5 Reasons We Fail to Meet our Goals

Belize once said, “remove the stone and you won’t stumble.” I’ve been thinking about the stones that I keep stumbling over. Each and every time I really get behind an idea and go for it, I somehow get sidetracked and lose my momentum. Why is that? I think I’ve identified some of the main culprits.

1. Unrealistic expectations: Often we expect goals to happen the moment we set them. Or, we expect to instantly expect to be a new person after taking the first step in the right direction.

2. Dependent upon emotion: People are emotional. When a new idea is adoptive it has a strong emotional pull. Especially if the person see the idea as a solution to a problem that was depressing them. I think most people pull themselves out of a holiday funk by making New Year resolutions. But, those decisions are emotional and once the excitement wears off and reality sets in the resolutions are dropped.

3. Overwhelmed by commitment: In an article on goal setting, Steve Pavlina talks about people’s perception of time and how goals that do not immediately reward actions becoming overwhelming.

4. Establishing a plan “B”: I know it seems like a good idea to establish a plan “B” as a fall back if your original plan doesn’t work, but having an alternative plan suggest to your subconscious that your plan isn’t good enough and that you expect to fail.

5. Assuming you can maintain on autopilot: It is said that it takes 21 days to establish a habit. People often do great the first thirty days of their goals and assume that the habit has taken effect and they can now cruise on autopilot. Don’t let a habit fool you. Yes, you may have established a pretty good routine, but habits are strengthen by time and use and most habits that people seek to replace have been established for far longer than new ones. Turn away for too long and they will rear their ugly head. A successful new habit still requires daily and weekly assessments to ensure they stay on course.

I want to take a look in greater detail at each of these goal killers. In the next five articles I will examine them one at a time and try to identify ways to remove these stones.

New Obligations

One of my goals is to become a professional writer. I will not consider myself one until I able to leave my full time job and support my family from home. Today I took a step towards that goal. I signed a contract with 451press.com that will require me to write 5 posts a week, Monday through Friday, for a year.

I will be writing about step-parenting. I am a bit nervous, as it is a pretty long commitment and it requires very frequent postings. But, the way I see it, if I want to write I need to be committed and I need to have reason to write even on those days when I feel I have nothing to say. I figure that by the time I fulfill my obligations I will have established a pretty consistent habit of writing. And I will have a large portfolio of writing to show for future writing positions.

I am not sure when I will be required to post my first thoughts at 451press.com, but I will certainly update this site when the time comes.

Change of Perspective

Changing perspectives can sometimes bring us back into focus. I have not been contributing to this site regularly and nearly stopped all together. My attitude on personal development has been almost as sporadic. I would describe it more of a back swing of the pendulum. I had been so Gun ho about personal development that it was all I was talking about. I was spending hours and hours reading up on personal development. About a month ago I read Getting Things Done by David Allen and spent the next week trying to adopt it into my life. I created a hipster and went about getting things done. It really worked.

And then it all stopped. Most of my momentum was destroyed by spring break. My routine had been interrupted. I usually wake early in the morning and get my exercise on, then pack eat breakfast, pack the same old lunch and zoom off to work an hour early to do some writing before the students get there. I was doing great, and then the routine fell apart. I stayed up late during spring break and got up late, which meant that I didn't get up for my exercise, which led to a break down of all other positive things I had been doing for myself.

I was having a hard time turning the momentum around once again. Nothing was working. So I stopped altogether. I didn't like feeling guilty so I stopped worrying about it and turned to other concerns. I switched my perspective from myself to my children. One of the problems with not exercising and doing positive things to help yourself along is that you become more stressed. My stepdaughter is really good and escalating that stress to new levels. I was ready to give up on her and go into hiding whenever I was at home. But, before I did that I started reading up on step parenting and found some incentive to try working with her a little more.

I felt better, so I returned to learn more about step parenting. I learned more and more and as I sought new ways to be a better parent I once again realized that I must better myself. So, I started writing again. My alarm is set nice and early. I started a new blog Growing Up With The Kids. And I'm moving again in the right direction.

Lesson Learned

I haven't posted in a while. I actually hadn't planned on doing any more postings. I was spending too much time researching how to blog and trying to promote the blog. I wasn't working on my novel. I wasn't doing much of anything except trying to get the blog up and running. I decided to take a hiatus. Then something else happened. My grandfather died and I got caught up in doing some soul searching about the things that are really important in my life.

My grandfather's funeral had a huge impact on me. I learned that the church the funeral mass was held in was designed by him and the land donated by his father. I grew up in a nearby city, but we always went to that church for Christmas Mass. All the times I had been there I never knew that my grandfather had designed it. If it weren't for my family the church and the attaching school would not be there. I found it strange that no one in my family mentioned this to the grandchildren. Imagine not taking credit for a place given to the people so that they could worship, get baptised, and get married.

