This is a series of 5 practical articles, which will teach you my method of achieving any goal in record time.

We are now coming to an end in our method of achieving your goals. Let’s recap.

In Step 1 I told you about the importance and power of setting a vision and precisely defining a goal.
In Step 2 I told you about the difference between your internal goals (your motivation) and external goals and why you need to define both.
In Step 3 we were talking about creating a map with detailed steps and milestones while at the same time ensuring that you consider your internal and your external focus.
Step 4 was all about moving your butt and taking action. We also discussed how you need to shift your focus towards taking care of your action steps to be present in the Now!

Now once you are on the road taking and caring about the necessary steps towards your goal being in that Zen like state of focus on your action in the now you only need to check once in a while that you don’t get lost. Let’s talk about being off course, errors, failures & adapting to changes.

Step 5. Control You Progress: Check Your Map & Adjust Your Course

Being Off Course Is Normal

As much as I like that state of being fully aware of my doing and being present, I also know that l need to check frequently whether I am still on course.

Did you know that an airplane is most of the time of course? It doesn’t matter whether it is on autopilot or whether on manual flight, wind changes are resulting in slight deviations from the original course. So what a pilot (or an autopilot system) constantly has to do is to compare the current location with the planned route. Since the plane will be off course 99% of the time, the pilot needs to adjust to get back on course.

And it is the same with you while driving, that’s why you keep your hands on the wheel and are correcting every slight deviation immediately.

The Two Categories Of Deviation

With our human nature there are several reasons why we can deviate from the course. However we can of course separate them into two categories – external and internal.

External Caused Deviation

This is comparable to the wind changes of an airplane or the road bumps of a car drive. Now matter how much good visualization you put into, the road towards any goal will bring you in contact with the outside world. You will meet and need people and resources.

Let’s assume you need a computer and some people to reach your goal. Both have the tendency to behave slightly different than in your imagined world – i.e. the computer could crash and people could misunderstand your communication. No matter what – things do get wrong on the way. You could bang your head against the wall, but that rarely changes anything (except your doctors bill if you do it too hard).

The problem we have when it comes towards our goals is that we get connected too much emotionally during the travel. Especially are we afraid of not getting it. This fear leads us into a panic reaction once there is something not running the way we planned.

What we need to develop is the emotion-free, cold blooded reaction scheme of an airplane pilot. You need to become as cold blooded as Chesley Sullenberger who was able to splash land safely in the Hudson river. All that counts is :

1. Where are you now?
2. Where do you want to go?
3. Are you off or on course?
4. If you are off course, what changes have to be made to get you on course again? Especially what can YOU change to become the necessary change?

These are the only 4 questions you need to ask once something has gone wrong.

Internal Caused Deviation

This is the more tricky part of getting off course. Even if you have a great plan, started with good motivation, are able to communicate well with other involved people and your computer is stable, you can still get sidetracked easily – simply because you stop to follow through. Here we come to a big problem in most projects – procrastination and destructive behaviors.

What Is Procrastination And Why It Is Not Your Enemy?

Procrastination is a pain in the ass – excuse my direct language, but that’s what most people feel about. There are hundreds or thousands of books, tapes, etc. out there who want to help you with that problem, but most of them miss the root cause of your procrastination habit.

Procrastination is not your enemy – it is your friend! “What? Me being lazy is a good thing?” No, it’s not a good thing, but it isn’t bad either. It is just a learned behavior pattern that kicks in to protect you.

You need to understand that procrastination is a protection pattern. Procrastination wants to protect you from being overwhelmed, from that feeling of being out of control. Well, it might not be the best or the most clever strategy, but let’s face it – it is a strategy that works sometimes. How often have you procrastinated and the problem went away? Often enough (especially in your early years) that your brain linked that behavior as a possible and effective strategy for coping with the pain of feeling overwhelmed.

Since you now understand that procrastination is not about you being defective with your will power there is a much better way of tackling that behavior. Again think of Chesley Sullenberger. Don’t get emotional now – not even about yourself. Analyze the situation and adapt to it. Your procrastination is comparable to your fuel gauge. If it lightens up you don’t beat up the gauge or cover it with tape to not see it anymore – no you correct the underlying problem by driving straight to a gas station. You can do the same with your procrastination gauge.

Ask yourself: “What does my procrastination pattern wants to protect me from?” That is the thing you need to change.

Let’s assume some possible answers to this question and possible solutions you might come up with.

You might be procrastinating because:

• You don’t like the associated action (maybe filing a tax report). Then ask yourself how you can make this step more enjoyable. Can you combine it with something you enjoy? Maybe changing the ambience is sufficient. Can you delegate it? If not and you still cannot move yourself to like it, then write down what good things will come out of you doing it anyway. There is a positive reason why you wanted to do it in the first place. Reconnect with that reason, experience and intensify it in your mind.

• Your next step might feel to big for you. Then consider how to break it down. Alternatively, get other people in the boat to help you with that jump.

• Your next step could lead into a conflict with another person. Then find out why this could lead to conflict? Could you come up with an alternative solution to turn it into a Win/Win situation, or use the sandwich technique to bring up the topic.

No matter what you come up with, find out why you are uncomfortable about this step and get possible solutions to the real, underlying problem.

Again let’s get the method for course correction clear.

1. Check where you are now.
2. Check where you should be on your map.
3. If there is a deviation, check whether it is due to internal or external causes.
4. If it is caused by external factors, find out what needs to be change AND how you need to change to correct the course.
5. If it is caused by internal behavior, then find out what the real problem is that made your procrastination pattern kick in. Solve that problem.
6. Make a schedule to recheck you course frequently. You might need to check your progress monthly, weekly or daily depending on your goal.

Power Questions for Step 5

1. Where am I now?
2. Where should I be?
3. What needs to change?
4. How do I need to change?
5. What does my procrastination pattern wants to protect me from?
6. How can I make the step easier and more enjoyable?
7. Do I need other people or resources to make a jump?

