The Art of Goal Setting: Deadlines, Timelines, and Streamling

Lines read like actors do on film,
Yes, streams of income over time,
are divine, dead some goals may be
resurrected fully, push yourself be
your own bully, mold the desires
in your heart, cross the line and
stay smart, achieving your goals
is an art, so top those charts and
publish those books, stay healthy,
maintain your good looks, stay
away from crooks and leeches, and
listen to the pastor when he preaches.
– Prince Eric Music

What would you do, day-to-day, if you had $100 million in the bank?
– Tim Ferris

Deadlines:
I’m not sure why they call it a ‘dead-line.’ To me, having a set date brings life to me, it gives me the energy and focus I need to complete something I’m working on. After school, and with no job (on purpose) you are the master of your time and destiny. I like to set deadlines for myself so that I can master a certain subject (and I’m going to start embedding mind-maps of the subjects I’m speaking on – so you can get a full visual of how you can apply it to your life). You can probably relate though, during school when there was a deadline, or when you knew there was going to be a test, you’d stay up late that night and wake up early that day to make sure that it gets done on time. School has taught us to stick to deadlines, life coaches teach us how to stick create dreamlines and streamline our focus and actions towards those goals. I like what Tony Robbins said when he was explaining the Rapid Planning Method. He mentions chunking your ‘to-do’ list into sections for the actual result you’re looking for and then to outline and clarify your purpose for reaching towards that result. He also mentions creating a role for yourself so you can blast through the mundane parts of what you don’t want to do. For my company Angel Concierge, I consider myself Charlie, or the Professor. For my music, I put it in my name, the Prince. For the Prayer Pharmacy, I go by the Prayer Doctor, and so on and so forth.

Timelines:
In order for your deadline to be effective and motivating, you must see how it fits into the big picture of your life. I mention in my Dreamliner article the importance of narrowing down everything it is that you want to be, do, have, see, know, and experience. Timothy Ferris suggests that you get started by thinking of one place you would love to visit, one thing you’d love to do before you die, a new habit to do daily, another habit to do weekly, and to think of one thing you’ve always wanted to learn and to seek out a mentor and coach in that area, asking them every question you can think of and practicing what they taught you until you master it, then teaching it to someone else, thus completing the circle of learning. Remember, when you’re learning things it’s very important to share it with others and teach others, which is why I spend so much time writing on this blog – the comparison I’ve heard before comes from the example of the Dead Sea. Being continually poured into you stagnate and what lives inside of you dies, you become a reservoir instead of a channel, like the Red Sea, which is abundant with all sorts of life. I love the software Tiki-Toki, I’ve used it several times to set my dreamlines, you can see what mine looked like below, (and click on it).

Even though I didn’t accomplish all of them on the exact time, I have put forth a ton of effort into each of them, and I’ve accomplished quite a lot more than I would have had I not set such high goals.

Streamlining:
The Timebox is essential for you to get done what needs to get done. I use the Target Daily Income and the Most Important Tasks from Timothy Ferris’ Dreamliner, and I also use Brian Tracey’s technique called “Eating the Frog.” In order to accomplish these things I use Eben Pagan’s advice to block out 4 hours of my day to remove all distractions and focus only on the tasks at hand, and those tasks are Quadrant 2 Tasks which is based on the Priority Matrix. I use David Allen’s technique of a “Mind Dump & Incomplete Trigger List” every Sunday and organize my thoughts into the four quadrants in the application called Priority Matrix. The biggest problem I’ve found that haunts us is Distraction. I’ll let Eban Pagan explain how he has found a way to conquer distraction and how he leverages reality to help him focus. Create four hour blocks where you remove all distraction, lock your door, turn off social media, turn off your phone, and focus on knocking out those Q2 tasks.