I also learned that my grandfather taught celestial navigation. I think of all the times I had gone to my grandfather's cabin in northern Michigan and looked out upon clear night skies and never knew that he could have taught me about the stars.

I had to learn about both of these things by reading the obituary. I wish I had had a chance to learn about them from my grandfather. I observed pictures of his life and witnessed many, many people come to pay their respects. I've been to a few funerals in my time, but I can't recall one as large as this. He must have been an amazing man. I tried remembering all I knew about him. I recall that we grandchildren were always kept in line by being told, "You don't want grandpa getting mad." It was enough to put us in line. Looking back on those days, I honestly can't recall seeing my grandfather angry or hearing him raise his voice. I don't know if any of the grandchildren had any tangible reason to believe that we really didn't want grandpa getting mad, but we all did. He had an air of authority that even the most naive child understood. How? I don't know or I would certainly use it with my students. Maybe its an earned authority you only get after you've raised eight children. Maybe he learned it in the military.

I observed the hole he left in the lives of many people. I may not know much about my grandfather, but I can see the lasting impression he will have and I can recognize a few amazing things.

First, he had eight children. All of them still lived near him and all of them were there for him during the roughest final months. Few families can still stay that close these days, even fewer are so dedicated to each other that they can take as much time from their own lives to see that their father was cared for during his final days. This is as much a testament to him as it is to the solid and loving relationship he maintained for sixty years.

Second, he had such an abundance of grandchildren that all of his pallbearers were grandsons by blood. On top of this he had more grandchildren in attendance. These same grandchildren had gotten together just days before he died to take a picture showing the very large family including great-grandchildren. Nearly sixty people were in the photo, all were lives directly touched by him.

Third, as I said before the church that hosted his funeral mass was designed by him. Long after I am gone from this world people will still worship in the church designed by him. I think most people would consider themselves fortunate if they can touch one life beyond their own. My grandfather has eight children, numerous grandchildren and great-grandchildren that will remember him. Someday perhaps those great-children will marry in the church he designed and yet another generation will be in some way touched by his life. How is that for a legacy?

Here is the lesson I learned: a legacy is all that we can leave behind. It is the final testament that we existed and mattered on this earth. Each of us has a purpose in this life, but not everyone of us recognizes that purpose. Those that recognize their purpose and choose to live for that purpose usually leave the longest lasting legacies.

Have you discovered your purpose in life? What will be your legacy?

An Apology to All Who Submitted to the Blog Carnival

I am extremely new to blogging and carnivals and I must apologize for my lack of technical knowledge. I have been trying to edit the carnival since last Friday and as a result when I posted here, the post actually came before the last two posts I've made. Please scroll down to the to the Apil 3rd issue and check it out. I am trying to get this issue resolved.

The Real Secret Behind "The Secret": Why the Law of Attraction Will Fail

Shhh, here's a secret. "The Secret" isn't a secret any more. Thanks to Oprah and Ellen and a million other's out there you can't visit a site about personal development without finding something about the Law of Attraction. It is certainly an exciting concept. Who wouldn't like to believe that all they have to do is picture their pockets full of money and then presto! Publisher's Clearing House is knocking on your door.

I certainly wouldn't mind something like that happening, but something doesn't' feel right. I'm Catholic and perhaps it's all that guilt they instill in us, but as I think more and more about it I begin to believe that the Church probably would not condone practicing the Law of Attraction. I have been researching this for a while and as of yet I haven't seen any official stance. The more I keep researching and thinking about the Law of Attraction the more I'm certain it not only goes against Christian doctrine, it fails logically.

Please don't take this wrong. I am not making any claims that the Law of Attraction is morally wrong. After all, it does teach people to think good thoughts and you will attract good things., because good things happen to good people and bad things happen to bad people. There's nothing wrong with thinking good thoughts. But, as a christian I already see a major flaw.

The first part of Christianity is Christ. I know of know one else that thought, talked and walked in good thoughts more than He. Yet Jesus seems to have had a lot of bad things happen to him. Did he then do good things for the wrong reason? Is that why he was betrayed, beaten, humiliated, and crucified? Maybe he isn't the best example. He became man to die for us. So, it could be argued that this is what he intended. What about the saints that followed in his footsteps. Matthew? He met a tragic end. Mark? Tragic end. Luke? Tragic end? John? thrown into prison. Even the four writers of the Gospel seem to have met with some difficult despite all that they thought, talked and walked.

Maybe things have changed since then and some more contemporary models should be considered. Martin Luther King, Jr., had a dream and I think he made his intentions quite clear. He championed peace and was rewarded with a bullet. Mahatma Gandhi, sought for civil rights and preached peace. His reward? His wife died while she was in prison. He caught malaria while in prison and in the end was assassinated.

