Make a list: Check it twice
This part is all about making lists, literally. Learn about the importance of keeping a pen and paper handy so that you can write down your personal goals, dreams, aspirations and even fantasies. Think of this chapter as your own personal success journal that you get to compile, keep, organize and finally, make them come to life.
Over the course of time, it is possible and perhaps even inevitable that we will change our minds on many occasions. Learn to keep pens, pencils or other writing utensils handy in all the places you tend to let your thoughts roam. A pen and small notepad may seem out of place at first but think about where people have most of their epiphanies.
This list should contain personal goals, dreams and even fantasies if they are relative to any level of success. By lining out everything that you want, you will have a better indication of what you need to get there. Remember, if you do not have goals set you can go right past your destination and never even know you were there. You will still be too busy and occupied looking for nothing in particular. That is likely all you will end up with as well.
The list should be neatly compiled and organized in one place. However there is no telling where you will have your thoughts. One of the many important factors that separate the successful people from the rest of the crowd is that they are always prepared. This means that they are prepared no matter what. No matter what people think, no matter what they may say, make sure that you are prepared for anything and any eventuality that may or may not occur along the road to success.
When the list begins to come together, it will be time to start the second phase of defining your success. As time wears on, these lists are very likely to become very large and unwieldy if nothing is done with them. Making them large and heavy enough to be a doorstop is very possible, even easy for some people, but that is not going to take anyone to the door of success, much less open it for them and let them in.
Take the list and read it over very carefully. Not all of those great ideas will seem so great when you read them again in a more sober state or even sometimes when you are fully awake. Get rid of anything that is obviously not relevant to your personal success. That is not to say that you should remove all of those luxury items you have in there, just things which are obviously not going to happen in a realistic environment.
Organize the list according to successes and what part of your life that they are actually relevant to. While finding the girl of your dreams may be a very prominent goal and an important part of your success wish list, it may or may not be related to other items in other categories.
For example, if you are a male working as an official in a male penitentiary, your goal of meeting your dream woman probably should not be centered on or concentrated with your more professional goals for success. Successes are not limited to any single aspect of life but span the very essence of our lives, encompassing each and ever activity individually and sometimes collectively.
It is imperative that the person be able to organize and ascertain realistic goals and not just write down a lot of meaningless pipe dreams that have no basis in reality and no chance of ever being achieved. In order to more fully complete this it is better to start your list with too many options rather than not enough.
Keep a list for personal goals, one for professional goals and maybe even one for very private goals. Personal goals and private goals are different in both manner and scope and should never be grouped together in order to avoid confusion. Where a personal goal may be a matter of personal value, wealth or any one of another such matters which are relevant only to you, it is part of what has to be accomplished to attain true success.
Private goals are things which will allow you to improve your self on a more personal, perhaps even intimate level. It may be something as simple as trying a new hairstyle or something so personal as working on self-confidence or attitude.
Private goals, even though they are a very important part of the overall success of the individual, are not usually methods or feelings that need to be shared with others in order to be fulfilled. Quite often too many people being all-too familiar with our more private goals will offer more in the way of resistance and obstacles than if those goals were attained without outside interference.
