So the thing that makes us unique is, is this pre-planning, foresighting,

anticipating it, meditating on the evils you might say,

the downsides in advance.

Many people come to me at the Breakthrough Experience program or at Master

Planning or just one-on-one in consulting and say, 'You know,

I've set many goals and not all of my goals have come true.'

And I've seen that for many, many years.

Not everybody achieves every goal that they set. So the question is,

is that goal really, really important to them?

Are they really willing to do whatever it takes to get that goal?

Or are they setting up a fantasy? You know I ask people,

how many of you want to be financially independent?

And most people put their hands up,

but a very small percentage of people actually obtain financial independence,

because they're setting a goal that's not really aligned and congruent with what

they value most, which is a partly a self-defeating objective.

So I'd like to talk about the difference between a fantasy and a goal and

setting goals that are objectives that are going to happen,

or increase the probability of them happening at least.

So in order to develop that, I want to start from my basics,

dealing with axiology and values.

But first let me just say that every individual has a set

of priorities, a set of values that they live their life by.

This is things that are most important to least important in their life. Now,

whatever that set of priorities is, whatever's highest on the value list,

in this priority list,

is something that they will spontaneously do. They're inspired,

spontaneously to go and fulfill it. As you go down the list of values,

you have a higher probability of needing motivation, incentives, reminding,

and push to get you to do it. I always say that motivation,

external motivation is a symptom of an uninspired goal.

There's intrinsic drive,

which I call inspontaneous activity. And there's extrinsic drive,

where you have to have motivation from the outside.

I don't need motivation to go and research and teach.

I would probably need motivation to cook and drive and maybe work out or

something extensively.

Whatever's highest on your value is the thing that you're going to spontaneously

do.

And if you set a goal that is aligned to that,

you have the highest probability of achieving that goal.

But if you set a goal that is lower on your value list,

way lower, you decrease the probability of achieving it.

Your ratio achievement is proportionate to how high up on the

value list the goal happens to match the values.

So let me just explain that again.

When we are doing something that's extremely high in our values,

which are most important to us,

the blood glucose and oxygen goes into the forebrain,

and our forebrain has foresight, and it also has inner vision,

strategic planning, the desire to execute the plans,

and also self-governance,

the ability to monitor our emotional distractions,

the impulses for things that are pleasurable that can distract us and the

instincts from pain that can distract us.

So whenever we're setting a goal that is congruent and aligned with what we

value most, we have the highest probability of achievement.

And we also have the highest probability of setting an objective goal.

An objective goal is different than a subjective fantasy. So an objective

goal is something that has objectivity,

which means even mindedness,

which means that we're pursuing something that's balanced in its orientation.

Let me give you an example.

A young boy who loves video games loves to pursue the

game,

conquer the game and the second he conquers the game he goes and pursues a

greater game, a more sophisticated game, a more challenging game.

He's not shrinking from challenge. He's pursuing challenge.

That means he's willing to embrace the pains and the pleasures in the pursuit of

the purpose, of mastering the game.

So whenever you're setting a goal that is truly aligned with what you value

most, you'll embrace pleasure and pain equally in the pursuit.

But whenever you're setting a goal that is lower on your value list,

you have a higher probability of doing it if it's easy and not doing it if

it's difficult. In other words,

you can take the boy and he can sit down and do his video games and the second

he conquers his video game,

he's going to go tackle that new one and he's going to conquer it.

He's going to stay there hours until he masters it.

But if you asked him to do his chores or his homework, clean his room,

he'll procrastinate, he'll hesitate, he'll frustrate,

he won't get around to doing it. And it's like,

I don't want to bother with it is what he feels.

And so will want to avoid the challenge and only do it if it's really easy.

So this is important, whenever you're living according to your highest values,

you embrace pleasure and pain equally in the pursuit of a goal.

Whenever you're living in lower values as a result of setting goals that may be

are injected values because of other people you're admiring,

things that you fantasize about temporarily you think you want to do,

but you don't really, really have a high value on it,

what you'll do is you'll do it if it's easy, but you won't do it if it's not.

Your fulfillment level is going to be in proportion to how high up on that value

list that goal is. There's an old proverb,

but when the why is big enough how's take care of themselves.

When you have a big enough reason for doing it,

when it's high enough on your values,

you will find the solutions to solve things. You won't stop,

even if it's challenging, you'll go around it, underneath it, through it,

whatever way, you'll come out on the other side of it.

So it's so important if you're going to set goals that aren't fantasy,

but are real objectives, to set goals that are aligned with what you value most.

Now, I've gone over in previous webinars and also on my website,

dr.demartini.com, the Value determination process.

