GSAAWorkbook

How to achieve all your goals faster than you ever thought possible!

Goal Setting and Achieving

Brian Tracy

Goal Settingand

Achieving

E

by Brian Tracy

G O A L S E T T I N G A N D A C H I E V I N G

Brian Tracy. All rights reserved. The contents, or parts thereof, may not be reproduced in any form for any purpose without the written permission of Brian Tracy.

Instructions

How the get the most out of this program:

1 First, take the complete Personal Goal Setting exercise at the beginning of this workbook.

2 Reread the chapter notes and complete the exercises after each chapter.

3 Complete Chapter 4 Personal Strategic Planning, for your business.

4 Complete Personal Financial Planning at the end of the program.

5 Take action immediately on your goals.

6 Do something everyday to achieve your most important goal.

7 Resolve in advance that you will never give up until you are successful.



Table of Contents

1 Personal Goal Setting ....................................................................... 1

2 Your Unlimited Potential ............................................................... 13

3 Your Special Talents and Abilities................................................. 29

4 Personal Strategic Planning ........................................................... 37

5 Your Meaning and Purpose in Life ............................................... 55

6 Programming Your Mind for Success .......................................... 71

7 Advanced Programming Techniques ........................................... 75

8 Unlocking Your Superconscious Mind ........................................ 79

9 Becoming Unstoppable .................................................................. 83

10 Bouncing Back from Adversity ..................................................... 93

11 Marriage and Children ................................................................. 103

12 The Most Important Quality of Success ..................................... 115

13 Discipline and Personal Power ................................................... 125

14 Personal Financial Planning ........................................................ 135

Personal Goal Setting

Chapter 1

Brian Tracy



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G oal setting is the Master Skill of success. The more you set goals and work toward them, the happier and more successful you will be.Only 3% of adults have written goals. This small minority earns ten times as much as those people without goals.

Success in life begins with your deciding exactly who you are, what you want and then writing it down. Then, make a plan for its accomplishment and take action on your plan.

Finally, do something every day to move you toward your major goal what-ever it is.

By setting clear goals and then thinking about them all the time, you trigger all kinds of ideas and insights that will help you achieve your goals.

By thinking about your goals all the time, you become more positive, optimistic and confident.

And as you achieve your goals, you increase in self-esteem, self-respect and personal pride. You feel like a winner and you eventually become unstoppable.

Complete each of these exercises in detail. They are cumulative. At the end of this section you will have a clear plan for your life. You will feel terrific!



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Personal success is a result of two factors:

1) You must know exactly what you want.

2) You must determine the price you will have to pay to achieve it.

Absolute clarity regarding your goals is essential to high performance.

1. Begin with your values; what are the three most important values, qualities, factors in your life today?

1) ______________________________________________________________

2) ______________________________________________________________

3) ______________________________________________________________

2. What would you do, how would you change your life, if you received $1,000,000 cash today?

1) ______________________________________________________________

2) ______________________________________________________________

3) ______________________________________________________________

3. What would you do, how would you change your life if you learned today that you only had six months to live?

1) ______________________________________________________________

2) ______________________________________________________________

3) ______________________________________________________________



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4. What sort of work or activity gives you your greatest feeling of importance and personal satisfaction?

1) ______________________________________________________________

2) ______________________________________________________________

3) ______________________________________________________________

5. What have you always wanted to do but been afraid to attempt?

1) ______________________________________________________________

2) ______________________________________________________________

3) ______________________________________________________________

6. If you could make any significant changes in your life today, what would they be?

1) ______________________________________________________________

2) ______________________________________________________________

3) ______________________________________________________________

7. What one great thing would you dare to dream if you knew you could not fail?

_______________________________________________________________

_______________________________________________________________

_______________________________________________________________



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To achieve greatly in life, you need to be clear about your goals in the seven main areas of life:

1) Personal 4) Financial 7) Social

2) Family 5) Education

3) Business & Career 6) Health

When you set your goals, imagine you have no limitations.

1. List your three most intensely desired personal goals:

1) ______________________________________________________________

2) ______________________________________________________________

3) ______________________________________________________________

2. What are your three most important family and relationship goals?

1) ______________________________________________________________

2) ______________________________________________________________

3) ______________________________________________________________

3. List your three most important business and career goals:

1) ______________________________________________________________

2) ______________________________________________________________

3) ______________________________________________________________



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4. What are your three most important financial goals?

1) ______________________________________________________________

2) ______________________________________________________________

3) ______________________________________________________________

5. What are your three most important goals in regards to education, personal, and professional development?

1) ______________________________________________________________

2) ______________________________________________________________

3) ______________________________________________________________

6. What are your three most important health goals physical fitness, sports, weight?

1) ______________________________________________________________

2) ______________________________________________________________

3) ______________________________________________________________

7. What are your three most important social goals? What contributions do you want to make to your community?

1) ______________________________________________________________

2) ______________________________________________________________

3) ______________________________________________________________



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8. Without referring to your answers in the previous goal-setting questions, make a list of 10 goals you would like to accomplish in the next 12 months:

1) _____________________________________________________________

2) _____________________________________________________________

3) _____________________________________________________________

4) _____________________________________________________________

5) _____________________________________________________________

6) _____________________________________________________________

7) _____________________________________________________________

8) _____________________________________________________________

9) _____________________________________________________________

10) _____________________________________________________________

9. Imagine you could be absolutely guaranteed of success in any of your goals, which one goal would you choose?

_______________________________________________________________

_______________________________________________________________

_______________________________________________________________



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10. Take this one major goal and follow the twelve steps below:

1) Write out your goal in detail make it clear, specific and measurable:

__________________________________________________________

__________________________________________________________

__________________________________________________________

2) Set a deadline for completion: ________________________________

3) List the main obstacles and limitations that stand between you and your goal:

1) ________________________________________________________

2) ________________________________________________________

3) ________________________________________________________

4) List the additional information, knowledge and skills you will require to achieve your goal:

1) ________________________________________________________

2) ________________________________________________________

3) ________________________________________________________



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5) List the people whose help, support and cooperation you will require to achieve your goal:

1) ________________________________________________________

2) ________________________________________________________

3) ________________________________________________________

6) Make a list of everything you can think of that you will have to do to achieve your goal.