Other Parts

UNWRAPPED: The Ultimate Guide to Get Where You Want to Go – FAST! Part 1 – Vision & Reality
UNWRAPPED: The Ultimate Guide to Get Where You Want to Go – FAST! Part 2 – Motivation
UNWRAPPED: The Ultimate Guide to Get Where You Want to Go – FAST! Part 3 – Building A Map
UNWRAPPED: The Ultimate Guide to Get Where You Want to Go – FAST! Part 4 – Taking Care of Your Action

This is a series of 5 practical articles, which will teach you my method of achieving any goal in record time.

In Step 1 I told you about the importance and power of setting a vision and precisely defining a goal. In Step 2 I told you about the difference between your internal goals (your motivation) and external goals and why you need to define both. In Step 3 we were talking about creating a map with detailed steps and milestones while at the same time ensuring that you consider your internal and your external focus.

Once you have your external goal (the target for your automatic navigation system) and your internal goal (your motivation or your fuel) set and have come up with a plan or map that tells you ways to achieve your goal, you are finally ready to hit the road and start taking action.

Step 4. Moving: Taking Care of Your Steps

A Dream Is Just A Dream

Okay now you’ve prepared your bags and are ready to go – the cab is waiting in front of your house. What would happen if instead of getting out of your house into the cab (and later on the plane, etc.) you would stay inside and keep on looking at your travel map, the catalog of the hotel and your plan description? Even if you continue to envision how exiting it would be, the cab driver outside would get rather annoyed if you don’t move your ass and get it in the cab, the airline would also get annoyed of you and would take off without you.

You see it is bizarre to prepare everything and then don’t take the steps. Yet, it is precisely what we all have done so often with our goals. We had dreams and visions, but we never took the first step. Unless you are willing to take action on your dreams, you can envision and plan your dreams in as much detail as you like – they ain’t gonna happen.

Walking and Talking

This is the crucial step – as long as you are not willing to start your journey it is all talk (or writing or dreaming) – but you need to walk your talk. The rubber needs to hit the road to get your car and yourself going.

It’s not your dreams, aspirations or ideas that define you – it’s your action – and only your action.

Don’t Look At The Map While Driving

Beside taking the first step, there is also another very important point here. Once you get going (i.e. you start taking the steps towards your goal) it is important NOT to have your focus on the goal.

Wait a second you might say, but I’ve heard it all so often – always keep your eye on the goal, always focus on the vision.

It is critical to understand, that the vision of the goal is like a map. You prepare your map to know where you are going, but once you move forward on the journey your focus is on the steps you take.

What happens if while traveling you would only look at your map? Well, you could miss directions, you could get run over by a car, you could miss opportunities, you could struggle. It is the same with your goal journeys. The Map Is Not the Territory as they say in NLP. Use the map to install direction within you but while traveling focus on the steps and on the journey.

Now don’t get me wrong – you will use your map (occasionally) for checking that you are on course – but this is part of the next step. Just like walking along a street – walking and checking direction are separate phases of a journey.

A Paradigm Shift: Caring About Your Steps

Part of this paradigm shift is also that once you get going, you focus on the steps and care about the steps. Caring means, that you ask yourself how you could make these steps even better, more enjoyable, more effective. If you care about your steps, you will lose the pressure of being overwhelmed by the far away goal.

You need to get that Zen like state of “All that counts now is this one step, this one activity.” How would a mindset of “I need to get through this to reach my goal?” be different from “How can I make this exercise as good and as enjoyable as possible?” when it comes to doing the necessary exercises to come closer to a weight loss goal? Forget about your goal during the sessions and care more about doing the exercise, doing them better and enjoying them. Try to make them a little better every time – that is the power of KAIZEN – the constant drive to improve things.

There is a time for everything – planning and checking, but NOW is the time for moving!

If you shift your focus from your goal to taking care of your steps, you will experience a state of calm relaxation. Very often looking too much at your goals installs a state of frustration combined with panic within your subconscious because you realize every time you look at your goals, that you are not there yet. This creates frustration and while you need a little of that frustration to build the tension up to get you going in that direction too much of that frustration will lead to apathy. That is why very often too much goal setting will ensure that you won’t achieve them. Your subconscious feels too much stressed by the total effort. So you need to take away that pressure from your subconscious. It is not about the zillion things that need to be done in the future – it is only about the one thing that needs to be done now.

If you would be focusing on your thousands of steps ahead of you during the current day and not on the next one that will lead you just 1 meter from your current position, you wouldn’t leave your bed at all. Get yourself a pedometer (that is an instrument that counts how many steps you take during a day) and you will see that you walk several thousand steps a day (even if you are a couch potato). So taking thousands of steps isn’t hard for you at all – you just don’t take them all at once – you take them one by one. No wonder that we mastered walking – now master reaching your goals.

Take Care of Your Steps!

Power Questions for Step 4

1. What is the next step I need to take now to get closer to my goal?
2. How can I make sure this step gets done in the best, most efficient way?
3. How can I make this step even better?
4. How can I make this step even more enjoyable?

Other Parts
UNWRAPPED: The Ultimate Guide to Get Where You Want to Go – FAST! Part 1 – Vision & Reality
UNWRAPPED: The Ultimate Guide to Get Where You Want to Go – FAST! Part 2 – Motivation
UNWRAPPED: The Ultimate Guide to Get Where You Want to Go – FAST! Part 3 – Building A Map
UNWRAPPED: The Ultimate Guide to Get Where You Want to Go – FAST! Part 5 – Check & Adapt Your Course

This is a series of 5 practical articles, which will teach you my method of achieving any goal in record time.

In Step 1 I told you about the importance and power of setting a vision and precisely defining a goal. In Step 2 I told you about the difference between your internal goals (your motivation) and external goals and why you need to define both.

Once you have your external goal (the target for your automatic navigation system) and your internal goal (your motivation or your fuel) set, you are ready to plan your travel.

Let’s continue to compare planning a trip with setting up any goal plan.

Step 3. Planning: Building a Map & Preparing your Resources

Planning a Journey

Once you know where you want to go (you know the country, location and the hotel including all the features you want) it is necessary to plan your travel and find out what steps you need to take to get there. Let’s stick with the travel example.

Once you know which hotel you want, you need to book it. If it is available, you need to find out, how to get there. So you check airlines and see what options they give you at the available dates. You book a flight. Then you decide what you need to take with you. Then (as the date of departure comes closer, you’ll pack your bags and prepare all your documents).

