How To Master Your Goals with the 100 Day Challenge and The Freedom Journal

Everyone wants to be successful and fulfilled.We get distracted though.We have too many options and afraid of missing out.Sounds familiar?Have you struggled with finding out what you want in life?If we want to be successful, we must study successful people.

“Success Leaves Clues.”

— Tony RobbinsWhat we tend to find is that these successful people have things in common that I am going to talk about in this post.I will be covering how we buy into the new year’s resolutions deceit, the underestimation and importance of focus, life planning basics and setting intentional goals, as well as required education and my own goals.

The New Year’s Resolutions Deceit

“If you want to achieve something, you must expect it from yourself.”

— Dr. Wayne Dyer

We are infinite, whole and complete.

With that in mind, we need to realise that we have everything we need to live a life of purpose this moment.

We need to start living in the present, not the past or the future. New Year resolutions don’t work simply because we are trying to decide in advance how we are going to behave in the future. Instead living intentionally a day at a time and reinforcing the desired behaviour the following day is a better strategy as explained by Dr. Wayne Dyer.

I have gone through new year’s resolutions and setting goals in the past, not realising I was focusing on the future and dreaming only to let these dreams die in the daylight.This was because I didn’t take consistent daily action. 

There is power in dreaming and then taking daily consistent steps towards living the life that you have imagined.Then and only then magic can happen.

My favourite quote of all time that summarises this perfectly is from Henry David Thoreau.

““If you advance confidently in the direction of your dreams, and endeavour to live the life that you have imagined, you will meet with a success unexpected in common hours”.”

— Henry David ThoreauI get chills every time I read it.

The power is in daily consistent and focused action, while applying the power of intention.

The underestimation and importance of focus

So, why focus?

In this day and age we are being bombarded with productivity systems, apps and gurus that will give you the 10 top ways to increase your productivity and accomplish more, but there is a catch with all these systems.

You need to know what you want.

Otherwise, you end up getting dragged into yet another app to buy and another system to learn that will just keep you busy.What I have found over the last 5 years of downloading, purchasing and using almost every productivity app and system out there, is that these won’t tell you what you really want.

There are there merely to help you keep track of things.They don’t know what you have placed into your imagination.So when is the best time to start making conscious and focused choices about your life?

Now!

The worst trap, which I’ve fallen in endlessly in the past, is “I’ll start on Monday”.What’s up with Mondays?

Instead, we need to answer some simple questions. Nothing fancy.

All you need is yourself, a piece of paper, a pen and a quiet place.That’s it. No technology. No apps.

These can come in later, once you know exactly what you want.As explained in this post by Coach.me CEO Tony Stubblebine, single-tasking is the missing piece for achieving focus and mastery.Behaviours like email apnea and continuous partial attention are being observed worldwide. The unconscious adoption of technology can result in technology actually making us slaves to notifications and emails that don’t have meaningful impact towards our life improvement.

That’s not what we signed up for.As a first step, focus and single tasking is essential for getting meaningful results, in conjunction with going into a place of silence and arriving with answers.

A magnificent tool for this is meditation.Through meditation we can learn to bring our mind into the now and better achieve the task of taking a holistic mental picture of our live as it is in this moment.

To get to where we want, we must know where we are.

A great tool for taking your meditations a step further is Life Planning.

Life Planning Basics

There is a chance that you have found your life’s calling and you are waking up excited every morning to seize the day. For most people this isn’t the case. Dragging yourself out of bed just to get through the day isn’t what you are here for.It doesn’t have to be this way.

Something I learned from Tony Robbins, is Life Planning and the wheel of life.A life plan will add clarity and peace as you are taking a picture of where you are, called the truth and then deciding where you want to be.The wheel of life is a very basic concept. Imagine your life as a wheel. The wheel is divided up in 7–8 sections.

• Physical Environment
• Health
• Personal Growth
• Romance
• Business/Career
• Family and Friends
• Finances
• Fun and Recreation

Strartofhappiness.com

As you can see in the picture above, each section is measured from 1 to 10. If you pay attention to one area and disregard the rest, there is going to be imbalance and stress in your life.Imagine now if this was a wheel on your car, called life. How would this car perform at 10 m/h?At 100m/h?You get the idea.Once you have imagined how you want each of these 7–8 areas of your life to be, you can start becoming intentional with your days and the 86400 seconds that gets deposited into your bank account every morning.So Let’s look at the mechanics of goal setting next.

Setting intentional Goals

Goal setting is an important part of our life. We either set goals for us, or we work on helping someone else achieve their goals.There is nothing wrong with helping others but we have to be aware that without setting goals for ourself, things are not going to go according to plan, if there is no plan in the first place.For me goal setting is right up there with all these other topics that schools don’t teach.

• Goal Setting
• Managing Money
• Meditation and Mindfulness

If you think about it there is an inherent goal in school. The goal is to finish school and get a job. It is part of the package.When you get out in the real world though, you have a choice, you either learn to set your own goals, or you continue to let the world define goals for you.This leads to the realisation sooner or later that your life is not one of your choosing.

Why do we do that?

Well, in Jim Carrey’s own words, “It is convenience disguised as practicality”.

We follow the path of least resistance. We don’t want to get disappointed, we don’t want to be seen as a failure.That’s why we choose the safe path and we settle for kinda and don’t dare to dream or wish. 

In Dr. Wayne Dyer’s book “Wishes Fulfilled” there is a framework for having your wishes fulfilled.

It is 5 steps and talks about the invisible forces that make our wishes a reality.

1. Using your Imagination — Visualise what you want to have in life.A. Imagination is more important than knowing. Albert Einstein
 B. When the subconscious mind starts to chatter, imagine putting a Do not Disturb sign to stop the chatter so as not to interrupt the imagination.
 C. Everything that we are enjoying now in life are all first imagined.