Priority Sequence

1) ________________________________________________________

2) ________________________________________________________

3) ________________________________________________________

4) ________________________________________________________

5) ________________________________________________________

6) ________________________________________________________

7) ________________________________________________________

8) ________________________________________________________

9) ________________________________________________________

10) ________________________________________________________



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7) Organize your list by:

a) Priority: What is most important?

b) Sequence: What must you do before something else?

8) A list organized by priority and sequence is a PLAN.

9) Assign responsibility for carrying out your plan. What exactly is going to be done by who? (Yourself? Others?)

What? Who?

1) ________________________________________________________

2) ________________________________________________________

3) ________________________________________________________

10) Set deadlines on the actions you are going to take:

Actions Deadlines

1) ________________________________________________________

2) ________________________________________________________

3) ________________________________________________________

4) ________________________________________________________ 5) ________________________________________________________

6) ________________________________________________________

7) ________________________________________________________



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11) Take action: What one task are you going to complete immediately?

__________________________________________________________

__________________________________________________________

__________________________________________________________

12) Resolve to do something every day toward the achievement of your major goal. What one thing should you do each day?

__________________________________________________________

__________________________________________________________

__________________________________________________________

Action-orientation is the most important single quality of high performing men and women.

Your willingness and ability to take immediate and continuous action toward your goals is the key determinant of your success.

Begin now! Do something every day to achieve your goals,

and never give up.



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Notes

Your Unlimited Potential

Chapter 2

Brian Tracy



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Your Unlimited Potential

S ome of the most important questions that you ever ask yourself on your journey through life are questions such as, Why am I here? What do I really, really want in life? Where am I going? If I achieve all my goals, what would it look like?

You have heard of the 80/20 Rule. It says that 80% of the value of what you do will be contained in 20% of the actual activities that you engage in. Well, there is a 20/80 Rule as well. This Rule says that the first 20% of the time that you

spend thinking and planning about yourself and your life will contribute more than 80% of the value and results that you eventually accomplish.

The most successful people are invariably those people who spend the most time thinking about who they are and where they are going, and then constantly evaluating and re-evaluating their progress in light of who they are and what they really want. In this session, I am going to give you a series of ideas and questions that you can use to determine your true meaning and purpose in life. Your willingness and ability to think through and answer these questions can have more of an impact on your long-term happiness and success than anything else you ever do.

The starting point of great success is for you to realize that you are truly extraor-dinary! There has never been anyone in the entire universe just like you. You

have remarkable abilities, skills, aptitudes, insights and ideas that make you different, and in some way, superior to all other people who have ever lived. You have the capacity within you, right now, to accomplish more than you have ever dreamed of in the past. You are engineered and designed as success organ-ism, endlessly attracted to doing more and more of the things that will bring you more and more of the success and happiness that you desire.



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The great tragedy is that most people go through life and die with their music still in them. They react and respond to pressures and events, to parents and to bosses, to bills and responsibilities, and never take the time to sit down and think about what it is that they really want for themselves.

One of the qualities of leaders is that they know who they are. Leaders are men and women who have taken the time to become completely clear about what they stand for and believe in, and where they are going, and how they are going to get there. And virtually everyone else follows along or hitch hikes on the dreams and goals of the leaders in every area of life.

The good news is that leaders are made, not born. You become a leader by think-ing the thoughts that leaders think and then by doing the things that leaders do. Leadership is not position; it is action. Leadership is not a title on a card. It is determined by the things that you do and say, day by day. When you think, walk, talk and act like a leader, you become one. You take your life and your future into your own hands. You become the master of your own destiny and the architect of your own future.

You were put on this earth to do something wonderful with your life. Your job is to find out what that wonderful thing is and then to throw your whole heart into

doing it extremely well. Your life may have a single purpose, like that of Mother Theresa of Calcutta, or your life may have multiple, sequential purposes, one after the other as you evolve and grow and develop into a higher and better person. In any case, the one common characteristic of the most successful men and women is clarity. They are absolutely clear about what they stand for and believe in, and where they are going. And you must achieve this clarity as well.

What is your hearts desire? Your hearts desire is defined as the one thing

that you and you alone were put on this earth to do. It is that something special



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that you are uniquely suited to do in an excellent fashion. Your job throughout your life is to discover your hearts desire. It is only then that you will be truly happy, completely successful and totally fulfilled. What is yours?

You begin discovering your hearts desire by setting off on a quest, like the Knights of the Round Table searching for the Holy Grail. Your job is to find

your Holy Grail as well. Begin by answering this question: What one great thing would you dare to dream if you knew you could not fail?

Allow yourself to dream. And dream big dreams. Imagine for a moment that you have no limitations at all. Imagine that you could be, have or do anything that you could possibly decide upon in the whole world.

Imagine for a moment that you have all the time and all the money that you need. You have all the education and all the experience. You have all the friends and all the contacts. You have all the opportunities and resources. You have ev-erything that you could possibly want or dream of to achieve any goal that you could set for yourself. You have no limitations whatever.