This phase of planning and preparation is just as necessary for your goal journeys. You need to find out, what options you have to get there. Maybe there are several options – you could travel via plane or ship, so maybe your goal could also be reached via several routes.

Once you know your options of travel, you select the one that feels preferable to you, and then you define the steps you need to take on that route to get to your destination.

An Example

Let’s say your goal is to get fit in 2010. You’ve envisioned your experience of fit (what that means to you) in Step 1. Then you asked yourself why you want to get fit in the first place to get your root emotion, which acts as the drive or fuel for your journey. Now you take a look at the options to get there. Of course there are many ways. You can select from a vast bunch of fitness programs or combine them and build your own route. Yet what you do is you select one and then define what steps you need to take on that route. Let’s assume you took weight lifting as your option (or maybe part of it). Now you need to get a plan on how weight lifting would get you from couch potato (= Status Quo) to Fit Person (= Vision of Future Experience). You select some training routines and schedule them into your calendar. You select steps which consist of ever increasing stretches so you make sure that you’ll get to your goal in the time frame you want.

While in this phase of defining your steps, you also need to find out, what resources you need. These could be tools, people or information.

Conscious vs. Subconscious Focus

Always consider your internal goal from Step 2 while doing it. It is crucial, that you connect with your internal feeling while setting up a plan. Why? Because maybe your mind came up with a plan based on weight lifting, but your emotions aren’t keen on this way of doing fitness. Maybe your root emotion for getting fit is to feel vibrant, alive and energetic, but your subconscious associates pain, muscle cramps and absolutely no fun with the planned route that your mind came up with.

The important thing is that you will ultimately fail with every plan that your mind came up with while focusing only on the outer goal (= losing weight) and not considering what your internal goals really want you to experience (= feeling vibrant, alive and energetic).

Your subconscious wants to experience this feeling not only at the end of the journey, but with each step. It is much more focused on the experience of the journey than it attaining the target (that’s where your mind is always thinking of). We could even go so far to say that your mind is only focused on the end result while the subconscious doesn’t know and doesn’t care about it. All the subconscious cares about is the experience of each step in the current moment (=the NOW!).

I will talk more in Step 4 about overcoming the difference between these 2 focuses.

At this stage, it is important to find out what options you have (brainstorm it) and select one that your mind and your emotions feel good about.

Power Questions for Step 3

1. What options do I have to get to my goal?
2. What steps do I need to take (via the selected route) to get to my goal?
3. What milestones do I need to pass?
4. What information do I need that is currently missing?
5. What tools do I need to get the job done?
6. What people do I need to assist and help me?
7. How do I want to feel during the journey?
8. How can I make sure to have as much fun as possible at each step?

Other Parts
UNWRAPPED: The Ultimate Guide to Get Where You Want to Go – FAST! Part 1 – Vision & Reality
UNWRAPPED: The Ultimate Guide to Get Where You Want to Go – FAST! Part 2 – Motivation
UNWRAPPED: The Ultimate Guide to Get Where You Want to Go – FAST! Part 4 – Careful Action
UNWRAPPED: The Ultimate Guide to Get Where You Want to Go – FAST! Part 5 – Check & Adapt Your Course

This is a series of 5 practical articles, which will teach you my method of achieving any goal in record time.

In Step 1 I told you about the importance and power of setting a vision and precisely defining a goal. I also told you that there are always 2 goals

• an external goal, which is the one you define on paper by specifying all the attributes and measurable parameters
• an internal goal, that you might also call the real or true goal. This is the reason you strive for the external goal. The emotional benefit you’ll get by achieving your goal.

It is important to understand that neither one is more important. In my experience you need both, an external goal which acts as a destination for your internal guiding or navigation system and an internal goal which besides being the ultimate goal also acts as the fuel to fill up your emotional tanks and therewith enables you to get the external goal in the first place

So let’s take a closer look at your real or internal goals … or what we further call Motivation!

Step 2: Motivation: Fueling your tank

What you need motivation for

What would happen if you knew where you want to go, you jumped into your car, turned the key, ready to go – and then nothing happened because there was no gas in your tank. To get where you want to go not only your car needs gas in its tank to get its engine working and moving, you need gas in your mental tank as well. This gas is called motivation (because it gets you moving just like a sports car with a full gas tank). Once you know where you want to go, you need to fuel your tanks with enough motivation to get through the upcoming steps and especially through the roadblocks which are labeled as problems. Missing this vital step equals running out of gas on a highway to your destination. You don’t want that to happen, so fill up your tanks with lots of motivation in advance.

There are so many people feeling a lack of motivation in their life. They wonder why they don’t achieve anything in their life. Well, it is simply because they haven’t figured out the essential answers to maybe the most important question in their life.

The most important Question: “Why do I want to do it?”

It’s been said that if you have a strong enough “Why” then coming up with a good “How” is no problem. The good thing is that using “Why” questions the way I will show you will lead you to the answers that will fuel your tank to the max.

Eliciting your motivation through continued “Why”-questioning?

Let yourself guide by the question “Why” until you get to a root emotion.

What is a root emotion? It is an emotion that you want to experience for its own sake. What do I mean? Very often you explain yourself why you want to do something with an intermediary benefit. Very often these intermediary benefits are not the real end goal but steps you think you need to do or experience in between. Very often these are phrased in avoidance terms (i.e. thinks you want to avoid).

Let’s take a look at an example.

• Let’s say your (external) goal is to lose 20 pounds.
• Then you ask yourself “Why do I want to achieve that”
• Answer: “Because I don’t want others to look at me like I am Moby Dick”
• Then you ask yourself: “Why do I want others to no longer look at me like I am Moby Dick?”
• Answer: “Because it feels uncomfortable?”
• You then ask yourself: “Why do I no longer want to feel uncomfortable?”
• Answer: “Because I feel small and vulnerable then.”
• You then ask: “Why do you want to avoid those feelings?”
• Answer: “Because I don’t want to feel that pain again.”
• You then ask: “How do you want to feel instead?”
• Answer: “I really want to feel strong and secure.”

That is the root emotion and your real, emotional goal – you want to feel strong and secure.

