'Quicky' Goal Setting Guide

Following on from Scott's goal setting interview on BBC2's Working Lunch here's how you can set and achieve your goal.

This works for professional and personal goals.

1. State your goal in the positive If you want to give up chocolate for example, saying to yourself 'I'm not going to eat chocolate' will only get you thinking about chocolate even more - not good!

Do this now - don't think about a bar of Cadbury's Dairy Milk - I said don't! Impossible isn't it. Always think about what you DO want - i.e. 'I want to eat healthier foods like fruit and veg'. Thinking about what you DO WANT(INSTEAD OF WHAT YOU DON'T WANT) steers you away from temptation/possible failure and towards a solution.

2. Ask yourself this question ' How will I know when I have achieved my goal?'

This sounds like an obvious question to ask but this aspect of goal setting is often overlooked. Think specifically about what it will be like when you have completed your goal; ask yourself 'what will be different?’,’ where will I be?', 'what will I be doing?', 'how will I feel?' etc.

Follow the two simple steps above and you'll massively improve your chances of achieving your goal!

For the full version of goal setting (to get what you want) read chapter 6 (Plan) and chapter 7 (Get Inside Their Head) in You Need This Book!

How not to get what you want...

I admit it - I do hate Mondays and yesterday was more ‘Mondayish’ than usual. It’s amazing, isn’t it, how particular words can strike fear into the heart of normal, level headed, resilient types – the words in question were ‘Tax Return’. Now you know why my Monday was so ‘Mondayish’.
Here’s what happened.
I’d been putting off completing the online self assessment tax form for as long as possible and as a result my PIN activation code had long since expired. So there I was tapping away trying to log on to the system and failing miserably. To make matters worse my internal dialogue was saying ‘How am I meant to complete this if I can’t even notice that the PIN is out of date – what a total idiot you are. Useless’.
Thank you internal dialogue!
Still, I played to my strengths and decided to enlist the help of my more spreadsheet-minded girlfriend. As it turned out this was a bad idea. The conversation soon descended into a shouting match, chiefly because I didn’t have any of the figures -- or any clue. Sorry Eliza…
By this time I’m really mad – time to call the nice people at HMRC! The conversation went something like this.
Where’s my PIN?! Just give me a new one over the phone.
Sorry sir you’ll have to request a new activation code online- it will take seven working days.
For God sake that’s ridiculous. Why can’t you give it to me now? Why?
Sorry sir you’ll have to request a new activation code online - it will take seven working days.
This is a total joke; if I get fined for being late I’m not paying it. I mean it, I’m not.
You get the jist…
Now that I’ve slept on yesterday’s events - let’s look at what happened, and at what I should have done instead.

It all started with those two little words ‘Tax Return’. When I said those words to myself, certain pictures instantly sprung to mind; pictures of piles of paperwork falling off my desk, me trawling through expense spreadsheets, pens, more paper, calculators, me rubbing my forehead, writing down formulas and raiding my not so well organised filing cabinet…
Is it any wonder that I had been putting this off!

Those pictures put me in a bad mood even before I started; those pictures turned my brain into a problem seeking missile, so that when I actually did make a start all I wanted to do was ‘seek’ problems and ‘seek’ excuses not to do it. By the time I called the poor lady at the HMRC I was close to meltdown. Not good. That’s why I didn’t get what I wanted – those unhelpful pictures and my unhelpful internal dialogue loomed like a dense layer of fog, slap bang in front of the clarity I needed -the sort of clarity that gets you a bit of rapport and allows you to use the odd technique or two. Nobody is perfect!
Here’s what I’ll do next time.
I’ll make sure I have the right pictures in place first. Pictures that help, pictures that have me completing the tax return successfully, pictures that show how organised I am in advance. I’ll also gently remind myself that I need to make a quick plan detailing exactly how I’m going to get what I want from the HMRC and how I will overcome their faceless system (see You Need This Book chapter 6) before I do a single thing.
And, if I do have to call the HMRC again I’ll use the Being Human technique (see You Need This Book Chapter 13) because obviously they’ll be as inhuman and as bureaucratic as possible. They have to be – to get what they want.

Hi
First things first, a big THANK YOU to everyone that has sent in a story or shared their experience with us after reading ‘You Need This Book’. We really enjoyed reading them, so much so we thought it would be a nice idea to share some of them with you now.

If you haven't already joined our book club here's the type of thing you get access to every week. To join, go to

www.youneedthisbook.co.uk


In this edition of ‘book club’ you’ll get:
Real life stories from book club members about their favourite bits.
How you can have your ‘getting what you want’ questions answered by us, and how you can share your thoughts with other book club members.
So read on…


We’ve cherry picked a few of our favourite emails sent in about the book and listed them below. If you haven’t tried these techniques yourself yet, what’s stopping you?! Here’s what people are talking about...

