I will introduce a concept called “Batching” tasks in the Elimination Stage. The method in this post is a great way to introduce Batching into your system along with properly setting your goals.

I explained using short, medium and long term goals to you on my other article (which can be found here) but I wanted to give you guys a better feel first, “to plant the seeds,” so I created this post and also because some people just want it step by step.

Here’s the deal, you have to do this everyday, BEFORE you sleep. Why? Because your subconscious mind will help you finish the task and most of the time, it shows you a better way to do it when you wake up. Your brain will work even if you are sleeping, so that is why I want you to do this every night just before bed. Trust me, it works wonders.

BTW, I will be putting a downloadable file at the end so you can print it and start doing it right now.

Now, stop and do these steps:

1. List 5 goals you want to achieve.
   • Write them down. You have a deadline of 30 days but you do not have to worry about it. Think of anything you’d like.
   • You should review these every morning when you wake up.
2. List 5 Tasks You Need To Finish Every Night Right Before Bed.
   • These tasks are each going to get you closer to one or more of your goals.
   • You can increase this after you finish this first training timeline which is exactly 30 days.
   • If you miss a day, you will have to start over. The reason? It builds discipline and a solid foundation you will need in the future. It’s slow, but it is rewarding. Believe me, after a week, you will be used to it.
   • TIP: Don’t use complicated, too many steps tasks. If you want to get a website up, you don’t put “Put up website”, you write down a step like “Buy Domain Name” or “Buy Hosting” or “Brainstorm Theme.” The simpler the step, the higher the chance you will get it done.
   • Remember, we are not rushing, we are just training for now.
3. Do The Tasks.
   • These are the priorities. Nothing should be put ahead of these.
   • Do not add tasks because it seems you have to do it. Add them for the next day.
4. Repeat Step 1 and then Step 2.
   • Do this for 30 days and be proud of yourself. I am sure you have accomplished a lot. Slowly but surely, you have completed many tasks and you are already 30 steps closer to your goal, IF you haven’t reached it yet.

Here’s an example:

Day 1 – I list down my goals:

1. To buy a BMW
2. To clean up my garage
3. To travel to Argentina
4. To learn Chinese/Mandarin
5. Lose 5 Pounds

Night 1 - Figure out what I should do to achieve one or even all the 5 goals.

1. I need to build a website to earn money on the sides. I need to research and brainstorm ideas tomorrow
2. I need to segregate the toys in the garage.
3. I need to check the online flights and costs to Argentina
4. Check how much a Mandarin tutorial would cost me
5. Write down my daily meals and calculate calories

Day 2 - Review Goals

Night 2 – I finished all my tasks. So I don’t have to start over

1. Design website
2. Remove the trash in the garage.
3. Research where to go in Argentina
4. Mandarin tutors are expensive, look for online Mandarin course
5. Calories are too high, remove snacks and exchange with smoothie

Day 3 – Review Goals

Night 3 - All tasks finished

1. Buy domain name
2. Remove old bikes in the garage
3. Book a ticket to Argentina 2 months from now
4. Select Mandarin Course Website and bookmark it
5. Buy non fat milk and stop drinking whole milk.

Day 4 – Review Goals

Night 4 - All tasks complete,  but I want to prioritize the money making website.

1. Buy hosting
2. Upload files and optimize site
3. Check for bugs on basic functions
4. Put 3 Articles on it
5. Social bookmark it on Stumble Upon

Day 5 - Review Goals

Night 5 – Completed all tasks, I want to promote the site and finish the garage today too

1. Remove the old boxes
2. Sweep the floor of garage
3. Social bookmark site on Digg
4. Start Twitter site
5. Write a 500 word article and submit to EzineArticles.

You see? Simple yet powerful. This method will make sure you finish what you started and not over complicate things up to a point where you’d want to give up.

Stay simple, don’t worry about the time for now, it’s all about training your mind and yourself to take MASSIVE action.

Remember, it is vital you complete a full month cycle. From then on, you can add more tasks but make sure you still are able to complete them. When you get used to this, you will find it easier and easier and you can then opt to use the short, medium and long term goal setting method or stick with this one.

When everything else fails, you feel lost and you feel like you want to give up, knowing how to properly set goals and doing them will take you a LOOOOONG WAY. Keep taking action, keep working smart and never stop believing.

P.S. Download A Simple Form I Made So You Can Print It Out And Start Right Away.

P.P.S. Damn, I tried to make this short! I guess I’ll try again next post!