In this situation, what goals would you set for yourself? If you could receive an absolute guarantee of success in anything that you chose, short- or long-term, what one thing would you choose for yourself?

The problem with most people is that they allow themselves to get bogged down in the narrow and restrictive thinking of day to day life. When the average person looks up toward the stars and gets a glimpse of what he or she would really like to do, he or she immediately starts thinking about all the reasons why its not possible. We rain on our own parades. And if we have friends or family members who have dreams or goals, we rain on their parades as well.



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Your job is to use some of these questions to loosen up your thinking and open up your eyes to far vaster possibilities than you may have ever imagined before. For example, what changes would you make in your life if you won one million dollars cash, tax free, as a prize in a contest?

Imagine that you receive a phone call to announce that you have won the mil-lion dollar prize. There is only one qualifying question that you must answer to get the money. You must tell the caller exactly what changes you will make in your life as a result of having one million dollars cash in your bank account. What would you answer?

This can be a very liberating question. The primary reason that people do not al-low themselves to dream freely is because they feel saddled and trapped by their bills and limitations. But if you imagine for a moment that you have a million dollars cash, you can also imagine that you are now free to choose anything that you might want to be, have or do.

Sometimes when we ask this question, the very first thing a person thinks of is

that they would quit their current job immediately and do something else. Even people who say that they are happy with their current jobs would think of quit-ting if they got a lot of money suddenly.

Heres the rule. If you would quit your current job if you received a large sum of money, it simply means that your current job is not the right job for you. You have probably backed into your current job and you are now doing it because you need the employment and the income that it represents. People who are in the right job would never think of quitting it if they won a lot of money. They would only think of doing their job differently and better, and perhaps in a dif-ferent place or with a different company. But they wouldnt quit their jobs.



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If you had a million dollars cash, and you were thinking of quitting your job and doing something else, what would you choose to do? If you could choose to do any job at all, what job would it be?

Put aside for a moment the fact that you may not have the necessary skills or experience in a particular field. For the moment, just think about what you would

like most to do if you had no limitations.

You will always be paid the most and be the happiest at doing something that you really enjoy doing. One of the great three part formulas for success in your career is to believe in what you are doing, know what you are doing, and love what you are doing.

Truly successful people love their work. They throw their whole hearts into their work every single day. They can hardly wait to get there and they hate to leave. They lose sight of the line between their work and their play. When they are not working, they are thinking and talking about their work and thinking of ways to do it differently and better. If you do not have this feeling about your current job, it simply means that there is another job or area of endeavor out there for you and it is your responsibility to find it.

There are three parts of your personality that determine the kind of person you are and the kind of person you become. These are your self-ideal, your self-image and your self-esteem.

Your self-ideal is a combination or mixture of all the qualities, values, attributes and abilities that you most admire in yourself and in others. It is your vision of the kind of person that you would be if you were ideal in every respect.

What we know about highly successful people is that they have very clear self-ideals. They know what they stand for and believe in. They have very clear ideals



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and benchmarks against which they compare their behavior on an action-by-action, day-by-day basis. Unsuccessful people on the other hand are very fuzzy about their ideals, and in many cases, they have no ideals at all.

Your self-ideal largely determines the direction in which you are going with your life. It guides the growth and evolution of your character and personality. Your self-ideal is a combination of all of the qualities and attributes of other people that you most admire. Your self-ideal is a description of the person you would very much like to be if you could embody the qualities that you most aspire to.

Throughout your life, you have seen and read about the qualities of courage, confidence, compassion, love, fortitude, perseverance, patience, forgiveness and

integrity. Over time, these qualities have instilled in you an ideal to which you aspire. You might not always live up to the very best that you know, but you are constantly striving to be a better person in light of those qualities that you value so highly. In fact, everything that you do on a day-to-day basis is affected by you comparing your activities with these ideal qualities and striving to behave consistently with them.

Part of your ideals are your goals. As you set higher and more challenging goals, your self-ideal improves and crystallizes. When you set goals for the kind of person you want to be and the kind of life you want to live, your self-ideal rises and becomes a greater guiding and motivating force in your life.

Perhaps the most important thing for you to realize is that whatever anyone else has done or become, you can do or become as well. Improvements in your self-ideal begin in your imagination, and in your imagination, there are no limits except the ones that you accept.

What is your ideal vision of the very best person you could possibly become?



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How would you behave each day if you were already that person?

Asking yourself these questions and then living your life consistent with the answers is the first step to creating yourself in your ideal image.

Ive created an exercise in order to help you find complete clarity and identify your ideal-self:

First, imagine that you have the inborn ability to achieve any goal you could ever set for yourself. What do you really want to be, have, and do?

_________________________________________________________________

_________________________________________________________________

_________________________________________________________________

Second, identify the activities that give you your greatest sense of meaning

and purpose in life. How could you do more of them?

_________________________________________________________________

_________________________________________________________________

_________________________________________________________________

Third, look at your personal and work life today, and identify how your own

thinking has created your world. What should you or could you change?

_________________________________________________________________

_________________________________________________________________

_________________________________________________________________



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Fourth, resolve today to think and talk only about the things you want in

life and refuse to talk about the things you dont want.

_________________________________________________________________

_________________________________________________________________

_________________________________________________________________

Fifth, determine the price you will have to pay to achieve the goals that are

most important to you, and then resolve to pay that price, starting today.

_________________________________________________________________

_________________________________________________________________

_________________________________________________________________

Sixth, imagine that you were absolutely guaranteed of success in achieving

your goals and that you had no fears at all. What goals would you set for yourself?

_________________________________________________________________

_________________________________________________________________

_________________________________________________________________

And finally, seventh, what one action should you take immediately as the

result of your answers to the above questions?