Tip: If you end with negative emotions you want to avoid like feeling small and vulnerable, it is often best to end the “Why” questioning with a final “How do you want to feel instead?“

Benefits – Your own and others

Second you not only want to elicit your own root or core emotion, but you should also elicit how others would benefit through you reaching your goal. Although people often think of themselves as egotistic, helping others is an ingrained and very powerful mechanism within us. If you find lots of reasons why others would benefit tremendously from you achieving your goal then that would add tremendous power into your mental tank. Trust me on this. It’s been said that Edison wrote in his journal long notes about how his invention would benefit other people. That was one of his driving forces to make him such an enormous genie. This method could do the same for you – don’t neglect it.

Power Questions for Step 2

1. Why do I want to achieve this?
2. How would I benefit from this?
3. How would I feel once I get there?
4. Who else would benefit from it? Remember that helping others is one of the biggest motivators in the world. Don’t miss it.
5. How do I really want to feel? What is my real motivation at my core? Elicit your root emotions through continued “Why” questions.

Other Parts
UNWRAPPED: The Ultimate Guide to Get Where You Want to Go – FAST! Part 1 – Vision & Reality
UNWRAPPED: The Ultimate Guide to Get Where You Want to Go – FAST! Part 3 – Building A Map
UNWRAPPED: The Ultimate Guide to Get Where You Want to Go – FAST! Part 4 – Careful Action
UNWRAPPED: The Ultimate Guide to Get Where You Want to Go – FAST! Part 5 – Check & Adapt Your Course

This is a series of 5 practical articles, which will teach you my method of achieving any goal in record time.

I’ve broken the process down into 5 easy steps. Although you might think that you’ve done some of those steps already I highly advise you to do them again. You can reap the benefits only if you’ve experienced the process completely.

Achieving Any Goal Is A Journey

Achieving any goal is really comparable to a journey. You are starting at a point which is your current reality, and you are going for a destination which is your goal. In between there are certain steps to take, certain obstacles to overcome and certain things to keep in mind. There are also certain prerequisites for any stage along the way.

One of the advantages of comparing the goal achieving method with a journey is that the method of planning a journey can be defined precisely and then be transferred to any goal you have in mind. This allows to define the method here without me knowing what your specific goals are.

Your life is really like a journey, but as with every great journey into any unknown territory there are actually several phases involved, and those phases need different ways of using your focus and power. Neglecting this vital difference will make you struggle and never achieve any goal.

Now really step back from the goals you might have made just a few days back on New Years Eve (if you’ve made them at all – see my article “6 Steps to Overcome the Failure Mechanism of New Year‘s Resolutions”). What if these goals you want so much would be travel destinations to places where you haven’t been before? How would you make sure, you get there?

We can discuss in this article an ideal planning and action scenario for any journey – a real life travel, a business endeavor, a personal development goal or any other goal you want to go for.

It is always you starting at one point (the Now) and wanting to go to another point (the Goal) and in between is the journey to get there.

An Overview Of The 5 Steps

To give you an overview, there are 5 distinct steps for any successful journey.

1. Activating Your Inner Navigation System: You need to create a precise vision of where you want to go and a knowing of where you are now.
2. Fueling Your Motivation Tanks: You define your real motives to go there. This is like fueling your tank with motivation. And it is also making clear what your “real” goals are.
3. Creating A Strategic Map: You start the planning process. You are building a map or strategy and are preparing your resources. You are also preparing for obstacles at this point.
4. Traveling Along Your Map: You Are Taking Action. You Are Taking Care of Your Steps.
5. Controlling & Adapting Your Course

No matter where you want to go – this strategy will bring you there. But there are a lot of pitfalls at each stage, where you can make mistakes. That’s why I devised this and the upcoming article as practical and safe guides to teach you the art of becoming a good goal traveler. Are you ready to get on your own journey?

If so, then without further ado let’s dive into the method.

Step 1. Activating Your Inner Navigation System: Create A Vision And Select Where You Precisely Want To Go.

The Problem With Unclear Visions

Imagine the following scenario. You arrive at the travel agency without any clue where you want to go, but determined that you wanna go someplace. Can you imagine the bizarre situation that would come out of it. Either the travel agent will give you what he wants to sell, or he would kick you out of his office.

Yes, I am sure you’ve heard it before, but it is true – unless you don’t know where you precisely wanna go, chances are slim that you will get to a place that will be pleasing to your needs.

A Word Of Caution – Your Goal Might Not Be Your Real Goal

Before I dive into the method of creating your goal vision, I want to warn you that you always have 2 goals – an external goal (that is the one you write down on your goals list like “Losing 10 pounds in 2 months”) and an inner or real goal. The real goal is always the benefit you’ll get from achieving the external goal. The inner goal is always a feeling you get from the external goal. So this one would be more like “I want to feel good, healthy, comfortable with myself”. I will go much more in depth about this in Step 2 – and it is essential to have both your inner and your outer goals clearly defined.

Although your inner goal is what you are really striving for, your brain needs the external goals as destinations for your inner Super Navigation System. Both goals are necessary for the system to work. So don’t neglect neither the one nor the other.

You Have The Most Advanced Navigation System In The World Within You

There is good news for you, you have one of the most advanced navigation systems in the world within you. Your brain is the most powerful guiding system in the world guiding you towards any possible, clearly defined goal. But you need to program it correctly. If you don’t pinpoint the destination with the below mentioned accuracy, chances are that your internal navigation system will lead you astray. Maybe that is something you’ve experienced already time and time again.

So learn to define your destination precisely and your navigation system will bring you to your goal.

Let’s take a look at how you do it with a real world travel destination:

How You Would Envision A Travel

You define your travel destination, you choose from catalogs what hotel you want, what features you want included, what things you want to see, etc.

What you do here is you define in advance how you want to experience your vacation. And although (if you’ve been to other countries before) you might never get exactly what you envision, this vision stage of defining how you want the (successful) future to be is as necessary to your goals as it is to any journey. And don’t worry your goal could be even better than envisioned (like you might get an upgrade on your hotel room).

If you plan a trip, you envision being there often to such an extent through the usage of photos, maps, travel descriptions, etc. that you literally feel being there. Doing this also creates enough anticipation, which adds to your fuel capacity in Step 2.