Beginners: Experimenting With Goal Setting is a post from: Lifestyle Designer

Related posts:

1. Goal Setting and Recalibration: An Introduction To Lifestyle Design
2. Reach For Your Goals – Follow Up and Reminders
3. The Art Of Batching Tasks

But Wait! It’s Written…Now What?!?

I have talked about the importance of goal setting and how much it will help change your life. Now I want to remind and help you follow up.

• Stay away from the negative people around you.

They can really drag you down quickly. Keep staying positive and don’t get influenced by them. It’s really easier too if you have someone that supports your cause and goals. You’re in luck if you have very positive people around you which is rarely the case. Try looking for mentors, family members, friends and even people in online forums, that believe in what you do. Doing it with someone is always more fun than doing it alone.

• Reviewing your goals daily

This is why I told you to write it down on a pocket notebook. This should be in your routine. Keep visualizing the completed goal. Your subconscious and conscious mind will actually help you without you even noticing it. If you were very negative back then, you will start to notice that your mind is now more positive when seeing new things or approaching tasks. One more thing, make sure your goals don’t contradict each other!

• Ask yourself, “Am I inventing things to avoid the important?”

I got this from “The Four Hour Work Week” and I’ve been really loyal to this. I actually set this up in my computer to pop up every two hours to mock me. Before this, I was always thinking “Will this bring me closer to my goal?” but I wanted a cooler sounding question so I changed it

• Reward Your Success…..

….learn from your failures and take two steps forward, not backwards. Don’t get too caught up with it. Just zoom out and see where you went wrong and do it write this time.

• Persevere!

Always leave room for failure. This is what makes us better. Don’t expect perfection every time. This is not a negative mindset, the purpose of this is so that you will not get too attached and feel so down if ever you fail. So you can rise back up ASAP and do it better the next time around. Keep moving forward! (Yes I love “Meet The Robinsons”)

• Remember your commitment

This is really important. Tell yourself that you MUST do this. Never think you cannot do it.

If you follow these everyday, then you will be on your way to achieving infinite success in everything you do in your life. You are already a step better than everybody else on lifestyle design.

Reach For Your Goals – Follow Up and Reminders is a post from: Lifestyle Designer

Related posts:

1. Goal Setting and Recalibration: An Introduction To Lifestyle Design
2. Beginners: Experimenting With Goal Setting
3. The First Step – Define How You Really Think

You have no idea what you are getting yourself into. I urge you to STOP reading now if you are one of those “common” people, afraid of having things change in their lives because nothing I say now nor in the future will ever be of any use to you. Goal Setting is for everyone, but not everyone is for Goal Setting. If you think you are ready to be part of the “uncommon” 20%, then read on and be prepared because this decision right now will change your life.

Goal Setting is a very common phrase that’s why people usually misinterpret it. What I really call this is goal recalibration (re-calibration) and I will explain to you later why I think it should be called like that. For now, I want you to take your goals in life and list them. Open a word processor and type them….right now.

Do you want a better body? Lose a few pounds here and there? Maybe you want to learn how to speak Japanese. Maybe you are tired of being stuck in the 9-5 “rat race” and maybe you want to retire someday and do what you want. I definitely know you want to earn lots of money, buy a new house and a new car. There are so many different things you could list down!

You see, all these things you wrote are pointless without properly defined and focused goals. You just make it up as you go along and completely forget about it afterwards. If you knew how to do it properly, you will not only speed things up, you will make them happen and that is why I am here.

I call this the single most important stage in lifestyle design simply because without this stage, you should never even bother starting. But what really is lifestyle design? I define it like what you probably think it is. It’s simply designing your lifestyle to the way you want it to be. In my case, I designed my life around having a mobile lifestyle because I wanted to be always around the people I love at the same time being able to sustain the costs of my lifestyle.

You must know what you really want and don’t be influenced by others that want to make that decision for you. This is the foundation of lifestyle design.

Now, about recalibration. To calibrate means: (Thank you OSX Dictionary)
• to correlate the readings with those of a standard.

Everyone already has goals and those goals are usually “calibrated” to the standards of who you know, what you see and how they want you to be.

I want you to recalibrate your goals to the standards of the “uncommon” 20% of the population. The successful one’s, the people you envy the most. Recalibrate your goals so that you’d know what is important to you and only you. Do it like how they do it. Motivating, Defined, Focused, and Trackable.

Here’s an example. If you recalibrated your goals and did your best to achieve them, your success rate will be higher. If you failed, then it’s for the better because you can see where you went wrong and you can try again and succeed rather than being left in the dark and just moving on to the next thing still not knowing what happened with your “regular” goals.

