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If you are serious about really making 2010 an amazing year .. then you first need to get clear on what ways you are living your life and is it supportive of the desire, dreams and goals you want ..

As practitioners of NLP, if something you really want isn't showing up in your life .. we don't need a session with Dr. Phil or an hour long interview with Opera .. or even a confrontational style therapy hot seat with Gerry Springer ..

No you only need to ask yourself one thing …

Are the causes, necessary to produce the desired results in my life … present?

If you want to lose weight but when you ask yourself this simple question, you see that actually no you have yet changed your eating habits, you haven't yet moved past walking more than once in a fortnight .. etc etc …

Then you know that if the causes aren't present .. the effect isn't going to be present also …

And this is the same for business, relationships , or any other area of life. There is always cause-effect relationships at work throughout our life.

A lot of the time, we call can fall prey to the illusion that "Yes, I am producing/doing the causes" in my life .. when really we aren't .. we are just kidding ourselves and skirting around the real truth .. and that is OK .. if not getting the results you want isn't important right now. But if you are sick tired of that and you know you've done more than enough of that in 2009 … then now is the time to transform that. You just need to get a little momentum going in doing the causes that produce the results that you want.

And if you already are, truly producing the causes, you are working out, you are making those cold calls or practicing your NLP skills etc AND you are not yet, seeing the results you want then there are only two things you need to ask yourself?

What is the lag time for producing a result here?

Remembering that any result from make a million pounds to writing your first book etc will have multiple sub-tote's and may have a lengthy chain of cause-effect-cause-effect points along it ..

So it is important that you are measuring to the right expectation and given it adequate time …

For example if I come to a closed door, lean down on the handle and push the door outward … and the door doesn't respond by moving on it's hinges back from me .. pretty much right away .. then I know that either something is wrong with the mechanism of opening (locked, broken, should of pulled instead of pushed etc) or that I'm not dealing with a door! It would be foolish of me to wait 24 hours after applying the correct cause-effect sequence before checking did it work. Likewise if you are working on an big goal or context that has multiple cause-effect-cause-effect elements to it then you can't expect the result to "magically appear" by simply just initiating the first cause .. unless of course the system has its own energy and you have triggered a causal chain like in dominos.

The last thing to ask yourself if you aren't getting the results you want but are doing what you think are the right causes is …

Am I using an effective strategy that REALLY can produce the necessary results?

Much of the time in our eagerness to get going we don't spend take a moment to think if the strategy we have employed will really work or fail to include regular external checks "being clear about when you are getting it". Make sure you do.

So if you want to have an amazing 2010 .. spend a little time asking yourself these three simple questions.

In my last post, I wrote at length about getting really clear about what it is you really want ..

And most people never take that step .. yet it is  key to getting more of the results you want.

But that is only part of the equation .. a big error many of us make is we forget to check .. "are we there yet?" .. or as we say in NLP .. to put an external check to know when we are getting closer to our desired goal … or when it is time to change our approach …

You probably know the problem, perhaps you can recall a friend who says they are "going to lose that extra ten pounds" or make that "big pay increase" this year but they have been saying that for at least five years … and don't appear to be any closer to their end result …

More often than not, they don't have any timed .. sensory based evidence … for knowing when they are getting closer to their goals. So they continue to LOOP .. and LOOP .. and never look up to realise they are almost no further to their goal.

Look at your own list of goals (written down or just noted in your mind) for 2009, identify any that you have not made much progress on and ask yourself ..

"How much further along would you have been with this goal, if you had build in a regular external check?"

Timing is always key .. and depending on your goal checking once a week may be just right or once a month may work better .. but whatever way you do it … make sure that EVERY important goal or aspiration you have for 2010 has a clear evidence based check built into it (perhaps pre-scheduled into your calendar or phone) that forces you to ask yourself "am I there yet? … what if anything do I need to change here .. to get a much better result …"

Do this .. and do it often and you will transform the results you will create in the year ahead …

In my next post I am going to talk about the ONE THING .. that BEATS ALMOST ALL THE REST .. when it comes to manifesting any result you want ..

James Allen once wrote something very profound ..

He said:

"Dreamers are the saviours of the world … Dream lofty dreams, and as you dream, so shall you become. Your Vision is the promise of what you shall one day be; your Ideal is the prophecy of what you shall at last unveil .. Your circumstances may be uncongenial (unsuitable), but they shall not long remain so if you but perceive an Ideal and strive to reach it. You cannot travel within and stand still without."