How To Use The Strategy For Any Goal

At this stage you need to define, where you want to go and where you are now. You must get a crystal clear picture of how and where you want to be at the end of the journey. You do this by asking yourself lots of questions about what you want.

Below you will find some power questions that will guide you. At this point of the process, it is important that you adapt your goal vision to the the way you would select a hotel room in the above mentioned travel scenario.

You must define for yourself:

• what you want
• how you want it
• what specific features you want
• how you want to feel about it
• what you want to experience once you get there
• what specific (and if possible measurable) things need to be there to make it good for you
• what specific parameters you need fulfilled to accept the goal as achieved.
• where you are currently
• what is the difference between your current reality and the future reality of your goal

Let’s take a common goal: Weight loss.

You need to define:

• how much you want to lose (therefore you need to know your current weight, body fat or what ever you are referring to)
• how you want to measure your success (specific weight loss, specific body weight, specific body fat ratio or any other measure)
• how you want to feel once you get there. It is always important to get clear, how you want to feel in the end.
• how you want your shape to look like
• what specific clothes you want to wear (again)
• what reactions you want to get

You must get it so clearly defined for yourself, that you can literally see yourself being there. And you should not only see yourself being there (like seeing it on a movie screen). You should literally go into the picture and fully associate with your future self. See yourself already being the person you want to be.

Start Your Goal Map

Once you’ve got your vision clear, write it all down in a sentence or two. I would highly advise you to have a specific goal sheet, where you keep record of this and the upcoming steps. This sheet will be an invaluable tool for you throughout your journey. It will be the first draft of your Goal Map.

Power Question For This Step

1. When I Get There, What Do I Want to Experience?
2. What features do I want to include?
3. How would I feel when I get there?
4. How do I know if I’ve achieved my goal?
5. What is my current reality?
6. What needs to change in order to turn my current reality into my future wanted reality?

Other Parts
UNWRAPPED: The Ultimate Guide to Get Where You Want to Go – FAST! Part 2 – Motivation
UNWRAPPED: The Ultimate Guide to Get Where You Want to Go – FAST! Part 3 – Building A Map
UNWRAPPED: The Ultimate Guide to Get Where You Want to Go – FAST! Part 4 – Careful Action
UNWRAPPED: The Ultimate Guide to Get Where You Want to Go – FAST! Part 5 – Check & Adapt Your Course

Christmas is only 2 or 3 days away, depending on whether you count the 24th or the 25th as the first day.

For most people nowadays this is a time to celebrate with their family, to escape work stress for some days and to exchange gifts of love. While all of these are wonderful reasons none of them touch the true meaning of Christmas at all. Understanding this time and its innate power is indeed a chance to grow and overcome many obstacles in your life.

Christmas is about being unconquerable. It is about overcoming all hardships, all problems and about coming out as a winner, no matter what.

If that is something you are interested, then read on.

Historical Meaning and Etymology.

First you need to know, where the name and the selection of the date came from. Looking up a long article at Wikipedia you’ll find two interesting parts.

Etymology

The word Christmas originated as a compound meaning “Christ’s Mass”. It is derived from the Middle English Christemasse and Old English Cristes mæsse, a phrase first recorded in 1038.[6] “Cristes” is from Greek Christos and “mæsse” is from Latin missa (the holy mass). In Greek, the letter Χ (chi), is the first letter of Christ, and it, or the similar Roman letter X, has been used as an abbreviation for Christ since the mid-16th century.[13] Hence, Xmas is often used as an abbreviation for Christmas.

So yes, the name means that we are to celebrate a holy mass for Christ. And the abbreviation Xmas is much older than you might have thought. There is also a long article about the word “Christ” at Wikipedia – well worth reading. You might find the Gnostic interpretation of the word “Christ” interesting. The Gnostics didn’t believed that Jesus was a divine person with a human form, but in a spiritual Christ who dwelt in Jesus. That would mean, that what would be celebrated on the day of Christmas was not a mass for a person who was born over 2,0000 years ago, but it is about celebrating about a spiritual birth within each one of us.

But this article is not about these religious aspects. It is about the practical implications that these days can bring to us.

If you read the Wikipedia article about “Christmas” a little further, you will find the following passage:

Dies Natalis Solis Invicti Dies Natalis Solis Invicti means “the birthday of the unconquered Sun.” The use of the title Sol Invictus allowed several solar deities to be worshipped collectively, including Elah-Gabal, a Syrian sun god; Sol, the god of Emperor Aurelian; and Mithras, a soldiers’ god of Persian origin.[49] Emperor Elagabalus (218–222) introduced the festival, and it reached the height of its popularity under Aurelian, who promoted it as an empire-wide holiday.[50] This day had previously been dedicated to Bacchus, in the Brumalia festival. Bruma being latin for “shortest day.”[51]

The festival was placed on the date of the solstice because this was on this day that the Sun reversed its southward retreat and proved itself to be “unconquered.” Several early Christian writers connected the rebirth of the sun to the birth of Jesus.[6] “O, how wonderfully acted Providence that on that day on which that Sun was born…Christ should be born”, Cyprian wrote.[6] John Chrysostom also commented on the connection: “They call it the ‘Birthday of the Unconquered’. Who indeed is so unconquered as Our Lord . . .?”[6]

There you find, that these days have always been used to celebrate the winter solstice. The time of the year, where the darkness in our lives (the external darkness of the day and maybe also the internal darkness of our souls) reach its height. We experience the longest night. But just when it looks like the nights would only get longer and colder, the sun returns to grow, the days are getting longer and the warmth is slowly coming back.

It is because of this supposed battle of light vs. darkness that people associated their own lives with the story of the sun. Nearly battled by the darkness, the sun at this time of the year shows itself as unconquerable and wins – every year again. It is this quality of being unconquerable that attracted the early Christians to associate this quality and therefore, the celebration of this solstice with Jesus.

Becoming Unconquerable – The 3 Steps

There are 3 steps that Christmas can teach us about becoming unconquerable. This wouldn’t be an UNWRAPPED-article, if you hadn’t something practical to do. So get out your journal and make sure you aren’t disturbed for some time.