I'll be brief on just a reminder of it.

But if you look at how you fill your space, how you spend your time,

what is it that energizes you? What is it that you spend your money on?

Where you have the most order. Where you have the most spontaneous discipline.

What is it you think about,

visualize and internally dialogue with yourself about most about how you want

your life that shows evidence coming true?

What do you want to converse with other people about most?

What is it that you have that are goals that are most persistent, consistent,

pursuing, and achieving? And what is it you love reading about, studying about,

learning about, listening to about most? If you look at what those are,

those are the things you have the highest probability of setting an objective,

a balanced goal, that you'll achieve. In the executive center.

So I tell people,

don't waste your time on goals that aren't truly inspiring,

aren't truly meaningful, aren't truly highest on your values,

because you'll probably procrastinate, hesitate, frustrate.

You won't have the fulfillment pursuing them. You'll do it if it's easy,

if it starts to get difficult, you'll want to beat yourself up and stop.

You'll think you're sabotaging and you feel like there's something in the way.

And you'll give excuses.

Whenever you're setting goals that are low on your values,

you give excuses and you don't really want and do it because it's not high

enough of a drive to push you over the challenges that you face.

Every goal, if it's truly a goal,

will automatically anticipate what are the obstacles and challenges you're going

to face and mitigate those and mitigate the risk by thinking

in advance with foresight, what are you going to do to solve it?

And anytime something's really low on your value,

you won't take the time to plan.

You won't even get into the executive center to know how to plan.

When you're doing goals that are low on your values,

you don't get to get into the executive center, your blood glucose,

don't go there. They go into the amygdala.

And the amygdala is about avoiding pain, seeking pleasure, avoiding predator,

seeking prey, avoiding difficulty, seeking ease.

In the process of doing it, you keep pursuing that easy path, the fast path,

the immediate gratification, the addictive behaviors, the compulsive behaviors,

the consuming behaviors. And this is where fantasies begin.

A fantasy is the pursuit of a one-sided outcome. Now,

in my Breakthrough Experience program,

I talk about some of the most common fantasies that people live by.

I'm going to reiterate a few of those.

Anytime you have a goal that's involving another person and you expect them to

live in your values, not their own values,

you have a fantasy and your probability, you're going to be let down.

You're going to end up with quote "betrayal".

Anytime you expect some human being other than yourself to go and live in a

one-sided manner, always be up, never down, always kind, never cruel,

always positive, never negative, always peaceful, never wrathful,

you're going to be let down.

They're a human being with a set of values and you support their values,

they're nice, you go against their values,

they're challenged and they can be mean.

So anytime you're setting a goal that involves another person that is not

aligned with their values,

and it's a projection of your values and it's not balanced,

and you're expecting a one-sided outcome,

or combination of those two, you're guaranteed to be let down.

Because it's just a matter of time before the person will play out the other

side. And they're not going to be dedicated to it.

Nobody's dedicated to your values, tehy're dedicated to their own values.

Then you also have a one-sided fantasy that you can project on yourself.

You can set a goal to be up, never down, positive, never negative, peaceful,

never wrathful, kind, never cruel.

And anytime you set a goal that's one sided on yourself

you're going to set yourself up to for defeat, because that's a fantasy.

Anytime you expect yourself to live in somebody else's values, not your values,

and this is the common one I see for people that say

independent. They say that, but that's not where their values are.

And they want to buy immediate gratifying consumer goods instead of actually

buying something that goes up in value, a true asset. So what happens is,

if you set a goal that's low on your value and you automatically want to avoid

pain and seek pleasure,

cause you're in the amygdala and you're setting a one-sided fantasy instead of a

true objective, which you set when you're in your executive center,

you're self-defeating and a fantasy is the pursuit of a one-sided

outcome. And a pursuit is something that's not really, truly valuable to you,

or the pursuit of something

that's expecting something from another person that's not really important to

them. Or expecting from society, collectively,

a one-sided outcome. Or expecting society to live in your values,

that's another fantasy.

Or expecting mechanical objects around you to do that.

You sometimes have a goal that's a fantasy that you expect a machine,

a computer is supposed to read your mind,

it's supposed to give you a positive cash flow when you're overspending.

In other words,

you want to make sure that you're setting real goals that are real objectives

that are really balanced,

that are truly congruent and really aligned to what you value most.

Or you're going to self-defeat.

I teach a class every year in multiple countries called Master Planning for

Life. And just like I do in the Breakthrough Experience,

I also make sure that people set goals,

or I entice them to set goals that are real. You know, many people, I'll say,

'Are you really committed. to that goal?

Is there any evidence whatsoever that that's committed?'