If this is the Law of Attraction in action, if some of the greatest teachers of "good" and "positive" thoughts met with such tragedy how can we expect any better? What might the Law of Attraction have to offer to those of us that don't achieve sainthood? Sounds absolutely frightening to me.

Let us throw out these examples for a minute. Let us look at this from a different angle. What if the Law of Attraction really is a law? What if everybody got everything they wanted? What then? I am guessing that there is one person in the world that really wants to become the supreme ruler of Earth. Somewhere right now, some ambitious soul is looking at a globe, focusing on making everything it represents as his own. Let us call this person, Brain after the aspiring dictator from Pinky and the Brain. Are we doomed to be the subject of Brain? According to the law, we are if he wants it bad enough. Everybody say, "Heil Brain".

Wait, what if there are two people.? What if Brain has competition? Does it come down to a question of who wants it more? Certainly not. Because then, our intentions can be thwarted by another and we are subject to their will and not our own. So then, according to the Law, Brain would rule the world and so would his challenger,(we'll call him Pinky) Both Pinky and Brain can't be the supreme ruler of the world at the same time, or by definition they aren't the supreme ruler. How then does this get resolved? Does a second world manifest to comply with this? Which one then is the real world? We are still left with the problem that only one of them actually got the real world and the other just gets a copy. The complications of this are far beyond the scope of my knowledge, but I'm pretty certain that we would need multiple dimensions to explain it.

If the example of aspiring dictators is too absurd, let's look at the problem from a more mundane circumstance. Pinky and Brain both desire the same woman to be their wife. They don't desire to share her in a polygamous relationship. So, once again either one is thwarted or two of the same woman must become manifest. Same problem on a smaller scale.

I see another problem, the Law of Attraction seems to claim that we are products of our thoughts. This is a nice thought. It makes it easy avoid the desire to help those less fortunate than us. If someone is suffering from disease or poverty you need not feel sympathy for them. After all, it's their own thoughts that have brought about their condition. Then again, what about the babies that are victims of child abuse and neglect? How can a child that has no vocabulary or concept of positive and negative manifest the evil that is brought upon them?

At what point in a human's life does the Law of Attraction begin? Is it present at birth? Or, do we receive some supernatural permit when we reach a certain age? Who or what determines the proper age? If it is a universal law then shouldn't it be in effect all the time? Again, this means that a victimized baby has caused its own misery.

By definition, a "Law" has to be simple, true, universal, and absolute. The above scenarios are not exactly simple. Go back to the idea of multiple people desiring a monogamous marriage to a particular person. How many worlds must be made manifest in order to fulfill the intentions of Pamela Anderson's fans? And then what about her will? Does she a get a say in all this? These complications fail the criteria of simple and true. Gravity, is simple and true. You drop a rock it falls, it doesn't matter who drops the rock or how many people drop rocks. They all fall, no matter where you are at and no matter how many times you drop them. This is a prime example of simple, true, universal, and absolute.

Let's look at the baby example again, if the Law is universal and absolute then babies must be at fault for their conditions, even though they are incapable of defining their situations. Or, they are not at fault for their conditions and the "Law" isn't universal. If a baby drops a rock, the rock falls. This is universal.

What about the fourth criteria? A law must be absolute. Absolute means that every time an idea is intended for manifestation it must happen. It therefore should happen regardless of what actions are taken. If you asked someone that believes in The Law of Attraction, "I have been thinking about winning the lottery every day. I picture the winning numbers and everything. Why then haven't I one." The first question they are going to ask you is, "Have you bought a ticket?' If the law is absolute then the ticket should have become manifest without action. This is a minor detail, there is a far more dangerous implication we must consider.

The Law of Attraction, basically states that we make manifest our thoughts by tapping into the energy of the universe and this "energy" is God. As a Christian this is totally unacceptable. The idea that God is the energy of the universe is the same as saying God is everything in the universe? In other words, we are dealing with Pantheism. A heresy in all areas of Christian faith. God is apart from energy. God created energy. Furthermore, if the law is absolute then any demand we make on the universe must be fulfilled. And, if God is the universe then any demand we make must be fulfilled by God. This then means, that God has no will in the matter. If He is not free to choose whether He will fulfill the demand or not then He is a slave to our intentions. If He does have the freedom to choose, then the law is not absolute.

So, if the Law of Attraction isn't simple, it's not true, it's not universal, and it isn't absolute, then can it even be called a law?