For many people, 2009 has been a challenging year, but it is times when you feel the pressure that all of us can benefit from what Dr. Bandler once described as "Getting An Attitude On" .. The world can't refuse (indefinitely) your aspirations and goals if you are moved to Choice action and have steadfast resolve.

The following post is the first in a series of articles that look at some of the key factors to ensuring you have an amazing 2010.

So let's begin…

Tony Robbins is famous for saying "Success leaves clues" so just what are some of these "clues" that make the difference between success and "failure" between rewarded and achievement and missed opportunities and dis-satisfaction.  Well thankfully there is much we can learn from NLP that will help you ensure 2010 is one of your most incredible years yet …

I'm going to assume for a moment that you already have done your assessment on 2009 and that, even if you haven't you have an instinctive feel for where you are, regarding your dreams and goals. This post won't go into detail of figuring out if you are doing the right things, to make your goals and dreams 'happen' but rather will point out some of the key patterns that are present by those who tend to consistently experience the rewards and results they want, whether they plan it consciously or not …

In the run up to Christmas, I will be sharing the steps of this easy and life enhancing process ..

1. Get Clear on What You Really Want

If you stop and think about it .. just about every problem you have today is a consequence of failing to foresee the consequences of choices, sufficient clarity of your thinking and limited efforts to direct your future that you set in motion .. yesterday.

We live in a world of very definite cause and effect .. yet almost all of us are blinded by the seeming absence of connection between what we are doing today, as in right now .. and how that links to what shows up tomorrow, next week and the year after…

And this isn't just on the physical plane.

YOUR THOUGHTS ARE THE SEEDS FOR THE RESULTS THAT SHOW UP TOMORROW AND FAR BEYOND.

So if you are working on a dream or goal and aren't happy with your progress, ask yourself:

"Am I really clear on what I really want?"

"And do I really want this?

We all have an endless ability to deceive ourselves or sell ourselves short ..

Are you?

One of my favorite famous quotes by Marianne Williamson is:

"Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. We are ALL meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It's not just in some of us; it's in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others."

If you are bluffing yourself with distractions or feeling some kind of unresolved conflict about going after what you want .. this month is the time to resolve it. Take 20 minutes to do so this week. If you have studied NLP for anytime at all, you will have many different ways to shift it and gain internal alignment.

Remember:

Whatever your dreams and goals are for 2010 .. they are important .. if only for you and so they deserve your highest intention and attention to making them happen .. but they can only happen if you are willing to shine the light inward and say to the Universe .. "This is what I want!".

Of course .. once you do so you can expect to have others moan, whine or try to undermine you .. but leave the naysayers off .. when the dust settles they will have their feelings and you will have the satisfaction of committing yourself to something worthwhile .. regardless of the outcome.

When stuff doesn't happen .. its not that it doesn't get done .. it means that you are PUTTING something else in front of it. In essence you are making something else a higher priority. So if you haven't been making the progress that you want identify what exactly is that "other thing" and resolve to re-prioritize in the future. Don't accept excuses from yourself …

The sure-fire way to having less of what you want is to tell yourself a story .. of why you can't have it .. do it … be it .. etc and to do it many times. As practitioners of NLP we have a self-responsibility to no longer tolerate such B.S. from ourselves whenever we catch it going on .. as Dr. Richard Bandler would most likely say "Get an Attitude" with your crappy internal dialogue.

The first step in doing great NLP work or anything else for that matter, is getting clear on precisely what is the desired state .. "what do you want to happen instead?"

If you want to enjoy more of the very best things in life in 2010, make sure you are crystal clear on precisely what you want .. and why you want it.

Every day you choose to be without clarity for what you want, the more diffused your focus, the more you typically achieve less of what you want.

Of course getting clarity, real SENSORY SPECIFIC clarity is often not easy ..because we have an internal voice often times, shouting out all the things we don't want .. or we haven't learnt how to apply the Meta Model to our internal dialogue and are unable to differentiate between relative"sensory based language" like "I want to receive a $20,000 salary increase, from my current employer, by June 1st 2010"  and speaking in non sensory specific normalizations cloudy language of "I want to have greater freedom and happiness in my life" .. This leads us to a key point…

The Language You Use Make A HUGE Difference In Getting What You Want.

Getting clear, about what you really want (not what society, your father, mother, brother, boss, partner, teacher etc wants)  demands that we take complete responsibility for our lives .. and simple put some of us don't want to do that. But without doing so you cannot enjoy all the power and freedom that comes from really going after what YOU want.

Go spend some time getting clear, in sensory terms exactly what you want next year.

As always feel free to leave your thoughts below.