Goal Setting Tips - Thought Filters Are Key to Success

Goal Setting Tips

From the time you were a child and were capable of advanced thought, you have been thinking. Throughout the span of your life you've continued thinking, on a second-to-second basis, and you have never had the exact same thought twice. Mind rattling, right? OK, to complicate matters a bit more, every single thought we have must first pass through a set of filters in our brain that we are not consciously aware of, and those filters are made up of a collection of all of the thoughts we've had previously in our lives!

What does this have to do with success and fulfillment or goal setting, you might ask? EVERYTHING!

In order for us to truly understand what we WANT in life and from life, we have to first understand our thoughts and why they are the way they are. In order to know how to GET something, we also have to understand our thoughts. But most importantly, in order to OVERCOME the obstacles that are in our way of getting the thing we want, we have to understand AND be able to change the way we think.

These filters in our minds directly determine the course and outcome of our lives. If we want to live life to the fullest, we'll need to fully understand them and how to work with them.

HOW TO CHANGE OUR FILTERS

When you think about fast food restaurants or burger stands, what is the first thing that comes to your mind? Is it the wonderful tasting hamburgers, or is it the revolting ingredients of the food there. Is it the thought of having a full stomach, or is it the thought of getting fat? Whatever the thought is, it's a result of information that has passed through the filters in your mind previously and is not formed according to your experiences.

The filters in your mind are modified constantly and updated to reflect the latest programming they've received by you. For instance, to stay with the hamburger thing... if you were starving for food a week ago and you stopped by fast food places for a big greasy hamburger and it tasted good, filled you up and then almost miraculously you had a great weigh in on your bathroom scale the next day, well you probably don't have a very harsh association with fast food places at the moment. However, what if you had that big greasy hamburger a week ago while you were aware that your weight was getting out of control and you had a terrible weigh in the next morning and there was great guilt caused by eating that burger?You'd be more averse to having another fast food burger, right?

WHAT YOU CAN DO RIGHT NOW

Understanding the filtering processes in the example above, can you think of a goal you'd like to acheive but that seems unattainable? Got it? Now try to think about why this goal seems unattainable to you. Was there an association in your life that taught you the goal was unattainable, or that you don't deserve it, or just that you personally couldn't do what is required to achieve it? When you have an answer, go deeper. Try to understand why you believe what you believe.

What you are doing when you do this is going through your filters and removing them one by one to get a more clear image of the obstacle or reason that you believe makes the goal unattainable. It's in these instances when therapy or coaching by a professional can help. Coaching (or therapy) helps you to identify and remove the filters that stand between you and your success and./or fulfillment. Then, it reprograms your mind to have different associations, ones that can overcome your fears or hesitance to chase the goals or success you want and deserve.

Understanding and controlling your filters is paramount and it's something that everyone can benefit from.