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Today we are going to explore and begin to Work with the first two practical steps, to successfully and permanently achieve your goal; the next three of these five steps we will explore next time.

Step By Step Guide: Five Practical Steps Towards Successfully Achieving Your Goal and Empowering Your Self

Step One: Know Your Goal and Get To Know, In Depth, Your Personal Reasons and Purposes To Successfully Achieve Your Goal

In a few moments we will go, go, go to establish and hone your Goal. So that your Goal will become a powerful ‘living’ Vision, ‘alive’ in your mind day and night. Whatever problem you want to resolve, which will soon become your ‘living’, real, Authentic Vision, has initially been caused by a ‘loss’ of self or fragment of your self.

Part of our self is ‘lost’ in a time of difficulty within our unconscious. This ‘loss’ of self, sooner or later manifests as the mind-emotional problems which ‘haunt’ us. The greatest threat to our inner certainty, resourcefulness, strengths, happiness and potential is the ‘loss’ of self. We find, ‘heal’ and free our ‘lost’ self as we journey in our unconscious mind.

These five steps are for you to discover, to free and heal your self, to be free of any mind-emotional problem that has truly troubled you and for you to live in celebration of your life. These five steps are unique in that they are not the same old psychotherapeutic strategies which are traditionally bandied around.

These five steps communicate in the language of your unconscious mind. The language is ‘Clean’ in that it does not impose diagnosis, external control, suggestions, analysis, supposition or judgment. It is not prescriptive. It returns the locus of control, of thinking, feeling and beliefs to its rightful place, you, the rightful owner of inner control.

You will need a notebook since there are a number of questions you will be asking yourself and you will need to record your answers.

Let’s Go! Go for your Goal!

• First Question: “And - what do you want to have happen, what do you want to achieve?”

The best way to ask these questions is out loud. So when you are in a position to ask it out loud, it goes like this:

“And - what do I want to have happen, what do I want to achieve?”

Beginning the question with ‘And’ will invite an unusual response from your unconscious mind. This non-ordinary question invites a non-ordinary response, because the conscious mind pays attention to the unusual use of the word ‘And’. This distraction of the conscious mind frees a flow of new information from your unconscious mind. Why the language of the unconscious mind? Why communicate in this special way with the unconscious mind?

The logic is: All emotional and psychological problem states are unconsciously driven. We do not consciously want the nervousness, the feeling fearful and scared, the anxiety, the panic, the withdrawing from life, the stressing and worrying, the not sleeping, the same old same old debilitating habits, the anger or irritability with others or the cat! The not being able to say “NO!” and mean it thoroughly, to food, to people in our life.

Your answer will be either what you do not have and want, example:

“I want to feel happier in my relationship”

Or what you do have, and don’t want, example:

“I want to stop feeling miserable in my relationship.”

You need to take a few minutes a day for a few days, 10 days or more, be intuitive, come gently back to this powerful question many times to hone your answer. Sleep on it  - be prepared to wake in the morning with more clarity.

First of all, your answer needs to ‘go inside’ of you. Not externalized to another person.

For example you may want to write in your notebook: “I want them to be romantic and be more attentive to me.” This answer goes ‘external’, i.e. wanting to change another person’s behaviour, whereas this journey begins with your understanding of your self, and your changes. You may right now want to wail: “But, there’s’ nothing wrong with me! It’s them. They don’t pay me any attention!”

I so understand this ‘wail’ and I’ve heard it hundreds and hundreds of times in the past 30 years. Honestly, I too used to wail! “I don’t need to change, it’s them!”

Here’s the really good news: The deeper self-understanding and changes we bring about in our self, will enable the person, the people, who we are close to, to have ‘clean space’ for them to change as well.

So, taking this example instead of your answer being:  “I want them to be romantic and be more attentive to me” - your answer would be something like this:

“When they are not romantic and not attentive I want to stop being moody and withdrawn”.

Or another example: “When they are not romantic and attentive I want to feel OK and calm in myself.”

Goal setting is really, really important - so take your time. ‘Chew your pen’ and ponder a while. Revisit and hone your goal every day for a few days. You may want to write reams on your Goal to begin with. Just do it, keep your notes then refine your goal to a single sentence. Your goal then becomes memorable, powerful, organic. It has a life force that lives with you day and night.

The first step in getting successful results about anything in life is to have a clear goal. If we don’t know where we’re going, we can’t get there!

The next part of this first step is for you to list in your notebook as many of your reasons and your purposes for achieving your goal that you can think of. This is a mind change that you are embarking upon - changing your mind and keeping the positive change - the mind will refuse to change if you have not defined real, good reasons and purposes to do so. You can separate out in your notebook reasons from purposes.

Your reasons will be a justification for achieving your goal.

For example: “More harmony is needed in our home life, because harmony will help the kids to stop being so stroppy, and will help their school work improve.”

Your purposes will be about your desire to achieve your goal.

For example: “My partner is my ‘soul mate’ I want to share joy and beauty, love, sexiness and loads of humour with them!” Really get to know your reasons and purposes.

Give your lists in depth attention. Around 10 days for a few minutes a day will probably do it. Be intuitive as I know you are wonderfully intuitive.

Your reasons and purposes will gain you Olympic Athlete size motivation!

