Visualized.Feel.Abundance

Hi Folks,

After many months of work and 4 weeks of intensive preparation, we are please to announce that The Ladder Of Dreams™ is ready! You may have been acquainted with the concept of The Ladder Of Dreams™ from as far back as June 2007 from this blog when I share with you how I set my goals - 9 Secret Steps To Life Transformation: The Ladder Of Dreams.

I received very positive feedbacks from readers and friends alike and began working on a system that I could share it with everyone. My original idea was to give out the system free for all who wish to set and achieve their goals while documenting my experiences in goal setting using this system to be sold for a small fee to supplement my income.

As some of you already know, I gave out the system for free in Sept 07 and shared extensively on goal setting alone in Sept 07 and Oct 07. I have rename this part of the system The Ladder Of Dreams™ Essential and it consist of a template and an instructional manual. I hope everyone found it beneficial and enjoyable and more importantly, achieved more goals in the process.

It is available for downloading at the http://TheLadderOfDreams.com/.

If you have been craving for more tips and tricks, methods and principles or even examples and variations, I have prepared a guide book called The Ladder Of Dreams™ Companion Guide which will share all the above and more.

It took almost four months to put it in writing. The value of the information contain within cannot be described in dollars and cents but in days, weeks, months and possibly years that you will save when you avoid traps, obstacles and impasse normally associated with working any goals.

For my readers who have downloaded a prior copy of The Ladder Of Dreams™ Essential, you will be receiving an email shortly to get you acquainted with The Ladder Of Dreams™ Companion Guide. For the rest, you can start by getting the free copy of The Ladder Of Dreams™ Essential.

Cheers,
James Soh

Popularity: 12% [?]

Hey Folks,

I was reading a post by Armannd @ ProjectArmannd.com titled “Life essentials, kindergarten version” and he was sharing about the lessons he learned in Kindergarden. I love that post as it reminds us of some important lessons that we tend to forget in our adult life as we compete in our society for a better social or financial standing. Read it, I believe you will love it!

Kids And Their Goals
It also got me thinking about the relation between kids and goals. Do kids have goals and dreams?

I believed so. Although most of them never writes them down and even if they do write them down, it will probably be in a dairy expressing what they want and not done as a goal setting exercise.

I know a lot of their dreams are fairy tales and impractical stuffs like “Want to be [fill in their favorite superhero]” or “Want to be [fill in their favorite princess]” but they do have practical dreams, such as “Want to go to [fill in their favorite theme park]” or “Want to get [fill in their favorite toy]”. And you know what? Usually their dreams come true!

A Kids Unique Strength
So why is it that their dreams come true when they have never done any goal setting exercises such as we adults? I believed that it is because they have one quality that most adults lack:-

“Naiveness”

In their young minds, nothing is impossible. Being naive, they dare to try everything and anything. Being naive, they are not afraid to ask and pester their parents, uncles, aunties and, especially, grandparents for what they want. Being naive, they tell everyone their goals and dreams without any concern with regards to who knows about it - actually, the more people who knows about it, the better for them. Being naive, they do everything that adults won’t dream about doing and inevitably, someone from those above will fulfill their dreams.

So how does kiddish goals measure up to adult goals? Do they comply with S.M.A.R.T.? Lets See:

Specific - I know kids are very specific in what they want. They will point to that commercial on the TV and yell “That’s the one I want!” or drag you into the toy department, grab the toy they want and pull you right over to the cashier! Do you need them to be more specific?

Measurable - The only thing you really need to measure is whether you have sufficient cash in your wallet to buy whatever you were dragged into buying since you are standing at the cashier counter already.

Attainable - Since you will be the one standing at the cashier counter with the toy in one hand and your wallet in the other, I think you would be in a better position to tell me if it is attainable.

Realistic - The only realistic thing to consider is how are you going to get out of that situation if you decide not to buy it.

Time-Bound - The only concept that kids know about time is “NOW”. Nothing else matters, not yesterday, not tomorrow, only “NOW”!

So do you think little kids goals are S.M.A.R.T. enough?

Time For A Story
Let me finish this with a true story.

Once I brought my little girl Stella to Popular (a local chain of bookshop) and she wanted 3 books. I said “No, you can choose only one.” She didn’t argue and choose one book. I took the book and went about my browsing before making payment.

At the counter, the cashier totaled up the merchandise and billed me for 3 books! I asked her to clarify the total and she told me the total was for 3 books including 2 that a little girl passed to her while pointed to me and said “Daddy will pay”. I knew it was Stella as I recognized the 2 other books was Stella’s other choice so I asked her “which little girl”. She pointed to little Stella standing at the entrance of the bookshop smiling cheekily at me.

In the end, I gave in to her ingenuity and bought all 3 books for her.

I’m not sure if she had the goal in mind to get 3 books. Maybe she did, maybe she didn’t. But I believe actions speaks louder then words and so I believe that it must have been a goal she wanted in her little mind.

Cheers,
James

Popularity: 10% [?]

Hey Folks,

If you have been following us for the past 5 post, you know we are currently on the topic of goal setting. If you have missed them, you can revisit them below:

What Are Goals and Goal Setting?

Can Dreams Be A Good Goal?

Are You A Day Dreamer Or Achiever?

Playing To Win

Even My Hamster Has A Goal

By now, you probably have, at least, made up your mind whether you should or should not have a goal. It doesn’t matter, to me at least, if you have decided that goals are not for you. It’s your choice and I’ll respect them.

For those who decide to set goals and pursue them, Congratulations! You have taken the first conscious step towards your dream and ‘ll show you what you can do next.