Here is what you should do…

1. Become Aware of Your Own Darkness

There is no power in negating an enemy. If you want to win and become unconquerable you must face your darkness, your fears, your worries. While most people want to escape this darkness through shopping, celebrating, dining with family or taking the holidays, the true power comes only to those who are willing to face the enemy and are going to win this time. Are you ready?

Get out a piece of paper or your journal and just write down:

What am I afraid of? What worries me?

Then answer these 2 questions in as much time as you need. Don’t be afraid, decide to face all of them now. Bring them out on paper. It is just you and your journal, so dump it all out.

2. Decide to Become Unconquerable

There is so much power in making a real decision. The word comes from the latin word for “to cut off”. You are cutting away all other options with a true decision.

Decide now that you are going to be unconquerable. That you are like the sun (and if you like, that the spirit of Christ is within you) and you will not be overcome by the darkness in your life, but that these days will be the darkest days you’ll accept. From now on, you will overcome darkness by expressing the qualities and powers of light. Really associate yourself with a sun in their weakest phase of power, but regaining the old strength of light and warmth. It is essential that you get that feeling of power and being unconquerable in your body, because being able to re-trigger that feeling again is crucial when you are about to face your fears and worries.

3. Overcome the Darkness and Become the Source of Light in Your Life

With this power that you feel inside yourself, take a look at the list of fears and worries.

Then take out another sheet or go to another page in your journal and write down:

“How would an unconquerable source of light like me handle these fears, worries and problems? How am I overcoming these things from now on?”

Now that you’ve switched focus from being powerless and a victim of your fears and worries to being a powerful source of light and being unconquerable it is time to brainstorm some real world solutions to your problems.

It is essential to stay in the feeling of power while doing this. If you feel worries creeping back into you, you remember and re-trigger again the feeling of power you’ve made through your decision. Again, the feeling of power is what counts here!

Once you’ve finished your brainstorming, decide when to do the necessary steps, schedule if needed. Remember that an unconquerable person will not wish that something will change – he or she will make the change.

Turn Christmas from a wishing time to a changing time.

Whenever needed, speak to yourself these words of power and remember the feeling of strength and being unconquerable.

“I am an unconquerable source of light. No matter how much darkness I will experience, I always remember that darkness is not existent in itself, it is just absent of light. Once I remember my powers of light, I will overcome darkness and become unconquerable again.“

Conquer your life and your life will never be the same after this Christmas.

I am sure all of you have heard of the 80/20 rule or the Pareto principle? The 80/20 rule says that very often things could be achieved much easier, faster and with less trouble by focusing on the top 80%. It states that often 80% of the effects are caused by 20% of the causes. So don’t go for perfection, just go for what would be good enough to get 80% of the benefit. In many cases that could also be translated to what or how much would be good enough if you don’t wanted to make it perfect.

“Yeah, I’ve heard that so often” – Sure, but why haven’t you used it more?







There are 2 primary reasons why you have failed to use the Pareto principle in the past:

1. You have not separated your true goal and motives from your false or superficial goal and motives.
   If you are shooting at the wrong target, you will never get what you really want. So make it clear to yourself what you REALLY want.
2. You have not clearly defined what your 80% would look like.
   What would good enough look like? Again, if your target isn’t clear, you have a hard time getting there. That is equally important for the 100% as well as for the 80% solution.

An Example

I recently had someone ask me how to make sure he could focus on things and whether he needed to clear out any distraction upfront? I simply said to him, that cleaning out every distraction (=100%) would take very often way too much time and effort. He should remove the most distracting things (=80%) and start with that. That proved to be a good answer because removing the most distracting things is achievable in a very short time frame (=20% of time investment). Had he tried to remove every distraction upfront (=100% time investment) I am pretty sure, he would have given up before even starting.

Step 1: What Are You Really After?

Like in the above mentioned example, you need to know, what you really (REALLY) want from your goal, because there is a superficial cause for your goal as well as a true, but hidden cause.

In this example wanting to clear out every distraction would be a superficial goal. The real (hidden goal) would be to be able to focus. So removing distractions was only a means to the real goal of being able to focus.

Beware that most of your goals aren’t about what you really want. You don’t want money, influence, power, fame. What you really want behind all this is something that would make you feel good. Don’t fall in the trap of going after something with all your power that’s not what you intend to get.

Ask yourself instead what your real motives are.

Step 2: How Can Your Real Motives Be Satisfied?

Once you’ve found out what your real motives are, you can then brainstorm how you can satisfy them. You should really consider giving this some thoughts, because very often your real goal could be achieved with far less effort and struggle than you might think. How can this be achieved differently than through your primary approach?

Step 3: How Good Is Good Enough?

I am sure you’ll know what 100% of the solution would look like. You also know that this could involve lots of work and trouble. However do you also know what 80% would look like?

Define what 80% or good enough would be like. This step is so much easier, once you’ve really determined what your after.

Again referring to the example above, knowing that your real intent is to be able to focus, you only need to ask how much you need to do (=remove distractions, etc.) to get to 80%, so you could achieve your real goal and are not blocked by waisting 100% of your efforts on subsidiary targets.

It is a difficult situation to write an article, when you are lacking some hours of sleep, have some artisans constantly drilling in your house and no chance to escape, since you need to be there. However that is my reality today.

While I agree that these are less than preferable circumstances for blogging, focusing and concentrating at all, it is also a great chance to practice some things.

Now I know that I have these disturbing noises for the next hours, and I could put all my writing down for the day, but what if I could use this as a catalyst for some new insights.

The Ideal Isn’t Always Possible, Right?

A good rule for focusing your attention on any subject you like would be to remove as many distractions as possible. However what if you couldn’t do that (as in my case the drilling needs to be done today)? Would you give up focusing?

No. This is a chance to understand the power of distractions, but first let’s get clear what distraction means.

What Is a Distraction?

Again, I look up the wonderful Online Etymology Dictionary

distract
mid-14c., “to draw asunder or apart” (literal and figurative), from L. distractus, pp. of distrahere “draw in different directions,” from dis- “away” + trahere “to draw” (see tract (1)). Sense of “to throw into a state of mind in which one knows not how to act” is from 1580s.

