rob us of our time; however getting to work right now on your goal will quickly diminish distractions. The quicker we act, the less time we will have to find something else to do. Learn to say “no” to activities that will not help you in accomplishing your goal.


These four simple strategies will help anyone who has struggled in the past to reach their goals. Learning to narrow down, break down, and be honest without delaying will help even perpetual underperfomers to be successful in achieving goals. And achieving our goals will help us accomplish our dreams!

Read More on Goals
Stop! Don't Make That New Years Resolution
Do Make That New Years Resolution
Goal Achieving--Back to the Basics

Do Make that New Year's Resolution!

“Nothing can stop the man with the right mental attitude from achieving his goal.”
Thomas Jefferson

Last week I wrote about an article that suggested we should not make New Year’s resolutions, because the success rate of actually accomplishing the resolutions is extremely low. Though I agreed with much of what the author was explaining, I did disagree with the idea that setting resolutions is a waste of time. Though statistics show the success rate of actually following through with New Year’s resolutions is low, it does not mean everyone fails. Thus, if even a small percentage succeeds, to me, it is worth the effort!

Being among those who succeed in achieving New Year’s resolutions really comes down to a choice. Do we have the discipline to set goals and then really strive to achieve them each day? Do we believe we can accomplish our resolutions despite the research that indicates most don’t? Each day this year we have the opportunity to choose to accomplish our resolutions or not, regardless of what the majority of others may be doing. Though it will not be easy, we can be different! I truly believe that despite the research, each of us has the capacity to carry out our New Year’s goals. To help us achieve our resolutions this year, I have three simple strategies that will ensure success in working towards our goals for 2009.

#1 Plan

First, we must have a plan or a vision for accomplishing our goals. As the old adage goes, “failing to plan, is planning to fail.” As we prepare to establish New Year’s resolutions we must come up with a plan on how we will go about accomplishing them. Often people fail from the beginning; because they set a goal, but they do not plan how they will accomplish it. Think about what steps you will take, what help you will we need, what time you will set aside, what changes you will need to make immediately in your life to be successful. Planning ahead and thinking about what accomplishing a certain goal will require will help us to set good, achievable resolutions this year. Determining how we will track our progress on a daily basis is also an important part of a plan. (There are many simple, easy, and great tools that can help you track your goals. For an example, please see http://www.joesgoals.com.) In the end, when we establish a plan along with a goal, our potential to succeed quickly rises.

#2 Effort

Hopefully this is stating the obvious but if we are to be successful in accomplishing our New Year’s resolutions, then we must be willing to put forth effort. It is not enough to simply want to make an effort, we must actually make the effort! We must remember it is in the doing and not just the planning in which we accomplish our goals. This means starting today and then continuing each day thereafter to put forth some effort. There will undoubtedly come hard times when it may seem impossible to accomplish our goals, but this is when we must put forth extra effort to ensure success. Though putting forth effort is not always fun and easy, it will be worth it in the end. Giving our best effort will allow us to be successful.

#3 Faith

Finally, we must have the confidence and faith in ourselves that we can accomplish our goals. We cannot allow opposition or setbacks to overwhelm us, but instead we need to go to work each day with the faith that we will succeed. We can also expect ups and downs during the year, but as long as we keep hoping and believing, we will succeed. Truly learning to believe in ourselves and in our ability to accomplish great things, will significantly increase our ability to obtain our goals.

Though many will allow New Year’s resolutions to fall to the way-side, we don’t have to! With a plan, some effort, and a lot of faith, we can and will be among those who actually accomplish their goals this year. Let’s not follow the crowds or the traditional trends, let’s be different—let’s accomplish our goals this year!

Read more on Goals
Stop! Don't Make That New Years Resolution
Smart Ideas for the Perpetual Goal Setting Underperformer
Goal Achieving--Back to the Basics

Stop! Don't Make That New Year's Resolution!?

Recently I read an interesting news article* about New Year’s resolutions. In it, a “goal and motivation expert” argued that we should forget about New Year’s resolutions because they don’t work. His argument was based on research that suggests that most people give up on their resolutions by the end of January and then can’t even remember what they were by June! For this reason, the article argues that our resolutions may not be worth the time and effort we put into them.

Fortunately, this article was not all depressing, as it also offered some unique suggestions on how we can increase our chances of actually accomplishing goals.

One of the biggest mistakes each of us makes when setting New Year’s resolutions is we often focus on something negative such as losing weight. Staring at a goal that focuses on something negative or something that may seem nearly impossible to us, can and may actually decrease our motivation to accomplish it. Instead, the article indicates our goals should be more positive such as living a healthy lifestyle. This may essentially be the same goal as losing weight, but because of the way it is worded it can empower and motivate us. The article also suggests it is much easier moving toward something such as creating a good habit rather than away from something such as giving up a bad one. Thus, when creating goals, we must focus on the positive!

The next suggestion from the article is to think about what life will be like when we accomplish the goal. If my goal is to become a millionaire this year, then I must imagine what that will be like, what it will feel like, and why it is my goal. Once we can envision what it will be like to reach our goal, the article suggests we should start acting like the goal is already a reality. Using our earlier example, I don’t believe this means I should go out and start spending hundreds of thousands of dollars, but instead I need to start making choices and decisions like a true successful millionaire would make. The article proposes that to help us accomplish our goal, we should try to start feeling, thinking, and acting like our goal is a reality.

The final suggestion from the article is we need to have a life plan based on our personal dreams—instead of simply making yearly resolutions. We must continually analyze what our big dreams are and how we plan to accomplish them. Indeed, our actions must be motivated by big dreams we truly believe we can achieve.

In the end, the article demands that we not only dream bigger but also that our dreams remain more positive. By doing this, we will be more successful in realizing our goals in life. My hope and wish is that each of us may have a prosperous, happy, and rewarding New Year full of success and big, positive goals!

*Article Source: http://www.statssheet.com/articles/article46645.html

Read more on Goals
Do Make That New Years Resolution!
Smart Ideas for the Perpetual Goal Setting Underperformer
Goal Achieving--Back to the Basics