In the next couple of posts, I will be sharing the following topics about goal settings:

- Where to start and what goals to set
- General goal setting techniques
- Dream big and be inspired
- Taking it one step at a time
- Understanding your strength and your weakness
- Where to focus your effort
- How to set a right time frame for your goal

So before we go on with the first topic in the next post, I strongly encourage you to download The Ladder Of Dreams™ (Left side bar, top. Free Download), so you can follow us to plan your dreams.

Once you have downloaded The Ladder Of Dreams™, leave me a comment here. I would like to congratulate you personally for taking charge of your life and walking down the road of countless accomplishments.

Cheers
James

Popularity: 7% [?]

Hey Folks,

In our last post, “What Are Goals and Goal Setting?“, I invited you to share with me your opinions and I am very happy that I got a warm response offering different opinions. I love every single one of those comment and I thank you for sharing with me. Keep them coming.

Goals Need to Be Real?
One of the comments in the last post was this:

I disagree with Napoleon Hill’s definition.
Goals are too reality-based to be dreams.

It is a perfectly normal perspective and I was, for the better part of my adult life, thinking the same way. In my ex-profession as an engineer, I had to have goals that stick to reality. No doubt that whatever I plan for was “on solid ground” but the goals always lacks inspiration and excitement. Hence, I never really found anything worth pursuing on a long term basis.

Can Dreams Be A Goal?
Since I embraced the idea that I should set goals that I can dream about, I have found excitement in setting goals again. The excitement drives me forward, drives me to take action and I have found myself in place and situations that I would never otherwise have thought possible. Such as being a full time blogger, such as being able to share my experience and share positive thoughts reaching out to hundreds and thousands of people.

Would all this be possible if I had a reality-based dream? I think not.

Are Dreamy Goals Natural?
In fact, it is my belief that it is a natural thing for us to dream and dream big. Children’s dream a lot. They never really understood the difficulties of achieving what they want but it doesn’t stop them from dreaming. Here are some examples:

- They dream about being famous actors or actresses when they can’t even read a script
- They dream about being doctors even when they are scared stiff at the sight of a nurse with a syringe.
- They dream about being teachers but hate the spelling test they are getting from them

They are not afraid to dream and some of them do become what they dream they would be one day.

So What’s Missing

“If you have built castles in the air,
your work need not be lost;
that is where they should be.
Now put the foundations under them.”
- Henry David Thoreau

So, can dreams become good goals? Absolutely, as dreams are typically inspirational and motivating by nature. You just need to have a direction and a plan to achieve it (that’s the foundation). Does that make sense to you? Now is your turn to talk.

Cheers
James

Don’t Miss This: Need a tool to plan your dreams? Subscribe For The Ladder Of Dreams on the left side bar.

Popularity: 8% [?]

Hey Folks,

In the recent weeks, we have been talking about career planning and sharing a free goal-setting tool in the last couple of days. I would like to share with you 11 areas of your life that you can set goals and see how it gives a new meaning to your life and improves it immediately. The 11 areas are:

Personal Life
People with goals and dreams in life tend to be happier as they know what to look forward to, what are they currently busy with and how it contributes to their goals and in general have a direction. It is the goals they set that gave the meaning of life to their personal life.

Studies
Having a goal and plan your studies around it not only allow you to attain the results you want but also prevent you from overloading yourself from studies. Over study is almost as bad as not studying and can cause nervous breakdowns in the extreme case.

Career
Employees with a strong set of career goals tend to perform at extra ordinary levels at work. It’s not that they are super beings; it’s just that they know that whatever they do, they do it for a purpose. Whatever hardship and tough times are there to training them and give them the experience to handle even bigger responsibilities. Hence, they also complain less and return a higher value to the company then they were paid for.

That is the real reason why they can make phenomenal progress at work given the same training, same number of working hours and same set of work to do.

Relationship
When you enter a relationship without a goal, it will end when the first problem surfaces. That’s what happened to my first relationship. I had a goal for my second one and now we are a family and we planning ahead for retirement.

Have a long term goal when you enter a relationship helps you to look beyond imperfections and find the balance necessary for long term relationship and a real chance to settle down.

Family
Every family is made up of at least 6 people. You and your spouse, your parents and your in-laws. If you thought relationship during courtship years were tough and dynamic, wait till you try family. It gets more dynamic after you factor in different customs, extended family members and finally kids!

My long-term goal for my family was for everyone to be happy with each other and to love one another. So far, so good.

Dream Home
Having clear goals when you look for your dream home will allow you to focus on what is important to you in your dream home and make you less likely to be distracted by a “nice to have” feature which is, well, nice to have but is not important to you. If you do not have a clear goal in mind, you will likely be muttering this a lot later, “Why didn’t I think of that?” or “Why did I buy this?”

It will happen even more often when you shop for the renovation for your brand new home.

Dream Car
Similar to Dream Home, except the whole car might be wrong!

Holiday
When planning for a holiday trip, know what you are holidaying for? For a relaxation, go for a cruise not a package tour. For shopping spree, don’t go Tibet! You get the drift, right?

Business
A million and one websites have talked about this. So I’ll go straight to the point. A business without a goal or dream is just replacement work. 10 year down the road, your business will still be the same size as before. If you can’t dream up a dream, don’t start a business.

Seminars & Trainings
Going for Seminars and Training without know what you want to get out of it is a pure waste of money. Without a goal to focus you in the seminar, you will never retain anything beneficial from it 3 months down the road.

Investments
Trying to do investment without a clear goal or objective will lead to greed which will ultimately lead to loses. Have a goal will force you to plan and adopt a profitable strategy that will earn you the returns to meet your goals and objectives.

If you think there are any other areas which I left out, please fill free to mention them

Cheers
James

Popularity: 5% [?]