Here Is My Free ‘healing’ Story for you. Listen Every Day for just over 20 minutes a minutes a day. Your successful results will quickly become easily and effortlessly Authentic and Valid for

you www.youtube.com/watch?v=KTC6DPbY4hk

ENJOY

Step Two: Epistemology - How Do You Know What You Know?

After around 10 days or so with your question: “And - what do I want to have happen?” and honing your answers, move on to step two - your Epistemology, and Work with this for around a further 10 days or so.

I can promise you that this question is one of the most amazing questions ever! You are going to be amazed at where your unique answers will lead you, to the solutions and resolutions that you need and want. And the successful and permanent achievement of your goal. Great word isn’t it? Epistemology meaning, how you know you know ‘something’.

I’ll take this opportunity to have a small rant:  Most therapies and self help strategies ignore epistemology at their peril, when in fact this is the major key to resolving problems once and for all. Let’s explore a simple example together to help you to understand what I mean about this question being amazing. I love this question; I think you will too once you get into it.

We’ll explore a positive state rather than a negatively loaded problem state. Imagine six people having dinner together. All six people state: “I am really happy.” (It does happen!!)

The epistemological question we are about to ask of the six people goes inside each of them to their individual ‘knowing’ of being; “really happy”, and not to any external circumstance such as:

“I’m really happy because you five friends rock.”

Or, “I am really happy because this food is ace.”

Let’s ask each of the six really happy people in turn:

“And - when you’re really happy, how do you know you are really happy?”

1. “I feel secure and safe with you guys”
2. “My eyes are relaxed and smiling, instead of being scared and wary.”
3. “I have a warm open glow in the whole of my body, instead of usually feeling withdrawn.”
4. “The hard lump in my throat that I feel so much of the time has gone.”
5. “My stomach is all soft instead of tight.”
6. “My mind feels quiet and clear, when most of the time it’s worrying and churning.”

Six different ‘inner’ experiences. Six different answers.

Are you wondering: “So what? What has this got to do with problem solving and successfully achieving my goal?” Here’s a true story for you by way of explanation. This experience taught me so much and I’d only been studying epistemology for around 6 months at the time.

Back in 1984, on the same day three new clients came to me for a 1 to 1 consultation.

When I asked:

“And - what do you want to have happen, what do you want to achieve?”

In each of the three separate consultations I got the same answer: “I want to stop being anxious”.

I asked each of these three people, separately of course, in private consultation: “And - when you are being anxious - how do you know that you are being anxious?”

Here are their answers:

1. “...well, I have loads of negative thoughts and my stomach will be pounding.”
2. “I feel a sense of gloom and dread - like I have a great heavy weight over my head.”
3. “I don’t know why I get anxious, but it’s like I’m trembling inside.”

Because the answers were so different, naturally the three journeys to solution and resolution of ‘being anxious’ were entirely different. This allegory will help make sense of it.

Three different people have a problem with damp in their home.

In the first home, the damp is caused by rising damp. In the second home, the damp is caused by a leaking roof. And in the third home, the damp is caused by a split in an internal plumbing pipe.

All three homes have problems of damp, with three different causes! The ‘journey’ to solve, resolve and cure each problem is entirely different!

With the question we are now about to Work with, give yourself time to gently wonder and ponder on your own unique answers.

Let’s get going

So, taking the example answers from the goal setting exercise:

“When they are not romantic and attentive I want to stop being moody and withdrawn”.

The question goes like this:

“And - when I am being moody, how do I know I am being moody?”

“And - when I am withdrawn how do I know I am withdrawn?”

(‘Moody’ and ‘withdrawn’ are likely to be different types of information and need separating.)

Here is a different example of a goal:

“When they are not romantic and attentive I want to feel OK and calm in myself.”

The question will be:

“And - when I don’t feel OK how do I know I don’t feel OK?”

“And - when I’m not calm how do I know I’m not calm?”

(‘Don’t feel OK’ - and - ‘not calm’ are also likely to contain different types of information)

Please remember that your goal must be in your own words.

Let me give a brief example of what I mean by ‘different types of information’ .

I’ll take the first goal for my example:

Q: “And - when I am being moody - how do I know that I’m being moody?”

A: “Well - I feel annoyed.”

Q “And - when I am withdrawn how do I know that I am withdrawn?”

A: “I want to hide.”

Initially you may need to work with your equivalent of; “How do I know I’m moody?” several times to get to the crux of your own issue.

First of all, this ‘How do I know’ is a rarely asked question! Strange when it’s one of the most important questions to ask!

We usually ask ‘why’? “Why are you being moody?”

And second, we have learnt to project our answers ‘outwards’ blaming others like this:

“I’m being moody because they are rude!”

“I’m being moody because they behave as if I don’t exist!”

“I’m being moody because I feel I’m not good enough for them!”

Blaming others does not lead to resolution of our issue, it stagnates us, so make sure your answers are not about other people’s behaviours.

Take all the time you need - this is not ‘fast food therapy’, this is ‘nourishing’ of your Self - Work, which will be lasting.

Work with your Epistemology for a few minutes every day for at least ten days. This is precious time, this is you getting to know your self, your inner unconscious self.

Three more vitally important steps next time.

Step By Step Guide: Five Practical Steps Towards Successfully Achieving your Goal and Empowering Your Self

From my soon to be published book: Frayed Edges…the System Sally Stubbs