2. Living from the end — Call the things which do not exist, as though they did.

3. Assume the feeling of the wish fulfilled — Place into your imagination the “I am” that you wish to accomplish.
4. Give it ATTENTION. — There are 2 kinds of attention — Subjective & ObjectiveA. Subjective — when you choose how to think and therefore react while you are creating your desires.
B. Objective — is a programmed information you have acquired by habit.
C. Make this a rule “ Don’t complain, Don’t explain”

5. Now you lay me down to sleep.
The last 5 minutes before you head to sleep. Review only what is positive and wonderful that happened during the day. Be thankful. Think of your dreams and desires.

This is powerful.

Even in the classic book “Think and Grow Rich” there are 6 steps to manifesting your wishes, dreams and desires. The steps described below, talk about financial wealth, but can be adjusted for any goal you may have.

1. Fix in your mind the exact amount of money you desire
2. Determine exactly what you intent to give in return for the money that you desire.
3. Establish a definite date when you intent to possess the money that you desire.
4. Create a definite plan for carrying out your desire and begin at once,whether you are ready or not, put this plan into action.
5. Write out a clear, concise statement of the amount of money you intent to acquire. Name the time limit for its acquisition. State what you intent to give in return for the money and describe clearly the plan through which you intent to accumulate it.
6. Read your written statement aloud, twice daily, once just before retiring at night and once after rising in the morning.

Therefore, there is an invisible realm that we need to place our attention and intention, equally or even more than we will do in the physical realm, as everything starts out as a thought.

Required Education

As we discussed earlier, goals need to follow some rules. A goal needs to beSMART.SMART stand for:

• Specific
• Measurable
• Attainable
• Relevant
• Time bound

We also need a powerful why and need to reaffirm our goal aloud twice daily.To this effect, I am going to talk about 2 tools that I have personally used for achieving my goals that follow the principles I have talked about so far.

100 Day Challenge

The 100 Day Challenge is run 3 times a year and has taken into account what I have talked about so far. I have participated in this program a few times and have joined for the 3rd quarter of 2016. The format of this challenge is following the SMART and the 1–3–5 methodologies. There is a weekly after action review and every day that you login to the 100 Day Challenge website, there is a motivational video waiting for you along with a section where you can enter your actions for the day, which then gets emailed to you.There is also a 100 Day Challenge community where you can find an accountability partner.I have found this program to be one of the best goal setting educational programs online, as the guidance and the daily motivation is all together in one place.There is a lot of guidance to help you understand how to set your goals using the SMART method, keep yourself accountable and monitor your progress.

So the steps are as follows:

1. You are going to define up to 3 goals
2. For each goal you have to specify 3 reasons why you want to achieve this goal
3. Define 5 actions you are going to take towards each goal and their deadline as shown below.

The 100 Day Challenge is open 3 times a year and registration is open for a couple of weeks.

1st Quarter Launch — January 1–10
2nd Quarter Launch — April 1–10
3rd Quarter Launch — July 1–10
4th Quarter Launch — Sept 22 — Oct 2

If you are interested in signing up, visit 100 Day Challenge today.

The Freedom Journal

Another product that has recently come out, in both physical and electronic format (PDF) is “The Freedom Journal” from John Lee Dumas who runs the EOFire podcast. It combines everything I talked about in this post and follows a similar format as the 100 Day Challenge, but it is a physical product that focuses on 1 goal and has the added twist of 10 day sprints and25 day reviews but also powerful daily questions.

Sample day from the Freedom JournalI am currently using the PDF version of The Freedom Journal as I wanted to start straight away, but looking forward to getting the physical version as well.I have set 7 goals until the end of this year covering the 7 areas of my life, but have chosen one particular goal to focus on for the next 100 days following The Freedom Journal.Each 10 Day Sprint focuses on 3 goals that are subsets of your main goal and 1 habit you are going to build for the next 10 days.

There is a daily focus page, where you restate your 100 goal and specify your actions and action steps for the day. Also you add some metrics on how you will know you have achieved your actions for the day.

The night review is also really important, as you have to explain if you did what you said you were going to do and if you struggled. There is a section to come up with strategies to overcome these struggles for the following day.Once you finish the 10 days, there is a 10 day sprint review and then you move on to the next 10 day sprint. There are also quarterly reviews every 25 days to ensure you are moving at the correct pace and that you are on track.There is also a closed Facebook group, where you get to share your progress with others TFJ members and chat with John Lee Dumas and Kate.The Freedom Journal and the 100 Day Challenge have been the best products I’ve found and used to get closer to my goals.You can use them in combination or just focus on one.

My Goals

As discussed earlier, I have set 7 goals until the end of 2016 and 1 of these goals for the next 100 days. I am focusing on one in particular goal using The Freedom Journal. If you notice the wording, the use of present tense is intentional. I am using “I will” but instead I make of “I am” or “I have”.In the next 100 Days I am going to achieve 1 goals, starting now.

1. I am building a location independent business that generates 1000$ per month by 8th October 2016

I am going to add a section on my site where I will be updating my progress every month and keep my self accountable. I will be adding all my goals for this year as well.

“The best time to plant a tree is 20 years ago. The second best time is now”.
Chinese Proverb

To Your Success!Did This Help You? If so, I would greatly appreciate it if you commented below and shared on FacebookAlso, how are you setting and achieving your goals at the moment?

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“I Teach You Strategies That Work, Mindset and Habits That Will Allow To Design A Life On Your Terms

”PS: If You Don’t Know What is Your Focus for the next 100 Days, This is the Course you Should Get — 100 Day Challenge

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