So being distracted means, being drawn in different directions and being in a state of mind, in which one knows not how to act.

This means you don’t know how to act, as long as your mind is drawn into different directions.

In my example that would be me wanting to focus my mind on the text and my mind focusing at the same time on the noise of the drilling, the possible anger coming up and whatever memories that triggers.

Are You a Victim or a Helmsman?

The key here is to understand that although it is said, that you are being drawn to these things, it is not as passive as it sounds. What do I mean? “Being drawn to” is a statement of passivity. So then you are a victim to the distracting forces, right? And the only thing you can do, to not become a victim to those external influences is to remove them.

Well, that is one way to do it, but is it the only way? Only if you believe in the paradigm of your mind being drawn to those distractions and not having the power of choice here.

Now here is the vital key to get into control of your minds focus …

It is not the external distraction that is drawing your minds focus – it is your mind allowing your focus being drawn to them.

Please read that statement several times.

With every distraction you make a decision of reaction. While your first reaction might be instinctive (your subconscious checking out whether survival is threatened), your continued reaction is a conscious decision. Whatever you associate with that thing that you’ve labeled as “distraction” could also be changed here.

Note the difference – you are no longer a victim to distractions, you are the helmsman for your minds focus. Can you feel a difference in the power that these 2 pictures make in your body?

5 Steps to Overcome Any Distraction

Okay – so let’s systemize this for a practical application (as usual here on UYM – Unwrap Your Mind)

1. Note what is disturbing you
2. Can you remove it now? How much energy would it take to remove it? If it is easy to remove it, then do so, if it takes up lots of energy maybe don’t bother about it
3. Why is this thing bothering you? Become clear, while you are distracted or bothered by it. Maybe you should also note what it reminds you of.
4. Make a commitment to yourself to be a helmsman of focus. Say “I won’t allow this to interfere with my focus for now. It will be there, but I won’t allow my focus to be distracted by it. I am the helmsman of my minds focus. And from now on, this external thing would even increase my level of focus through it’s existence”. For example, after a while I found that the drilling sound became like a rhythm that I used for increasing my focus and that I incorporated in my writing rhythm.
5. Smile and work. Then go on doing what you are about to do, and whenever you hear or see that external thing (former distraction) smile and say “Thank you for helping me increase my focus”. This is very important because as long as you keep up rejecting or fighting it, it will keep its power over you.

Remember you are the helmsman – so steer your mind in the right direction now.

For a more indepth discussion of how to focus, read my article Focus or how to be strong, sexy and smart in 60 seconds

Do you sometimes feel as if a heavy weight is on your shoulder, as if a giant burden is pushing you down? Do you sometimes lie awake at night, still repeating inner conflicts and thoughts about the pressing problems in your life?

Don’t worry, you are not alone with that. This is a phase that every human being needs to get through. And it is also the reason, why we are not able to continue our development, because as long as we keep this burden of sorrow and fears on our shoulders and are not able to release it, we will feel stuck and frustrated.

But there is a solution to this dilemma, that is known for over 2,000 years, yet so little used today.

It’s time to reveal it once again, NOW!

What Is the Heaviest Burden on Your Soul?

What are the things we feel sorry about? What are the things we will feel sorry on our deathbed?

Hint: It is 99.9% of the time not the things we did, but the things we didn’t do, that will make us feel sorry and sadden our lives.

Not the mistakes we made, but the chances we had and weren’t going for are dragging our souls down.

How to Let Go of This Burden?

That is why Jesus said that you should go and settle your problems with other people (as well as yourself) before you pray.

Leave your gift there in front of the altar. First go and be reconciled to your brother; then come and offer your gift. Matthew 5:24

He knew, that all the important things that you missed doing, all the disputes you didn’t settled, all the reproaches against others AND yourself, that you weren’t able to dissolve are constantly capturing your mind and won’t allow any moment of peace to happen and therefore, won’t allow you to get into a spiritual connection with your creator.

Step 1 – Awareness of the Burden

But before you can settle anything, you need to become aware of its existence. You need to bring it back to consciousness. You need to go through the pain of looking at it, and not letting it be suppressed into your subconscious only because you want to avoid the pain.

I know this could be tough. I know this could be painful, but I also know that, unless you are able to do so, peace of mind will flee you, and you won’t be able to attain it. There is a huge difference between a state of numbed-out sorrows and peace of mind.

First, you must become aware of it. You should write it all out.

Bring it out of your mind on paper. This helps you, because leaving it in your mind will allow the part of you who wants to suppress it, to pull it away from you. Having it on paper also makes it easier to dissociate yourself from it.

It is a paradox, that writing it down will make it much clearer to you, while at the same time allowing you to feel so much lighter once the soul and mind no longer needs to constantly repeat it in your brain. Your brain needs to repeat those reproaches and sorrows in your head only because it wants to make sure, that you don’t forget about it. Bringing it out on paper follows the same mechanism that David Allen called “Mind like Water” in his GTD methodology.

The Biggest Hindrance – Numbness of the Mind

And we know this deep inside ourselves. But we try to numb ourselves from these painful feelings, these painful realizations. We try to forget them and suppress them. But our subconscious mind will never forget them. Yet trying to forget them on a conscious level always increases the heaviness of the burden for our soul.

So writing down the things you wanted to avoid is one way of keeping your awareness focused.

Step 2 – What Is Stopping You from Letting Go the Burden?

If you wanted to do for something important for a while but hadn’t done, there is a reason from your subconscious why you haven’t done so. You must find out, why you haven’t done, what’s necessary, why you weren’t able to dissolve the problem already.

I bet with those situations you had enough chances to do it, so failure to follow through shouldn’t be searched in the outer world. The block, that is stopping you from dissolving your burden, is within you. And it has one single name – FEAR!

So write down “What am I afraid of that could happen, if I do the necessary steps to dissolve my burden? What consequences am I afraid of?”

What Is Feeding Your Fears?

Do you know where fear get’s its power from? From being unclear, from being undefined, from being vague. As long as it is more a feeling inside you, a vague idea in your brain, it has power over you. This vagueness feeds your fears. But you can regain that power and control, by dragging the fear out of the darkness of your mind fog into the light of day by writing it on paper. So write the answers to the questions above down in your journal.