_______________________________________________________________

_______________________________________________________________



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One of the most important components of your ideal image is your core values. Your personality is largely determined by the clarity and intensity of your val-ues. Your values determine your motivations, your beliefs, your attitudes and your feelings. Your innermost convictions about people, politics, religion and the world around you determine the kind of person you are, the kind of work you do, and the kind of people you associate with.

If a research firm were to do a study among your friends and associates, and ask them what they thought your primary values were, what would the people who know you the best say about you? Based on their experiences with you and their observations of your behaviors, how would other people define your primary values and ideals?

Do you know how you can tell what a persons true values and beliefs are? Is it by what they say? Is it by what they wish? Is it by what they intend to do? Are peoples true values and beliefs expressed in what they write or what they promise when they are running for public office? No, the answer is that your values are only and always expressed in your actions and in your behaviors. It is not what you say but what you do that counts. And especially, it is what you do under pressure.

Epictetus, the Stoic philosopher once wrote that, Circumstances do make the man. They merely reveal him to himself.

When a person is put under pressure and is forced to choose to act on one value or another, he will always act on his predominant value at that time, on what is most important to him, no matter he says.

And here is another thing about values and ideals. Higher order values always take precedence over lower order values. You may have a whole series of values that you act upon from time to time. But when you are put under pressure, your most important value will always determine your decision and your action at that time.



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What are your values?

What do you stand for?

What are the organizing principles of your life?

What are your core beliefs?

What virtues do you aspire to, and hold in high regard when you see them demonstrated by others?

What will you not stand for?

What would you sacrifice for, suffer for, and even die for?

Here is a good question to help you clarify your true values and beliefs in life. Imagine that you went to a doctor for a complete check-up and he sat you down with the results. He said that the good news is that you are going to enjoy superb all around physical health for the next six months. The bad news is that, at the end of six months, you are going to drop stone dead from an incurable illness.

What would you do, how would you spend your time, if you learned today that you only had six months left to live? Who would you spend the time with? Where would you go? What would you do? How would you live every day?

Whatever your answers to this question will be very revealing in terms of what you truly value and what is really important to you. When you only have six months to live, many things that you thought were important become irrelevant and many things that you were ignoring become more important than anything else. How would you spend your time if you only had six months left?

Every choice or decision you make is based on your values. Whenever you de-cide between alternatives, you invariably choose the alternative that you value



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the most. Because you can only do one thing at a time, everything you do is a demonstration of what you consider to be the most important at that moment. Therefore, organizing your values in an order of priority is the starting point of personal strategic planning. It is only when you are clear about what you value, and in what order, that you are capable of planning and organizing the other activities of your life.

Ive created an exercise for you in order to help you identify and clarify your core values.

First, make a list of your three to five most important values in life today. What do you really believe in and stand for?

1) _______________________________________________________________

2) _______________________________________________________________

3) _______________________________________________________________

4) _______________________________________________________________

5) _______________________________________________________________

Second, what qualities and values are you best known for today among the people who know you?

1) _______________________________________________________________

2) _______________________________________________________________

3) _______________________________________________________________

4) _______________________________________________________________

5) _______________________________________________________________



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Third, what do you consider to be the most important values guiding your relationships with others in your life?

1) _______________________________________________________________

2) _______________________________________________________________

3) _______________________________________________________________

4) _______________________________________________________________

5) _______________________________________________________________

Fourth, what are your values regarding money and financial success? Are you practicing these values daily?

1) _______________________________________________________________

2) _______________________________________________________________

3) _______________________________________________________________

4) _______________________________________________________________

5) _______________________________________________________________

Fifth, describe your picture of an ideal person, the person you would most want to be if you had no limitations.

1) _______________________________________________________________

2) _______________________________________________________________

3) _______________________________________________________________

4) _______________________________________________________________

5) _______________________________________________________________



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Sixth, write your own obituary to be read to your friends and family at your funeral, exactly as you would like to be remembered.

1) _______________________________________________________________

2) _______________________________________________________________

3) _______________________________________________________________

4) _______________________________________________________________

5) _______________________________________________________________

Lastly, what changes could you make in your behavior today that would help you to live in greater harmony with your values?

1) _______________________________________________________________

2) _______________________________________________________________

3) _______________________________________________________________

4) _______________________________________________________________

5) _______________________________________________________________

After you identify and write down your core values, you must then do the same for your core beliefs.

You need to develop your beliefs about yourself to the point where they serve you every day in every way. Men and women who accomplish extraordinary things are just ordinary people who developed themselves mentally to the point where they were able to overcome the obstacles that stood in their way, and they kept on keeping on until the goal was attained.



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The most harmful beliefs that you can have are what we call self-limiting beliefs. These are beliefs about yourself, most of which are not true; but they hold you back nonetheless. Sometimes you, or others, will say that you cannot achieve certain goals because you did not get enough education.

The humorist Josh Billings once said, It aint what a man knows what hurts him. Its what a man knows what aint true. It isnt the actual truth about yourself and your abilities that hurts you; its the things that you consider to be true and that have no basis in truth.

The starting point of changing your beliefs is to get up the courage to question them seriously. Question your basic premises. Check your assumptions. Ask yourself, What assumptions am I making about myself or my situation that might not be true?

Its a fact that we fall in love with our excuses and our negative assumptions. We fall in love with our reasons for not moving ahead.

Whatever they are, resolve to challenge them. Then, act as if it were impossible to fail.

To identify and analyze your core beliefs, follow this 7-step method:

Number one, Act as if! If you were one of the most competent and highly

respected people in your field, how would you think, act, and feel differ-ently from the way you do today?