I use to have an entire website based on how to believe beliefs. I remember asking the wife of Pastor Judah Smith, “I know what beliefs to believe, but how do I really believe them?” She answered, “Beliefs are built up of blocks, and each time you take an action in accordance with that belief you build up the blocks.” If you want your goals to imprint your belief system, you must affirm them in the present tense in the “now”as though you already are that person: “I am the new manager.” “I am friendly and outgoing.” You affirm that you already live in the new house, even though you still live in the old one; that you’ve already won the game before it’s played; that you have enough money to take that vacation, even though you only have $20 in the bank. If you weigh 140 pounds and you want to weight 120, you might write an affirmation like “I look young and feel confident and attractive at 120 pounds.” You write the goal as though it is already achieved, even though it isn’t. If you trigger the right imagery and emotion, your subconscious will believe you. You aren’t lying to yourself. You are simply altering your image of reality. Affirmations are neither moral nor immoral. They are a moral or neutral. They are just the trigger tools for creating the right imagery for change. By using first-person, present-tense affirmations, you deliberately trigger a conflict to stimulate the impetus and make the pictures match.

Goal-setting is simply a process of constantly stretching what is presently “just like me.” Write your affirmations in the present tense; otherwise, you end up affirming ability or potential. For example, if instead of affirming, “I am patient with my kids,” you affirm, “I can be patient with my kids,” nothing happens. You have nothing to change because you already possess the ability to be patient with your kids. In affirming your potential, you don’t create any drive for change. When you think, “I can be” or “I intend to be” or “I’d like to be,” you also think, “but right now, I’m not.” And when you affirm, ”I can be a nice person,” it records, “I can be a nice person, but right now I’m a jerk.” See? “I can be rich, but right now I’m poor.” “I’d like to be brave, but right now I’m scared.” Affirming your ability or potential doesn’t alter your present reality. You must affirm achievement: “I am a loving father.” “I am a winning athlete.” ”I am a dynamic leader.” If you don’t affirm in the present tense, you won’t create the motivation to achieve the end result that you want. And you will end up wondering, “Why can’t I change?” If you don’t affirm in the present tense, you might get trapped affirming the past, the way things used to be, while immersed in the present, the way things are. You complain, “This is awful.” And your self-talk affirms: “Things are crummy. People are mean. Values are dead.” What will your tomorrow look like if this is how you describe today? What blocks most change? People keep reproducing, in their minds, the way things are now, or the way things used to be. What about the people around you family, friends, business associates? What are they talking and thinking about? History or the future? High performance people think future tense as though it’s done: “The money’s earned.” “The game is won.” “The house is built.” They continually invent their own future before it happens. Remember: The future is now. So affirm all your goals in the present tense or your tomorrow will look like your yesterday.

I’ll end it with this, Eben Pagan’s 8 core values of a successful mindset:

In conclusion, looking back on the last 5 years of my life, I am amazed at how much has been accomplished. Before I explained what has happened over the years, I would like to add that I know I could have accomplished way more had I abstained from sexual immorality, drugs, and alcohol. Secondly I would have accomplished a lot more if I had kept my goals in front of me and read through them everyday and took action on them. I created a Pinterest and put my top 25 goals up there. I also had a wonderful girl from England read out loud my affirmations, speaking them into my life. I also recorded a 45 minute audio of affirmations I put together from the book, ‘Unmerited Favor’ by Joseph Prince. I put together a YouTube Video that showcased all of the things that I wanted to do and another showcasing all of the things I wanted to be. I put together another epic video that had my sisters and parents affirming me and goals I wanted to hit, money I wanted to make per month. I put together dreamliners and wrote my goals in the NLP format and used a program called Toodledo to store them. I’ve purchased countless goal setting programs – Priority Matrix (which now goes by Appfluence), OmniFocus, DropTask, Taska (which was for some reason taken off of the market) Any.Do, Epic Win, as well as read a ton of books on goal setting – Aladdin Factor, the Magic of Thinking Big, the I had set a 5 Year Goal plan and hit the target goals for each year – goals which included putting together an album, doing a national tour, doing an international tour, putting together evangelistic websites and translating them into every language, and having the top record label in the world. I run many evangelistic websites, and have several YouTube Channels, one about Christian testimonies of how God has worked in their life, and another where I interview pastors, and authors of books on prayer as well as seek out books on prayers and pray those prayers over the listeners. I also run the best prayer request website, along with a website where we save souls and help people find salvation. I also run the top rap website, and have launched a place where anyone can list their services they provide pertaining to rap music, and where I put together all sorts of record label type packages as well as a full rap music social network.