Get Power over Your Fears

By writing your fears out, you can get into a dialogue with them. It is no longer a monologue in your mind, that keeps you captured but a dialogue that will allow you to see your fears clearly and dissolve them.

Don’t Negate Your Fears

Negating them will only suppress them and help them to become stronger. Negating them will push them back into the fog of vagueness inside your brain. So keep them in the light of consciousness by writing them down and getting into a dialogue with them.

Step 3 – Overcoming your Blocks – Dialogue With Your Fears

You should look at your fears with the eyes of a scientist. Each fear is ONE way of looking at the world. They are like hypotheses. And a hypothesis needs to be either confirmed or falsified.

1. So get out a paper.
2. On the top write down your fear
3. the remainder of page you divide by a vertical line.
4. On the left side, you write everything that would lead to a confirmation of the hypothesis of your fear
5. On the right side you write down anything that would lead to a falsification of your fear.

You could have a real dialogue with your fear and find out, what it wants from you. Your fear is no bad thing at all. It’s essence is that it wants to protect you from harm. You should acknowledge that. So the right side of the page consists of all aspects, that would like you to become aware of any potential danger ahead of you. You should acknowledge that and take it into conscious consideration.

The left side however, shows you that although you should be aware of any dangers ahead of you, only focusing on them will keep you stuck and won’t allow you to grow. You need to move out of your comfort zone and your fears to grow. The left side will show you possibilities to do it, to grow out of your current zone of comfort.

With this scientific approach, you now have the ability to take the positive, protective aspects of your fear into consideration, while allowing yourself to not be frozen by it any longer and now making a conscious consideration to move forward.

Once you’ve made that scientific dialogue, you should then focus on what it would be like if you did let go of that burden and did the necessary action already. See in your mind, how it will be, once you’ve did it. Enjoy those good feelings.

Step 4 – Taking Action

Once you are able to release the fears that blocked you, you are then able to do the things necessary to dissolve what has been a burden for so long to you.

You should use the momentum and do it immediately if possible. If it is not possible, you should definitely schedule it and write down the FIRST step necessary towards your outcome.

And once you are able to let go of the fear and dissolve your problems with other people AND yourself, you are able to get in contact with whatever higher power you believe in. Then you are free to go to the temple of your mind and reconnect with your spiritual power as well as enjoy your life with a level of happiness you never dreamed possible before.

You might have heard of the Butterfly Effect before. Maybe you’ve even seen the movie. Well, it has a nice philosophical aspect to it, that you might use when you would like to impress someone. And looking at such a clever movie can certainly give you some good chill.

But do you know, that you can use the Butterfly Effect through what I call Consequential Time Travel to make sure that your decisions today are really in alignment with your values, beliefs and goals?

What Will You Get out of It (if You Participate)?

By doing the below mentioned exercise regularly you will:

• get to know the future consequences of your decisions and actions
• be able to make better decisions in the here and now
• get enough motivation to break through limiting habits

Background Info: What is the Butterfly Effect?

Let’s take a look at the definition of the Butterfly Effect on Wikipedia.

The butterfly effect is a phrase that encapsulates the more technical notion of sensitive dependence on initial conditions in chaos theory. Small variations of the initial condition of a dynamical system may produce large variations in the long term behavior of the system. This is sometimes presented as esoteric behavior, but can be exhibited by very simple systems: for example, a ball placed at the crest of a hill might roll into any of several valleys depending on slight differences in initial position. Quantum chaos is the study of the butterfly effect in semiclassical physics and quantum mechanics.

It is a common subject in fiction when presenting scenarios involving time travel and with “what if” scenarios where one storyline diverges at the moment of a seemingly minor event resulting in two significantly different outcomes.

In essence, it states that small variations or changes now are leading to large variations or changes in the future.

Again it is crucial to understand that it is only about the small things happening now.

A small thing can be

• you getting up 30 minutes earlier or later
• you exercising today just 10 minutes (or not)
• you going for that cheeseburger (or not)
• you smiling at a person (or not)
• you helping a stranger today (or not)
• and so much more.

Actually everything, you can think of today is a cause set in motion that will lead to an effect. And you can’t escape from this. As I stated above whether you do something or you don’t, you always produce a cause set in motion, even if you refuse to do anything. Your refusal is a cause set in motion.

How Can You Use This to Change Your Destiny?

Think of it as a series of dominos. You move the first and the rest follows automatically. You start a chain reaction just with an initial impulse. What if most of your everyday actions, that you didn’t even notice are chain reactions. Knowing about the future consequences of your decisions and actions could help you become aware of what you really want to do as well as help you make better decisions in the here and now.

Action Steps: Now It Is Time to Stop Reading and Start Doing

Here is the general formula to use Consequential Time Traveling to your benefit.

1. Observe your initial impulse: Observe one action that you are just about to do. Or think about a decision that you are about to take soon, and that you would like to make soon.
2. Realize the short-term consequences: Imagine what you would feel like and what consequences this action or decision would have on your life in the short-term. This would be anything between one hour to one month.
3. Realize the mid-term consequences: Imagine what you would feel like and what consequences this action or decision would have on your life in the mid-term. This could be around 1 year.
4. Realize the long-term consequences: Imagine what you would feel like and what consequences this action or decision would have on your life in the long-term. This could be around 5 or even 10 years. You pick what would feel better for you.

Here is an example:

1. Observe one thing you are about to do. Maybe it is grabbing for a beverage. Let’s pretend it is an ice-cold coke.
2. Before you drink it realize the effect this would have on your body in the nearby future. Let’s say, imagine, how you would feel in about 1 hour.
3. What would that effect have after 1 day? Especially if you continue to do it.
4. What would that effect be after 1 month? Again especially if you continue to do it.
5. What would that effect be in 1 year? Especially if you continue to do it.
6. What would that effect be in 10 years? What would you look like, feel like and ultimately be like if you continued to do it for 10 years?
7. Yet realize that all of this chain reaction started with the thing you are just about to do.
8. Are you still willing to go for that coke?

Try this several times a day with some of your actions, until you get used to it. Then this process will only take about 30 seconds.