So how do you do it? It’s pretty simple actually..

• Close your eyes now…clear your mind and think of only positive thoughts.
• Brainstorm YOUR goals. Envision them and feel like it’s already there. For example, you can see your sexy and toned body no matter how much weight you have to lose. Just think positive. Feel that new BMW beside you. Think big with the end in mind. Doesn’t matter how many you think about, just focus on thinking first and getting yourself in that positive frame of mind.
• Get a pocket notebook. No, not a laptop, not a Blackberry, not an iPhone. Just a plain, preferably new, small, paper notebook you can carry around everyday.
• Grab a pen or pencil, whichever you prefer. Stand up now and get them. If you can’t, a piece of paper will do for now.

In my case, I bought a Moleskine notebook and got a red pen because it’s my favorite color. I did this because I get motivated and focused to write things when I get a new notebook and pen. Hopefully, you aren’t like me and a normal pocket notebook will do.

1. Think of a deadline. You want to have a limited span of time for your goals in order for you to achieve them faster. 1 month, 3 months, 6 months or up to a year are good deadlines. For now, choose 6 months. Think of this as like your exam and you just found out about it the day before. You’re definitely going to cram and most of the time you will do enough to not only accomplish it but to also to pass it with flying colors.
2. Now open the notebook and immediately write down your Long Term Goals. These things are to be finished within 6 months. Don’t be worried about how hard they are. In a future article, I will be explaining how you can make your goals Motivating, Defined, Focused, and Trackable. So for now, don’t over think them. Just keep a positive mindset for now and stop thinking of conquering the world or living in Mars though. Remember, Doable and Specific goals for now. Be it traveling the to Japan and climbing Mt. Fuji, building a clothes business or whatever. We will build towards them and make it all happen. List a maximum of 5 for now. When you get the hang of it, you can add more. (For Example, I want to lose 30 pounds within 6 months.)
3. List your Short Term Goals. Think of what you could do now to start your long term goals. (For Example, Enroll in a gym, start losing at least a pound per week)
4. Still in Short Term Goals, think of simple skills you want to learn or do then put a price tag for it. How much is it to learn these things? Put a start and end date for each goal. List a maximum of 3. (For Example, I want to learn to swim for $30/week within a month, participate in a singing competition for $0 next week, learn pole dancing for $100 a month for 2 months) Don’t worry about it if you can’t think of anything now. You can add this later. This is actually optional but you might find it very fulfilling to learn new skills.
5. This is the clincher, list down your Medium Term Goals. There are so many people that forget about this. Without this, you sometimes lose steam and lose track of your goals. Here’s an example. Your long term goal is to be able to fit in that dress of your that you’ve been keeping in the closet for years. So you state that your short term goal is to start training to lose weight. Your medium term goal is to lose at least 20 pounds in 3 months. This is like a stepping stone for you to reach the end goal. I recommend that you really reward yourself after you reach your medium term goal. This is also a great way to see your progress to keep you positive and super motivated!

Sooner or later, things will happen for you. So what if I didn’t finish a certain goal?
This is where tracking your progress on your specific goals comes in. You can identify where you went wrong and you can try it again and fix the area where you failed to perform on.Establish criteria for measuring your progress. I’ll talk more about it on a future article. See you soon!

P.S. Set two priorities each day. Accomplish them before anything else. You’d be thankful you did this. At the end of the day, you could at least say that your day wasn’t completely worthless!

P.P.S. You’d be surprised how well this works. Most people just go on with their lives and have no goals and that’s what differentiates the really successful people from the “ordinary” people. Pretty sure you don’t want to be part of the latter.

P.P.S. I repeat….MAKE SURE YOU ABSOLUTELY, DEFINITELY, WHOLLY, FULLY, UNQUESTIONABLY, UNCONDITIONALLY WANT THAT GOAL.

Goal Setting and Recalibration: An Introduction To Lifestyle Design is a post from: Lifestyle Designer

Related posts:

1. Beginners: Experimenting With Goal Setting
2. Reach For Your Goals – Follow Up and Reminders
3. Eliminate to Attain: An Introduction to a Better Lifestyle

Start changing how you think and everything will follow. If you actually spend time to get to know yourself more, you’d probably be astonished with what you find out. By asking simple questions, you’ll know why your life is on your current course to nothingness.

Answer the questions below. No, don’t think about it, you must write them down or at least open a word processor and copy/paste the questions. Compare them to what I wrote under the questions.