Number two, imagine that you have a golden touch with money. If you

were an extremely competent money manager, how would you handle your finances?



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Number three, identify the self-limiting beliefs that could be holding you

back. How would you act if they were completely untrue?

Number four, select a belief that you would most like to have about yourself

at a deep inner level. Pretend as if you already believe this to be true about yourself.

Number five, look into the most difficult situation you are dealing with right

now. What valuable lessons does it contain that can help you to be better in the future?

Number six, what would you do differently if you believed that you were

destined to be a big success in life?

Number seven, who else in your life could you influence by telling them

how good they are and how successful you think they are going to be?

The clearer you are about your highest values and beliefs, and the more consis-tent you live with those values and beliefs, the more powerful and effective a person you become.

Your Special Talents and Abilities

Chapter 3

Brian Tracy



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Your Special Talents and Abilities

N ow that you have determined your values, beliefs and ideals, you have to decide what it is you are uniquely meant to do with your life. What should your vocation, occupation or profession be? What kind of work should you dedicate yourself toward to fulfill your goals and achieve your ambitions?

There are four different types of work that you can choose to do. These can be defined based on work that is easy to do versus work that is hard to do, and

by work that is easy to learn versus work that is hard to learn.

The first type of work, work that is hard to learn and hard to do could be some-thing like bookkeeping, accounting, computer programming or engineering for a person who is more personality or idea oriented. It would be hard for you to learn to work all day long with numbers and it would always be hard for you to do it. You would never look forward to it with any enthusiasm. Even if you did it reasonably well, you would get no joy out of your work. This is the situation that many people find themselves in today.

The second type of work is work that is hard to learn but easy to do, once youve learned it. For example, typing is hard to learn but easy to do. Speaking and writing is hard to learn but easy to do once you have mastered it. Many of the basic skills that you need for success in your day to day life fall into this category.

The third type of work consists of those things that are easy to learn but hard to do. Ditch digging and chopping wood are easy to learn but are always hard to do. They never get any easier. Work that is easy to learn and hard to do offers a very limited future.



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The fourth category of work, and the most important, are those jobs that are easy to learn and easy to do. In fact, they are so easy for you to learn that you forgot how you learned them in the first place. They just came naturally to you.

This category contains the types of work where you can excel and have a wonder-ful life. You have a natural facility in these areas. Your work is almost effortless and you continually get better and better almost without thinking about it. This is where your future lies.

How can you determine what sort of work is ideal for you? Well, there are four words that seem to go along with your ideal job or occupation.

These words are: Interest

Attention

Absorption

Fascination

You will always be the most interested in the kind of work that is the most ideal for you. You will naturally enjoy the subject and be drawn to learning more about it. You will like to read about it, hear about it and talk about it. Like iron filings

are attracted to a magnet, you will be attracted to the type of jobs that you are ideally suited to do.

In fact, one of the tests for your ideal occupation is to look back and think about what you most enjoyed doing between the ages of seven and 14 years. The activi-ties that you most enjoyed at that time are often indicators of the exact things that you should be doing as an adult. If you dont remember what you spent most of your time doing, you can ask your mother or father. Ask your older brothers



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or sisters. Look at some of your mementos and activities from your childhood. Often you will find signs and indications that point directly toward your hearts

desire.

The second word is Attention. Your ideal field will catch your eye when you

are reading a newspaper or watching television. It holds you easily and natu-rally. You hear snippets of conversation about your ideal work area when you are moving around. You are naturally drawn toward people and organizations who are engaged in that area of activity.

The third word, Absorption, is a wonderful word to describe what happens to you when you are doing what you are truly mean to do. Time stands still for you. Sometimes you forget to eat, drink, rest or take breaks. You often hear about the work lives of scientists, researchers, writers, artists and business people who work 15-20 hour days, week after week and month after month, when they are totally absorbed by what they are doing.

The fourth word, Fascination, is a wonderful way of describing your attitude toward the people and work that you are ideally suited to do. It fascinates you. It grips you. It holds you. You can hardly wait to get there and you hate to leave. You can talk about it, do it, and learn about it without getting bored or distracted. Your work is a form of play that gives you a tremendous feeling of happiness and fulfillment when you are engaged in it.

You can always tell if you are in the right field for you because you have an ir-resistible and unquenchable desire to learn more and more about it. The people that you admire the most in the world around you are often people who are at the top of the field that you are most ideally suited to be in.

Who are your heros? Who do you admire the most in life? Of the people that you admire, respect and look up to the most, what qualities or characteristics do



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they have that you would most like to emulate? The more clear you can be about this part of your self-ideal, your role models, the more rapidly you will evolve and grow in the direction of becoming the kind of person that other people look up to and respect.

In determining your ideal mission and purpose in life, look back over your life and evaluate your previous successes and failures. What qualities, skills, or at-tributes have been most responsible for your successes in life to date? What have been your peak experiences or moments of highest achievement and pride, and what do these moments have in common?

If you make a list of all the things that you have done that you are particularly proud of, you will find that there is a common thread running through each of

those activities. In every case you were with a particular kind of person and you were accomplishing a particular kind of task. You were receiving a particular type of recognition from a particular kind of person, as well.

For example, you may find that your greatest sources of satisfaction have been

in setting long-term goals, making plans and then working toward them for many months and even many years before finally winning through. The thrill

of achievement, of success, gives you an adrenaline rush as well as a flood of

endorphins that make you feel terrific about yourself. When you have had a

series of successes earlier in life, you develop an unconscious conditioning that drives you and motivates you to engage in the same behaviors again that will give you the same feelings of self-respect, self-esteem and personal pride.