And they'll look at me and I'll ask them,

'What have you done that shows evidence that that's coming true or that you're

really committed to that?' And I would say that probably 30% of the goals

that are so-called goals that people say, even if I don't push them,

to make sure that they're thinking through and making sure that they're setting

real goals, they want to set fantasies. They want the dopamine high,

the pleasure high of a fantasy.

And I had a guy the other day that said that he was going to reach 10 billion

people and he's going to be a billionaire.

And I've seen many people that have said that,

but they're having it in a very short period of time and they don't have a

strategy.

And if they don't have a strategy and they have an unrealistic timeframe and

it's not something that's truly high on their values, it can be very,

you might say, disappointing, let's say it.

But if you're really committed to it and your life is showing it,

and you're showing that you're marking and measuring it.

One of the signs that you're really committed to

the progress. You know, I keep records of all the radio, the television,

the newspaper, the magazines, the webinars, the podcasts, live seminars,

workshops, the keynote speeches, all the TV shows,

all the television movies that we've done,

I keep record of every single one on them and look at what is the estimated

number of people we're reaching.

And then I keep an inventory of how many people we've touched with each of those

vehicles. Because if I really am committed to something I want to metric it.

And that's a sign of a real goal. You want to metric it.

You want to get feedback.

You want to ask what worked and what didn't work each day.

You want to refine it.

You want to keep pursuing it and you're not letting anything stop you from it.

If you give up on something the second it gets challenging, it's a whim,

it's a fantasy, it's not really true. You don't stop.

There's no such thing as failure to something that's truly high on your value

that's obtainable, because if it's really high enough on your value,

you take whatever challenge you get and turn it into a feedback and it doesn't

become an obstacle, it becomes a feedback to get you closer to the goal.

So a real goal is objective. Objectivity means it's even minded.

It's not partial or subjectively bias minded.

But if you're setting a fantasy as bias minded, it's a pleasure without a pain,

it's a nice without a mean, etcetera.

I had a person that said that they were going to be you know,

be nothing. they're going to stop arguing, they're going to stop, you know,

yelling at people, screaming at people,

are going to be totally dedicated to peace.

And I just looked at that and I go well one, that's not reality, two,

that's fantasy, three,

they're doing it because they've been wounded and hurt in the past.

And a lot of the fantasies that they set are because of pains in the past.

And I said, 'Is that real? Are you likely to do that?' 'Well,

I'd like to do it.' I said, 'But I'm not interested in what you like to do.

Is it real?

I've not met anybody that can honestly look me straight in the eye and say that

they have peace without conflict or nice without mean. You know,

if I went to you and I said, you're always nice, you're never mean,

you're always kind, you're never cruel, you're always positive, never negative.

You would immediately go, 'No.' Sometimes you're nice. Sometimes you're mean.

Sometimes you're kind, sometimes you're cruel.

So don't set a goal that's not balanced. Don't set a goal that's not obtainable.

In Buddhism, the Buddha was

supposed to have said that the desire for that which is unavailable and the

desire to avoid that which is unavoidable is the source of human suffering.

You know, think about that.

If you're striving to go get to be a one-sided person,

imagine if I got up and said, 'okay, from now on,

I'm going to be nothing but smiles. I'm never going to frown again.' Delusion.

I'm going to frown and I'm going to smile. My body's made for both.

I'm going to have things that support and challenge me,

and I'm going to sometimes have reactions to it.

You have to set a goal that's real if you want to obtain it and you have to set

something that's truly meaningful,

something inspiring and something high on your value, if you want to obtain it.

And you have to make sure that you chunk it down into small enough bites,

because if you have a goal that's overwhelmingly big, you know,

'I want to make a billion dollars.' Okay. That's great. I'm all for that.

But the question is, chunk it down. What are you going to do?

If you have this massive goal and you don't have any chunked action steps to get

it, very high probability of it being outrageous,

it's not going to be done.

But if you actually take the big goal and chunk it down and mind map it down,

chunk it down into smaller and smaller and smaller daily action steps,

you have a higher probability of doing it, and it's no longer a fantasy.

If you have a goal and it's not chunked down into small bites,

it's not linked to your highest values,

it's not balanced and it's not really something that you

show evidence in your life that you're committed to it - you've got a fantasy.

And that's a self-defeating. Anytime you set a goal that's not really,

you're not committed to, and you procrastinate, hesitate, frustrate,

and you don't get past the resistance there, you're going to beat yourself up.