I think it is merely a well marketed, but misguided attempt to explain the slug bug phenomena. The slug bug phenomena is based on a traveling game, where the participants actively seek out Volkswagen Beetles (bug) in order to be the first to call it out and get a chance to get a free hit (Slug) on one of the other participants. It is actually a phenomena brought about by the lateral geniculate nucleus (LGN). The LGN is a part of the brain that acts as a relay station between outside stimulus and what is perceived. It acts kind of like an executive assistant. The executive tells the assistant not to bother him with certain information and then the assistant filters out information that the executive doesn't need. The assistant plays a very important role, because without the filtering the executive would be overloaded with information and wouldn't be productive.

The LGN works the same way. We are so inundated with stimulus that if we actually tried to process everything going on around us we would have a meltdown. Try this with someone, ask them to focus on a particular color in the room. Tell them to remember everything they can that contains that color. After they have been given a few seconds to take it all in, have them close their eyes and then name everything of a different color. They will probably laugh and say that wasn't fair and more importantly they will have a hard time remembering very many objects. The reason: the LGN was told to look for everything of one color and it filtered out all other colors. The same thing happens when you play the slug bug game. All of the sudden VW bugs are everywhere. Just because there seems to be more out there it doesn't mean there actually is. You haven't manifested more VWs and their drivers. Instead, your LGN is now allowing previously filtered information to pass.

I believe the idea of synchronicities that take place when people try to follow the Law of Attraction is a similar effect. When you tell yourself that you are going to have that shiny new car, your LGN is going to be looking for ways to make it happen. It has nothing to do with tapping into some great power of the universe. You are not making demands of God. It isn't a law. It is just a tool for focusing on goals.

If we drop the mystical aspects of the Law of Attraction and use the idea of focusing on our goals and thinking in a positive manner, then I am all for it. But, when we make demands on the universe and expect the universe to reciprocate we are deluding ourselves at best and falling into pantheistic heresy at worse.

April 2nd, Update on My Health Goals

I weighed myself this morning. I weighed in at 264 pounds. The batteries in my scale died a while ago and so my last measurement had been on a doctor's scale. At that time I was at exactly 275 pounds. This causes a little bit of an accuracy problem because I am using two scales. I figure a five pound difference in either direction is probably a safe margin of error. That being the case. I lost anywhere from 6 to 16 pounds since I weighed in at the doctor's office. From now on I will be weighing myself on my home scale, so that I have a little more consistency.

The good news is that I have lost weight following the plan. Six pounds would be right about where I ought to be. Sixteen pounds would put me way ahead of schedule. I am not going to concern myself too much with that actual amount I lost. The important thing is that I'm moving in the right direction. So let me take a look at what is working.

First, I have built success into my schedule. Every day I have three opportunities to exercise. I wake at 5 am and exercise that time. I exercise during my lunch. And then I walk to the park with my son and the dog in the evening. The last doesn't always happen as it is dependent on the weather. I consider it bonus exercise. The other two exercises are almost a given. The only way I miss my morning exercise is if I fail to crawl out of bed in time. On occasion I do have some distraction at lunch, but this is rare and I can usually get in a half-hour walk. With three scheduled times for exercise the odds of not exercising are slim. I am bound to make at least one and usually I make two if not all three times. This is certainly helping me feel better and keeping me motivated.

Second, I turned my diet into a series of scheduled feedings. I created a diet packed with nutrition that requires me to eat every two hours. If I eat everything on the diet I have consumed around 2500 calories. I am actually consuming 400 calories less than what is required for a moderately active man of about 190 pounds. I recently came across an article, by Debra Moorhead, called How I lost 25 Pounds in One Month, that discusses using the caloric intake of the weight you want to be and then setting your diet according to those numbers. It is basically what I did, but this is a much simpler way to come up with the number of calories to consume than how I originally calculated them. I used the suggestions to help my wife come up with a number for own diet (Not that she needs it, but she asked.) I spoke of my diet as a series of scheduled feedings. It sounds like I am an animal at the zoo or something, but I like it. It changes my mind set, makes me see food not as a treat or reward, but as source of fuel and necessary for achieving my other goals. I eat almost the same thing every day, which reinforces the food as fuel idea. As long as I eat when I'm supposed to, I don't feel hungry. But, if I am even a half-hour late, my body knows it.

Third, I am drinking lots of water. I started drinking more water at the beginning of the year. I read up on the benefits of drinking water to help reduce anxiety attacks and so I decided to find a way to ensure that I was getting the required amount of water each day. I found a bottle that was exactly half of what was required and made a commitment to filling it twice a day and consume every drop. The bottle has become a personal accessory that is almost always with me. The water bottle replaced the pop bottles that were always with me. I found that I am filling the bottle three times a day, sometimes four. Drinking this much water is important. Now, I know that when I feel hungry I am actually hungry and not dehydrated.

Armed with a triple attack on the exercise, a simple feeding schedule, and a handy water bottle I am feeling certain that next Monday I can report even more success and that feels good.