The 3 Types of Goal Setting

I would like to explore with you 3 types of goal setting namely Brainstorming, Timeline and The Explorer Approach.

Some of the most succesful people in the world use some form of goal setting in their work life and their personal life. I think most of us have written a to-do-list, at least some point in our lives, and this a rudimentary form of goal setting. Today however i would like to talk about the 3 most productive types of goal setting and how, if used correctly, will have a dramatic influence over your life.

What Does it Mean to use these 3 Types of Goal Setting?

First of all What is a Goal? According to the Cambridge English dictrionary a Goal is difined as. The process of deciding what you want to achieve or what you want someone else to achieve over a particular period. This process could be anything from small achievments to larger dreams. A goal could mean loosing weight or running a marathon. Equally a goal set in business reads very diffrently, and could range from more sales per month or creating a website within a week. Goals are varied and a peersonal choice what we ourselves feel important.

However there are 3 types of goal setting that stand out above the rest and will achieve greater results in a quicker time frame. These are Brainstorming, Timline Goals and The Explorer approch. Each has it own merits or pros and cons, and we shall discuss this next.

So let’s have a look at the 3 types of goal setting

The Brainstorming Method

First of all we need some goals to work through. So let me ask you a question, where would you like to be in 3 to 4 years time? If you had a magic wand what would your life look like? Be bold and fearless, shoot for the stars. Where and what would your life be like?

Now let’s start making them a reality. Let’s take a look at how you would go about breaking down each goal into achievable chunks. Brainstorming is our first approach and a little bit like reverse engineering the problem.

Everyone’s goals and dreams are all going to be different so as a real life example we are going to use some personal goals from someone else I’ve already helped. I asked and have permission to re-print here.

The Goals & Dreams

• More confidence and inner strength
• Financially independent
• Become a writer and TV news reader motivating people by sharing stories of courage and personal achievements
• Start a YouTube channel that has over a million followers
• Become fearless in everything I do
• Inner peace
• A voice for the voiceless
• Find my true purpose in life

These are excellent goals and dreams and I’m sure you have some equally as good, if not better ones.

Can you also see that now they are down on paper how these goals seem to align with each other. For instance if we were to start a YouTube channel in the style of a TV news reader, sharing stories of courage and achievement. Can you see how this already covers two of those goals? And as this is such a compelling human interest style it would slowly grow and become successful. This would also give more confidence and inner strength. And giving a voice for the voiceless and the beginning of financial freedom and probably the start of finding true purpose within side.

So where do we start.

Let’s start with that YouTube channel.

Now from my personal experience, setting up a website and gradually growing it to over 200,000 visitors a year has been 3 years in the making. However I didn’t have a plan when I started, it was just somewhere to share my spiritual stories and metaphors I was writing. And each moral story i would write helped me understand myself better and better.

Now the key to creating a YouTube channel or anything else online takes consistency, consistency, consistency! That word is key to success.

Understanding this from the start will help you succeed quicker. My long journey of 3 years could have easily been halved if only I was more consistent and had a plan to start.

So let’s take the idea of the YouTube channel and see how we can get the ball rolling, by what’s called brainstorming the idea. This is the same process, no matter what goals you have. If your gaol is to earn $100,000 in a year, we use this exact same process. For now let’s concentrate on the YouTube channel with 1 million subscribers as the goal! Now let’s reverse engineer or brainstorm this goal.

On a piece of paper write at the top, as a question:

How do I start a YouTube channel and attract a million subscribers?

Now I want you to write 20 answers in quick succession below that heading. Try to just let your mind flow and don’t question or analyse your responses just yet, I want you to brainstorm by writing whatever comes out of your mind in a flowing manner.

As an example:

• By advertising
• working harder
• Maybe working smarter
• Finding great people who follow their dreams
• By finding friends, family or co-workers that are doing something amazing
• Using my writing skills to promote elsewhere
• Commenting on others channels or forums where my potential customers are
• Promotions and free giveaways
• Asking around my local area some of the shop keepers and other vendors how they achieved their dreams
• Asking people on the streets what they believe the secrets to success are or the key to happiness.

And so on and so forth (can you see how I get more technical as I let my mind do the work)

Remember to let your mind do the work try not to interfere or judge what your actually writing down at this point.

Now we have 20 answers

Once we have those 20 or more answers we can start to see a pattern emerge and some really good ideas will come out, because your letting your mind do the work without interference or judgment. I just did the exact same process to create those above examples and to be honest those last two or three I feel could be a great idea. But that’s just me and I believe you are going to come up with some brilliant ideas yourself.

Now take the 20 answers you’ve just written and look at some of them in greater detail. Which ones resonate with you? Which ones seem like good ideas and achievable? Now ask yourself how do I achieve this?

Now repeat the same process and brainstorm each answer by turning it into a question. Let’s take the example of asking people in business what their idea of happiness is, write it as a question, How do I ask people in the street what their idea of happiness is? And now brainstorm in the exact same process as above and create another 20 or more answers.

Can you see what we are trying to do?

We are trying to break down each part of our goals into smaller and smaller sections so that they become more manageable and easier to achieve.

This is the first step in bringing those goals and dreams alive. Obviously we need to actually create a YouTube channel but we need too first of all have a concept and idea, how that channel is going to achieve its goal of 1 million subscribers.

Go ahead a try brainstorming your own goals. I promise you will come up with some cracking ideas.

A Timeline Goal

The Timeline technique is one of my favourite of The 3 Types of Goal Setting and a great way to get results from your goals and dreams. This is a visualisation technique used in NLP (Neuro linguistic programming) and can have amazing benefits.