And then the weeks are going to go by and you're going to go the goals not

happening. And it's wise,

I reassess some of the goals that I've had over the years,

and there's been many goals that I've set out for that I've achieved and I've

been committed to. And then there's others that I find down the line,

some are down within six months to a year. I go, 'You know,

I have no evidence of it happening. Am I really committed to that? Is it really,

really important to me? And at the time it seemed to be,

but I'm not seeing any evidence.' So I'll do one of two things.

I'll reassess it and look at it and put it into kind of a storage bin and come

back to it and take a look at it a year from now or six months from now,

and do I still have an interest in that or is that just a temporary whim?

And I find out that probably a percentage of those, I don't know,

maybe 10% of the goals that I've set over the years have been things that I

thought were important to me, and then six months to a year later,

I have no evidence in a year later, still no evidence.

So there's no evidence you might as well just let it go or put it in a storage

bin and take a peak at it periodically and stick to the ones that are really

committed. It's wiser to have fewer goals that are committed,

then a whole bunch of stuff that's overwhelming. I learned many,

many years ago from Walter Haley and also from Louise Hay and many others,

that if you're going to set a goal,

set fewer goals that are truly meaningful, that are in small bites,

cause by the inch it's a cinch,

and stick to the ones and make sure you're making progress on them and focus on

them. And if it's not really,

really important to you and you're not focusing on it, then let them go.

Don't sit there and hold onto something and create a goal over run.

A goal over run is when you're overwhelmed by a whole bunch of goals that

accumulate. In my early twenties,

I had this day journal, Jack Boland's day journal mastermind,

my Master Mind journal,

and I would write down things and I looked back over about a year of doing it

and kept inventory on it,

and I found out that probably 80% of them were coming true in some form or

fashion, but a good 20%, 10 for sure,

20% sometimes were things that I kept rolling over and rolling

over and rolling over. And I thought, okay, well,

these are obviously not as crucial to my life as I thought.

So I got a choice here. I can delegate it to somebody else and get it done.

I don't have to do it.

I can get things done that I want my life without having me to do it by

delegating and boy that led me to a whole lot of things that I go, okay,

I want it done, Is it really important? Is it important for me to do it?

If it's not high on my values,

could I find somebody that has a high set of values that will get it done and

just pay them to do it and get it done?

And I'm getting it done without me having to do everything. That was a breaker,

that added another 10% of my goals into action by surrounding myself with people

that could do some of the things I want done,

but it didn't have to be done by me. It wasn't the highest priority,

but it was important to do.

And that opened up some things and transformed some

get done without delegation into it.

And then I chunk them down into smaller bites and put more reasonable timeframes

on some.

And I found out that I got a lot done when I broke it down into little baby

steps.

And I just took a 10 minute a day or 20 minute a day project and I started

working on a little bit every day, I found it gets done.

But the key was to make sure it was really truly objective

and I thought through. And I had to think of what are the obstacles,

if I stopped and go, what are the obstacles?

Cause a lot of people are into positive thinking,

but you know my feelings about,

I think it's an incomplete model and I think it's misleading people.

I think that that if you go out there and you only look at all the positives and

only think of the positives,

and don't think of some of the downsides and don't prepare for what's happening,

you're not prepared and you're not really doing foresight.

And the thing that makes us different from the animals is meaning,

planning foresight, following inspirations,

pursuing something that's regardless of pain or pleasure,

and the animals don't do that.

They're only going to fight and tackle challenge if they think there's more

advantage than disadvantage.

So they're driven by a pleasure seeking and avoiding some pain.

So the thing that makes us unique is is this pre-planning, foresighting,

anticipating it, meditating on the evils you might say,

the downsides in advance. You know, I was involved in the movie,

The Secret as you know, many years ago, and it's passing now, it's around 13,

almost 14 years ago.

And what's interesting is there were people there that thought, 'Oh,

I only want to focus on the positive', but I find that they're unprepared.

And I found out that the people, you know, would come to me and say 'Well,

I watched The Secret, it says, don't focus on the negatives.' I said, 'Well,

if you want to do that, that's fine. Some cases,

some things come true.' But at the same time,

I'd rather think of what could go wrong, what I need to do to prepare for it.

And once I'm prepared for it, I usually find I get more done.

You probably know when every year when they have hurricanes or cyclones in

different parts of the world, when they announce it and get everybody prepared,

usually there's less devastation and less people injured.

When they just don't even give anybody any warning or whatever and they just

assume optimism, that's usually when it gets nailed,

people get hurt by it or left in the floods.

So I'm a firm believer in anticipating what could go wrong, thinking about it,

preparing for it and then once the preparation and

place, usually it doesn't even happen. And then you're prepared it and it's,

and anytime you're having a challenge that you're inspired to handle,

you're prepared for, you think out the contingency plans,

usually get them done.

Thank you for joining me for this presentation today.

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