When a goal is yours, you organize yourself in ways that support that goal. You know where the related files are. If somebody asks you how you’re doing, you can pull out your files or your chart and point right to it and tell them where you are, and where you’re going to be tomorrow.

No Waiting for Deadlines

When a goal is yours, you don’t need a deadline to serve as a motivator. Indeed, for many of the long-term and continuing goals that you set for yourself, waiting until a minute before the deadline would be counterproductive. You can’t accumulate vast sums of cash at the last moment, nor can you lose significant amounts of weight or finish reading so many great novels.

Taking Responsibility

When you’re willing to take responsibility for the outcome, whether good or bad, the goal is yours. If others come along and ask who’s responsible and you tell them that you are, then the goal is indeed yours.

If it’s easy for you to slough off the blame, disassociate yourself, and pretend you didn’t have any input, chances are you were never committed to a goal in the first place.

Can They Take it From You?

A wonderful gauge for determining whether or not you are truly committed to your goal is to think about a situation where the goal is taken from you. Suppose you could no longer proceed down your chosen path. Suppose all activity in pursuit of such and such goal had to cease.

• Would you be outraged?
• Would you object?
• Would you fight for your right? If so, it’s your goal.
• Alternatively, if you could take it or leave it, if you wouldn’t be that upset, if it all would be forgotten by the next day, chances are it’s not your goal.

You could undertake this exercise right now with any goals you’ve set for yourself, especially those which are in motion. Pretend it’s about to be taken from you….

If its loss did not cause any concern on your part, perhaps you ought to let it go entirely. If it’s a goal imposed by external sources and you have not yet internalized it, then try the three ways below to make it your goal.

Make it Like a Game

If a goal was not originally your creation, perhaps you have some leeway in the situations you encounter and can engage in the shaping the goals. You may have to complete the entire store inventory, for example, by the end of the month. There are plenty of things you can do to make the task more enjoyable and rewarding for you and ultimately make it your own goal. Perhaps you can tackle the job one aisle at a time. Or, you may choose to begin with all high-priced items. You might devise other methods for proceeding that enable you to retain some measure of control.

I sometimes have helpers assemble packages that need to be mailed. Anyone might surmise that this job is boring. After all, if you have hundreds of envelopes in front of you that have to be stuffed, sealed, and mailed, you might think the next hour or so is going to pass as slow as molasses.

I tell my helpers about different approaches they can take to make the time “pass” more quickly and enjoyably. For example, how many envelopes can you stuff in the next five minutes? Now it becomes a game instead of a chore. Almost everyone who’s ever done this for me accepts the challenge.

Then, in the next five minutes following that, they see if they can beat their previous best. Caution: Eventually, even this can get a tad repetitious. How many times can you psyche yourself up for a five-minute period?

Nevertheless, by approaching an externally imposed task in this way, almost anything can be seen in a different light, and hence, internalized as your own goal.

Ah-So, the Japanese Way

If time tests are not your thing, perhaps the art of kaizen will inspire you. Kaizen means “continuous improvement,” and refers to a Japanese philosophy about how one approaches work.

Suppose that whatever task you undertook, no matter how insignificant or mundane, became a challenge of sorts? If you had to sweep the decks, for example, you’d figure out how to sweep them most efficiently, like a Zamboni machine smoothing the ice at a hockey game or an ice rink.

A driver climbs in, and carefully circles the ice, laying a thin coat of water which soon freezes, leaving the rink in top condition — hard and smooth and ready for the next period of play. The Zamboni drivers traditionally make one giant loop around the outermost area of the rink and then on the next pass come down the middle of the rink so as to create two very long semi-circles.

In a winding fashion, the driver then completes one-half of the rink, moving closer towards the middle of the half he’s currently working on. Then, he swings over and completes the other side of the rink.

When he’s done the entire floor of ice, it’s smooth, gleaming and ready for high action. So, too, for whatever goal has been imposed upon you externally, you have the option of approaching so many facets of it in so many different ways.

The seasoned kaizen practitioner first looks for ways to make improvements that will offer the most immediate and dramatic paybacks. Veterans know that such results spur one on to look for even more methods for improvement. Like stuffing as many envelopes as you can in a five-minute period, the art of seeking continuous improvement is challenging, and in many cases, fun.

Here are some ideas for attaining improvements:

higher compact automatic less expensive backed-up portable

remote faster systemized modular lighter invisible

Making it Yours Through Role-play

Role-playing is like acting. You define a desirable behavior and then act it out. Suppose you’re trying to achieve something that you’ve never attempted. Or, suppose something has been imposed on you and you know you have to do it. How do you get to that hallowed ground? How do you make it yours? Assume the role of someone who wants to do it. Role-playing will help you master new behaviors.

Dr. Tony Alessandra says that role playing “can be done alone or with a partner and needs not take more than a few minutes. Like anything else, the more you do it, the better you will become.”

One form of role playing would be to get together with a friend and “play-act.” Define a situation and the desired behaviors. Then run through it, trying your best to act as you would like to in real life. For example, let’s say your goal is to increase your sales. You’ve identified that you’re not relaxed in front of customers, and you feel that they sense this and it diminishes the power of your presentations

So, you and a friend set up a situation where you play the salesperson and your friend plays the buyer. You would then interact with the “buyer” in ways that allowed you to relax more than you have in the past. You might practice using more eye contact, holding your body in a relaxed posture, listening more, joking with the “buyer,” and so on.

Afterward, you and your friend would discuss how each of you felt during the exercise. You would repeat this over and over until you feel that you’ve made notable progress.

Role-playing is an excellent way to introduce new behaviors in a relaxed, non-threatening atmosphere.

Imagine a sales situation where you were not relaxed, such as asking someone for an appointment. How did you feel? Terrified? For example, someone who had a fear of asking people for appointments typically might think, “Why should I ask? He’s going to reject me,” or, “If he rejects me, I will be devastated.”

Suppose this person started role playing new thoughts in the old situation. Instead of his negative assumptions and negative thinking, he substituted, “I’m going to ask because I have a good chance of getting the appointment. I’m going to expect acceptance and will get it. I’m going to invite acceptance through my attitude. If I get rejected, I’ll move on to the next person who may want to schedule me! Through such mental role play he could practice what he wanted to achieve and in real life become adept in securing appointments.

The great philosopher William James once said, “If you act a certain way long enough, it becomes you. When you act loving, a funny thing happens. You start to feel loving.” Similarly, if you act confident, you start to feel confident. When you act as if a goal is your own, you start to feels as if it’s your own.