A Tactic in Visualisation

First of all I want you too close your eyes and visualise your past, now I don’t want you to stray down the path of regrets and disappointments, instead I want you to visualise something simple like the last time you had some good news, or perhaps visualise your driving test if that is in the past for you. We are looking for a good memory that is in the past tense.

Once you have this visualisation in your minds eye I want you to notice where the picture is coming from?

Where is this image in your minds eye placed in relevance to yourself? Is it in front of you, behind you to the left or to the right? There is no right or wrong answer to this so just visualise where it’s coming from.

Now once you have the position where you past lyes for you, we are going to do the exact same thing for your future.

I want you to think of your dreams and goals, close your eyes and visualise with a picture in your minds eye those goals or dreams.

Where in representation to yourself does the future appear to be placed? Is it in front of you, to the right to the left or behind you?

There is no right or wrong answer here, it is entirely what feels right for you.

What’s next

Now we have a timeline from past to present in your mind. Some of you may of experienced your past behind you and future in front of you, some of you may have experienced that same realisation as being from left to right. That is perfectly ok. I myself have a timeline that runs from past being on my left and my future in front of me. Whatever you may of experienced you now have a timeline from past to future with the line running through yourself.

The next step is to look at your goals and pick one thing that you want to change or accomplish.

Now get up and stand with some space around you. Pick one of your goals and have the image in your minds eye of completing it, what does it feel like? What does it look like? Have that image in your minds eye and now face the direction of your future so you can visualise where it sits along that timeline of yours.

Is it a few paces in front or is it more than a few paces?

Now the clever bit

Now go and stand on the spot where you can see your future goals being achieved. How does it feel being at the point of successfully achieving your goal? Bask in the glory for a moment of achieving you target. Now slowly turn around and face your past, where you were standing a moment ago.

What was the last step you took to get there? Was it simple or a giant leap? What did you do to take that last step? How did you accomplish your goal? Ask yourself these questions and delve deep into your unconscious mind.

This can be done again and again with everyone of your goals and dreams. Some of you may find this a little airy fairy and that’s ok. I myself love this little exercise and have benefited many many times by realising every time it is always an easy step to take and nothing is beyond my capability, after all I’ve already arrived at the future point.

The Explorer Approach

The Explorer Approach is my faviourite of the 3 types of goal setting and requires a diffrent type of mindset. Imagine what it would be like if you were happy to set goals but it didn’t matter the outcome. How would that feel? As i’ve said this approch takes a diffrent type of mindset to appreciate. To set a goal and not worry about the outcome can seem a little confusing. so let me elaberate. Every year Michael Neill sets a challenge, Create The Impossible Goal in 90 days. Explaining that it isn’t all about achieving the goal, it is more about developing the mindset to fail and be happy.

Maybe this sounds like a foreign concept

For some this is a foreign concept. We are all bought up to believe failure isnt an option, we must succeed no matter what. However as Michael tells us that to start this program we first must choose a goal thats so outlandish that it seems impossible to achieve. Then we let the magic of the universe unfold to deliver us results. Sometimes we focus so much on the outcome of our goals that we can miss the miracle of life and it’s coincidences.

The Explorer Approach is more about letting go of the spreadsheets and word documents and more about enjoying the journey. Imagine if you will the two methods discussed above and now think how Native American Indians lived their lives. Did they use spredsheets to go out hunting? Did they write down their goals on Microsoft word for the day to come? or did they simply just live life in the moment?

This may sound too outlandish for some but have courage

To achieve the impossible and set a goal so far out there will take courage but not impossibility. Using the Native American Indian approach, or any indigenous group, we first must understand how they live.

You wake up on a sunny day and a group of you decide to go hunting. There isn’t the option of popping to the supermarket and picking up your faviourite items. Instead you must just have faith. A faith that comes from understnding that life will always give you what you need, it will always provide.

You climb onto your horse and ride for a while, maybe you come across some wild plants. Equally you could just stumble onto a rabbit or herd of antalope. Maybe you fail to bring home the bacon. There’s always another day! This is The explorer approach rather than the methodical method. Either way there were no goals written down, no spreadsheet analysis, it’s was just the shear enjoyment of living in the moment. And this is what this method, The Explorer Approach, of the 3 Types of Goal Setting is trying to achieve.

Have Faith

Remember to have faith in the universe and your part in it. Set yourself an impossible goal and see if you can let go and watch the magic of the universe unfold. Try not to get so hung up on how this will work. Just trust that it will and watch for those amazing coincidences in life.

To Conclude

Use these 3 methods of goal setting to propell you forward into achieving your dreams. Set goals, brainstorm them as described. Use the Timeline method to visualise what you want and the steps taken to achiev them. Then relax and let go believing in the universal magic and The Explorer Approch. Using all three of these methods of Brainstorming, Timeline and The Explorer Approach, in tandem with each other will always achieve greater results on a faster timeframe. Good Luck.

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Kind Regards

Dhamma Tapasa*

*Dhamma Tāpasā is a trained former Buddhist Monk and the spiritual name given to Andrew Hallas. Now a Life Changing and inspirational Positive Coach, a certified NLP Practitioner, Mindfulness Trainer, a Motivational Speaker and a Published Author.

Creator of the highly acclaimed “The Four Trees” a story of learning how we can all live a more fulfilled and content lifestyle.

By using his unique approach of storytelling, mixed with ancient Buddhist Monk Secrets, and combined with 21st century scientifically proven techniques, Dhamma Tāpasā is able to capture your imaginations whilst teaching you valuable Life Skills and True Wisdom.

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