1. What is the course of your life?

Are you destined to be doing what you are doing now? Are you a bum sitting in front of your computer at home, feeding off your parents? Stuck behind a desk to rot for the next 40 years? Waiting for retirement (and the perks that come with it) only to find out the money you got is not gonna last you a couple of years? Or maybe you are still finding your way in this life but you already know at the back of your mind that you’re gonna be stuck with a menial job for the rest of your life?

Carefully explain your course in life now. Put emphasis on details. If you are to only answer one thing today, this should be it.

2. Do you want to change it?

Just a simple YES or NO answer. If you answered “No” then you are already pretty satisfied with your life and probably just want some guidance. If you want to still continue then do so, if not, you can proceed to the next article about goal definition.

3. Would you try if you could?

Again, a simple but telling YES or NO answer.

The answer? Probably not. Right? Most people just won’t do it.

If you lied and said yes, I pity you because this is not school and there is no grade here. Just being honest to yourself is the key here.

I applaud you if you really said Yes because you already decided you want the change and not many people are open to changing themselves. Yes, Obama preached change and we’re all up for it but this kind of change is different.

4. What is stopping you? (I will answer this for you)

You’d probably answer laziness, but that’s just an excuse to feed your ego. Think about it! You’re afraid! Fear is stopping you!

I watch too much cartoons……but I know I got this from an anime. (Yes, I love the cool animes…I watched them a lot while I was a little girl…)

I don’t really remember who said this! But it’s stuck with me.

“As long as you hold a fear towards your future, that possibility will become a reality and come true.”

That hits the spot dead on. As long as you think you are gonna fail, you will FAIL! Erase that mentality and be positive. Have you heard about the Law Of Attraction? It’s something like that and I might talk about it in one of my future articles.

5. What do you Fear?

Spiders? The Boogeyman? Your boss? Your partner?

Seriously, if you can just pick up your stuff, walk out that office and teleport to Fiji, what are you fearing the most? Think about it and answer this. Why don’t you just leave the office and take a vacation! Continue reading only after answering this.

Aside from the 1% of the people that will answer “My dad” because they are the next in line to run the company, you probably said “money.”

Fearing the almighty dollar (Yen, RMB, Pound, Peso or whatever) is the most common feeling in the world. This WILL stop you from doing what you want with your life. This is what we were taught in school, at home, in life.

Earn a living, work 8 (or so) hour days, 5-6 days a week. Save money, retire and live the life. Only to find out the best years of your life were wasted.

This is why I recommend beginner books like Rich Dad Poor Dad, to motivate you to get out of the rat race. (My recommended books here)

Imagine, if you didn’t have to worry about money, where would you be now? Not behind your desk reading this right? Maybe on the ski slopes? Drinking wine in Spain? Partying in Beijing? Cruising around Singapore? Playing video games in Japan?

Keep checking back to my site (subscribe below) and I’ll bring you closer to those.

6. Do you know what you really want?

Maybe you are a travel bug. Maybe you just want to snap photographs the whole day. Maybe you just want to buy the latest Macs when they come out and hangout in cafe’s all the time just like me.

Indicate what kind of life you really want. Detail it and imagine it like it was real. It will happen.

7. What do you have or do now that you still want to do when you change your life?

Now that you already know what you really want, identify what you are currently doing that you want to still be able to do when you start changing up your life.

When I read things and they tell me what to do, I always tend to still do what I want and not completely follow what a book says. So I concluded that I should indicate what I still wanted to do before applying what I learned. This will somehow keep me on track and not lose focus of the goal.

An example, the book, “The 4 Hour Work Week” recommends me to follow a low information diet. I did this. I followed it. I ignored things and eliminated time wasters….BUT I couldn’t ignore the gossip columns! I love TMZ and stuff like that. So I blended it in my schedule and made some adjustments. Everyone is different so I want you to decide for you.

Having answered all that, I am sure you realized some things about yourself, things you haven’t really thought about before. Hopefully, that’s enough to make you realize that you don’t have to waste your best years doing things you hate. Embrace lifestyle design and start now.

I am here to help you, to guide you. I am not here to change your life. That’s your job. The choices we make define who we are. I’ve made mine. Now you have to choose yours.

The First Step – Define How You Really Think is a post from: Lifestyle Designer

Related posts:

1. Why You Want Your Own Business
2. Step By Step Elimination: Towards The Next Step
3. Goal Setting and Recalibration: An Introduction To Lifestyle Design