What are the things that you have done in life that have given you your greatest feelings of self-esteem and personal pride? If you could accomplish anything in your life in the future, what one thing would give you the greatest amount of personal pride and satisfaction? How could you organize your life to do more



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and more of those things that give you the highest possible pay-off in true sat-isfaction?

What qualities do you admire the most in others? These will invariably be the qualities that you aspire to the most yourself. Give yourself a score of 1-10 in each of the key qualities that you most admire and then make a plan to improve yourself in each area.

What skills or abilities do you most admire in other people? Whatever they are, these are probably the same skills and abilities that you would most like to have yourself. Give yourself a score of 1-10 in each of the most important skills and then make a plan to go to work on yourself to develop these abilities through learning and practice.

What one skill, if you developed it and did it in an excellent fashion, would have the greatest positive impact on your life and your career? If you could be abso-lutely outstanding in any one area, which one area would help you the most? If you can be perfectly clear about this one skill area, you can then set it as a goal, make a plan and go to work to bring yourself up into the excellent range in this skill. Sometimes, the development or improvement of a single skill can change your entire life and career.

There are two additional areas that you need to explore in order to fulfill your

full potential and find your true mission and purpose in life. The first has to do

with your area of excellence, and the second has to do with your acres of diamonds.

In business terms, every company must have an area of excellence or an area of competitive advantage if it wishes to survive and thrive in a difficult marketplace.

An area of excellence is something that a company does in an outstanding fashion,



35

better than most, if not all, of its competitors. Sometimes an area of excellence is referred to as a core competency. Sometimes it is called a differential ad-vantage. In any case, the area of excellence is what differentiates one company from another, one product or service from another.

As an individual, completely responsible for your own economic life, you have to see yourself as a company in this same sense. What is your area of excellence? What is your competitive advantage? What is your unique selling proposition the one thing that you bring to the equation that no one else can offer?

One of the primary reasons for under achievement in life is that a person fails to develop a special competence or skill that enables them to stand out from all the others around them. Too many people are content with being average or maybe just a little bit above average. But this is not for you. Your goal is to determine the one or two skills that are most important to your succeeding in your work and then to dedicate yourself totally to becoming very, very good in those key areas. This has always been the high road to success and the greatest guarantor of high achievement.

Once you have determined your area of excellence today, ask yourself, What will my area of excellence be tomorrow and next year, the way things are going?

Do you have a specific personal and professional development plan that you are

working on every single day? If not, it is time for you to put one together and then to work on it every single day.

What should your area of excellence be if you want to move to the top of your field? What could it be if you were to dream big dreams and set extraordinarily

high standards for yourself?



36

You know that the market only pays excellent rewards for excellent performance. It pays average rewards for average performance and it pays below average rewards and unemployment for below average performance. Your job must be to get into the top 10% of performers and money earners in your field and then

to do everything necessary to stay there for the rest of your career.

There is nothing that will bring you to the attention of others faster or get you promoted more rapidly than for you to develop a reputation as being one of the very best people in what you do.

Personal Strategic Planning

Chapter 4

Brian Tracy



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Y our ability to think, plan and act strategically can have an extraordinary effect on your business. Strategic thinking is the key to increased sales, reduced costs and improved profitability.

To achieve your full potential for sales and profits, you must engage in regular

strategic planning for yourself and your career.

Questions stimulate thought and ideas. Well worded questions that bring out ideas and insights can change your thinking and change your life.

In this session on Strategic Planning, you are asked to answer 52 of the most im-portant questions ever developed to help you to be more focused and effective. Just one question that changes what you think and do can change your future.

Please read through and answer every question in writing. Review these ques-tions and answers with your colleagues or spouse. Turn them over in your mind and be as honest and thoughtful as you can.

When you can ask and answer these questions correctly for you you can improve the quality of your entire life and career.

Good luck!



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1. What business are you in? Define your business in terms of what you actually do for your customer:

1) ______________________________________________________________

2) ______________________________________________________________

3) ______________________________________________________________

2. What is your mission or purpose for being in your business or career? Why do you do what you do?

1) ______________________________________________________________

2) ______________________________________________________________

3) ______________________________________________________________

3. How do you want your customers to talk about you, think about you, describe you to others? What words do you want them to use?

1) ______________________________________________________________

2) ______________________________________________________________

3) ______________________________________________________________



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4. What are the three biggest worries or concerns you have about your business today?

1) ______________________________________________________________

2) ______________________________________________________________

3) ______________________________________________________________

5. Who is your ideal customer? Describe him/her in terms of age, income, education, occupation, location:

1) Age? _______________________________________________________

2) Occupation? _________________________________________________

3) Education? __________________________________________________

4) Income? ____________________________________________________

5) Location? ___________________________________________________

6. What does your customer consider value? What benefits does your customer seek or expect in dealing with you?

1) ______________________________________________________________

2) ______________________________________________________________

3) ______________________________________________________________



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7. What are your core competencies? What skills or abilities do you have that are essential to your business?

1) ______________________________________________________________

2) ______________________________________________________________

3) ______________________________________________________________

8. What do you do extremely well? Where do you perform in an exceptional fashion?

1) ______________________________________________________________

2) ______________________________________________________________

3) ______________________________________________________________

9. Who are your competitors?

1) Primary Competitors? ________________________________________

____________________________________________________________

____________________________________________________________

2) Secondary Competitors? ______________________________________

____________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________



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10. Why do your customers buy from your competitors? What benefits do they receive from your competitors that they dont receive from you?

1) ______________________________________________________________

2) ______________________________________________________________

3) ______________________________________________________________

11. What products/services give you your highest profits? Where do you get your highest payoff? Your highest return on effort, investment?

1) ______________________________________________________________

2) ______________________________________________________________

3) ______________________________________________________________

12. What activities should you abandon, eliminate, get out of to free up more time for higher value activities?

1) ______________________________________________________________

2) ______________________________________________________________

3) ______________________________________________________________

13. What could you do to attract your competitors customers to your offerings?

1) ______________________________________________________________

2) ______________________________________________________________

3) ______________________________________________________________



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14. How could you change your methods of sales and marketing to increase your sales?

1) ______________________________________________________________

2) ______________________________________________________________

3) ______________________________________________________________

15. What is your area of specialization? What are your products uniquely suited to do, and for whom?

1) ______________________________________________________________

2) ______________________________________________________________

3) ______________________________________________________________

16. What is your area of differentiation or excellence? In what ways are you superior to your competitors?

1) ______________________________________________________________

2) ______________________________________________________________

3) ______________________________________________________________

17. What is your specific competitive advantage? What will it be in the future? What should it be? What could it be?

1) Today? _____________________________________________________

2) Will be? _____________________________________________________

3) Should be? __________________________________________________

4) Could be? ___________________________________________________



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18. What type of customers can benefit the most from the special, unique, superior benefits of your product or service?

1) ______________________________________________________________

2) ______________________________________________________________

3) ______________________________________________________________

19. In what areas should you concentrate your energy and resources to get the very highest pay-off from your efforts?

1) ______________________________________________________________

2) ______________________________________________________________

3) ______________________________________________________________

20. How could you attract more customers who can most benefit and pay for what you sell?

1) ______________________________________________________________

2) ______________________________________________________________

3) ______________________________________________________________

21. What customers should you phase out, abandon because they no longer represent the best use of your time and energy?

1) ______________________________________________________________

2) ______________________________________________________________

3) ______________________________________________________________



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22. What is your current positioning in your marketplace? How are you perceived by, described by your customers and prospects? What words do they use to describe you?

1) ______________________________________________________________

2) ______________________________________________________________

3) ______________________________________________________________

23. What is your brand? What value does your name mean to your customers?

1) ______________________________________________________________

2) ______________________________________________________________

3) ______________________________________________________________

24. What should your brand be? What words or description would you like to own in your customers mind?

1) ______________________________________________________________

2) ______________________________________________________________

3) ______________________________________________________________

25. What could you change or improve in your products or services to create and keep greater customer loyalty?

1) ______________________________________________________________

2) ______________________________________________________________

3) ______________________________________________________________



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26. What are your greatest personal strengths your special talents and abilities?

1) ______________________________________________________________

2) ______________________________________________________________

3) ______________________________________________________________

27. What are your greatest business strengths those that cause your customers to want to do business with you?

1) ______________________________________________________________

2) ______________________________________________________________

3) ______________________________________________________________

28. What are your greatest weaknesses as an individual?

1) ______________________________________________________________

2) ______________________________________________________________

3) ______________________________________________________________

What are the main weaknesses in your business the ones that limit your sales, growth or profitability?

1) ______________________________________________________________

2) ______________________________________________________________

3) ______________________________________________________________



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What are the constraints that hold you back from achieving more of your business goals?

1) ______________________________________________________________

2) ______________________________________________________________

3) ______________________________________________________________

29. What are the greatest potential threats to your business today?

1) ______________________________________________________________

2) ______________________________________________________________

3) ______________________________________________________________

30. Looking into the future, what are the three worst things that could happen to hurt your business or career?

1) ______________________________________________________________

2) ______________________________________________________________

3) ______________________________________________________________

31. What steps could you take immediately to guard against these possible dangers?

1) ______________________________________________________________

2) ______________________________________________________________

3) ______________________________________________________________



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32. What are your areas of greatest opportunity for the future, based on the trends in your business?

1) ______________________________________________________________

2) ______________________________________________________________

3) ______________________________________________________________

33. How could you begin positioning yourself to take advantage of these opportunities?

1) ______________________________________________________________

2) ______________________________________________________________

3) ______________________________________________________________

34. What core competencies or skills will you need to be ready for the opportunities of tomorrow?

1) ______________________________________________________________

2) ______________________________________________________________

3) ______________________________________________________________

35. How is technology affecting your business? Especially, what changes will the Internet make in the way you do business?

1) ______________________________________________________________

2) ______________________________________________________________

3) ______________________________________________________________



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36. What are you doing today that you wouldnt get into again if you had to do it over knowing what you now know?

1) ______________________________________________________________

2) ______________________________________________________________

3) ______________________________________________________________

37. Reorganization What changes should you make in your business, with regard to people and expenses, to improve both effectiveness and efficiency?

1) ______________________________________________________________

2) ______________________________________________________________

3) ______________________________________________________________

38. Restructuring How can you shift more of your time and resources into more profitable activities?

1) ______________________________________________________________

2) ______________________________________________________________

3) ______________________________________________________________

39. Reinventing Imagine your business burned to the ground. What activities would you start up again immediately?

1) ______________________________________________________________

2) ______________________________________________________________

3) ______________________________________________________________



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What activities would you not start up again?

1) ______________________________________________________________

2) ______________________________________________________________

3) ______________________________________________________________

40. Reengineering Simplify every step of your business activities. What could you outsource, eliminate or discontinue altogether?

1) Down size? __________________________________________________

2) Outsource? __________________________________________________

3) Eliminate? __________________________________________________

4) Discontinue? ________________________________________________

41. Are there any people in your business life a customer, employee, associate who, knowing what you now know, you wouldnt get

involved with today?

1) ______________________________________________________________

2) ______________________________________________________________

3) ______________________________________________________________

42. If you could start your business or career over again today, what would you do differently?

1) ______________________________________________________________

2) ______________________________________________________________

3) ______________________________________________________________



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43. What skills, abilities, talents do you have that have been most responsible for your successes to date?

1) ______________________________________________________________

2) ______________________________________________________________

3) ______________________________________________________________

44. If you could be absolutely excellent in any area, which areas would be most helpful to you in achieving your goals?

1) ______________________________________________________________

2) ______________________________________________________________

3) ______________________________________________________________

45. What is the driving force of your business career? What determines the products, services and markets you offer or work in?

1) ______________________________________________________________

2) ______________________________________________________________

3) ______________________________________________________________

46. What are the critical constraints on your business today? What sets the speed at which you achieve your main goals?

1) ______________________________________________________________

2) ______________________________________________________________

3) ______________________________________________________________



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47. What are the biggest business mistakes you have made recently?

1) ______________________________________________________________

2) ______________________________________________________________

3) ______________________________________________________________

48. What are the most valuable business lessons you have learned recently?

1) ______________________________________________________________

2) ______________________________________________________________

3) ______________________________________________________________

49. If you could do just one thing all day long, what would you choose to do?

_______________________________________________________________

_______________________________________________________________

_______________________________________________________________

50. If you could only sell one product or service, which one would it be?

_______________________________________________________________

_______________________________________________________________

_______________________________________________________________



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51. If you could only deal with one type of customer, who would it be?

_______________________________________________________________

_______________________________________________________________

_______________________________________________________________

52. What specific actions should you take immediately based on your answers to the above questions?

1) ______________________________________________________________

2) ______________________________________________________________

3) ______________________________________________________________

What one action are you going to take immediately?

_______________________________________________________________

_______________________________________________________________

_______________________________________________________________



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Notes

Your Meaning and Purpose in Life

Chapter 5

Brian Tracy



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Your Meaning and Purpose in Life

O ne of the most important steps in achieving all of your goals and becoming the best person you can be is first to understand that we live in a Meritocracy. A Meritocracy is a society where you are rewarded on the basis of the value of your contribution to others. We live in a service economy where every one of us makes our living by serving other people in some way. The better you get at serving people effectively and efficiently, the happier and secure you will be in

your career.

Interestingly enough, your deepest sense of meaning and purpose in life only comes to you when you know that you are making a difference in the lives of others. You are designed psychologically in such a way that you can only be happy when you know that you are doing something that is somehow enriching and enhancing the lives or work of other people. The reason that America is so successful economically is because almost everyone earns their living by serv-ing someone else in some way. And every single act of service that every person engages in enriches and improves the overall quality of life in our society. What is your area of service? What should it be? What could it be?

The second part of finding true mission and purpose in life is explained in the

acres of diamonds philosophy. This philosophy is based on a talk by Russell Conwell that told about an African farmer who sold his farm to go off into the African continent looking for diamonds. Some years later, the new farmer found that the farm that he had purchased was covered literally with acres of diamonds.

The old farmer had gone off seeking for wealth elsewhere without ever looking under his own feet. The problem was that diamonds do not look like diamonds in their rough form. They look like chunks of rock that have to be cut and shaped and polished to bring out their beauty and value.



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In the same way, your diamonds probably lie under your own feet but they come disguised as hard work. Diamonds never look like diamonds in the rough. Op-portunities always seem to look like a long extended process of hard, hard work. But they are there nonetheless.

Your acres of diamonds may lie right within your current company or industry. Perhaps your acres of diamonds lie within your own interests and abilities. Per-haps they lie within your education and experience. Perhaps they lie within the friends, associates and contacts that you have. The one thing we know is that, when you make a decision to accomplish far more with your life, you will begin to attract into your life all kinds of opportunities, people and ideas that will help make your dreams a reality.

Sometimes people ask me if they need to go back to school for several years to get a degree, or move to another city or change jobs into a different industry. Invariably, I tell them that the key to success is to determine what it is that you really love to do and then to throw your whole heart into doing it the very best way you possibly can. If you combine these two practices, all the doors of op-portunity will open up in front of you.

The one common quality of highly successful people is that they are action oriented. They take the time to think, to plan, and then they take action. They do something. They move forward continuously. They try one thing, and then another, and then another and another. They never stop. They are always in con-stant motion. And because the more things you try the more likely it is you will triumph, when you get into continuous forward motion, you will be astonished at how much ground you cover and how many different opportunities and pos-sibilities open up for you.

Finding your true mission and purpose in life is central to everything you do and become. The very worst use of life is to spend your years scrambling up



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the ladder of success only to find that it is leaning against the wrong building.

Leaders are those who take the time to sit down quietly by themselves and to think through who they really are and what they really want. They look upon themselves as an ongoing do-it-to-yourself project. They look upon themselves as works in progress, continually evolving and improving in the direction of becoming better and better human beings.

As I said earlier, you are extraordinary. There has never been anyone like you in all of history, and there will never be anyone else again. You were put on this earth to do something wonderful with your life. You have within you, right now, the most marvelous capacities and abilities that you could ever imagine. If you were to work your whole life long, you would never even use a small fraction of the potential that is programmed into you at this very moment.

Your job is to find your hearts desire. Your job is to think through and decide

what you believe in and what you stand for and then to select an area of endeavor or activity that is completely congruent with the very best that is within you. Your job in life is to establish a mission and purpose that enables you to become everything you are capable of becoming, to fulfill your full potential and to make

a wonderful contribution to the world around you.

Here are 7 steps you can take immediately to move in the direction of your goals and dreams:

First, what one great thing would you dare to dream if you knew you could

not fail? Write it down.

Second, make a list of ten goals you would like to achieve in the months

a

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