These subliminal messages seem to be cunningly effective because I woke up this morning thinking “I can choose to be positive today!” Which, I may tell you, is a FIRST for a Monday morning. It was rather a strange feeling…

Just closed the mood matching chapter before changing trains in the metro. Thought I’d test it out for fun, with split-second look-match of commuters hurrying past me in the corridor. When I looked, I thought “preoccupied”, or “in control” or “pissed off” – but when I matched just one little body gesture, I actually FELT different! Straight away! And the mood wasn’t always the one I’d initially read!! So doing that five times in the space of a 50m corridor and feeling five different sensations “just like that” was a really WIERD experience. Like being given a magical power that must be used wisely… Felt quite dangerous in its intensity, actually. Glad you add in the bits of evolutionary biology to remind the reader why it works.
Hmmm…


A client owes the firm I work for a lot of money, over 1 million in fact. I can’t just call in the lawyers because he also puts a significant amount of business our way. Anyway, I started reading the Human/Inhuman chapter and I realised what was going on! He is using a ‘corporate wall’ to hide behind. Every time I contacted him he just brushed me off using corporate bullshit AKA being inhuman. The interesting thing is my response has always been to reply back in an inhuman way too – this has got me nowhere! So I gave it a go - I tried being more human, I stopped emailing and picked up the phone and laid it on thick about how this issue was effecting ME instead the company. I don’t have the money yet but I do have a face to face meeting for the first time in six months! I’ll keep you posted.

Keep sending your stories and experiences in to us and we’ll post them on our Blog and our Facebook page – just email:
markandscott@youneedthisbook.co.uk


Your questions answered!

You’re bound to have a question or two about some of the content in ‘You Need This Book’. Or you might have a few questions about maximising your chances to get what you want. You might even want some advice on dealing with a really tricky person or situation. Don’t worry, in fact, relax. Help is at hand! Just email your question, dilemma or problem to us and we’ll answer it for you! And if you don’t mind sharing it we’ll twitter, blog and Facebook about it too. If you don’t want to share then no problem, we’ll keep it between just me, me and you!
Just drop us an email at the usual address:
markandscott@youneedthisbook.co.uk
We can’t promise to answer every question but we promise to answer as many as we can!
Thanks,
Mark & Scott

Time of Year Or Time For A Change

Firstly, a very Happy New Year to you all!

Now that Christmas has been and gone you're probably back at work, or if not, you soon will be. Commonly at this time of year people get a little bit down in the dumps at the thought of getting up on cold, dark, Winter mornings and going through the daily grind of work.

If your heart sinks at the thought of going back to work here's how to figure out if it just the time of year or if it's time for a change?

Ask yourself the following questions:

Do I like my job? To answer this as objectively as possible go back to November of 2009 and ask yourself did I like my job then?

If your answer was 'Yes' then you can put your current feelings down to the time of year and the transition from Christmas holidays to being back at work again. If this is the case read the tips at the bottom of the page to make things a little less painful.

If the answer was 'No I didn't like my job in November 2009' it's likely that things seem even worse right now, so here are some thought provoking questions to kick start your new year.

Answer the questions below.

1. In an ideal world what would you rather be doing instead?

With this question just go for it, don't feel restricted in anyway with your answers - the only thing you need to do is come up with three or more possibilities.

2. Now select the possibility/ies that is/are the most realistic.

3. What stops you doing the thing/s you would rather be doing? Make a list.

4. Now look at the list and imagine you are offering advice to a friend of yours and tell them what they could do to overcome the obstacles on the list.

5. Now you've got the answers - What's the first thing you are going do to (however small) get the ball rolling?

6. When are you going to do that? Be as specific as possible here.



If you answered 'Yes' to the do I like my job question here's how you make yourself feel a bit better at this time of year.

1. Exercise before work & eat a healthly diet.
3. Watch your favourite funny films in the evening - I can recommend the Anchor Man! I love lamp.
4. Start something new - a hobby or an interest - make it something you enjoy!
5. When you think about work focus your thoughts on the things you like doing or the things/tasks that give you satisfaction. This is a great way to kick start your motivation.
6. Fill your life with your favourite everyday things for example listening to your favourite song, drinking a latte, going for a walk, watching a movie, arm wrestling.. . it doesn't matter just do lots of them.

Before you know it'll be Spring again.



Mark & Scott

Your first peek inside the book

Only three weeks to go now before the book hits the shops. So we reckon it’s time to reveal some of its secrets. We've pared it down to a handful of points – minus the stories, the explanations and the sections you make all about you. Here’s some of what’s in store:

• What do you want? Is it in your power to get it – or someone else’s? It doesn’t matter – this book’s about both.
• Are you banging your head against a brick wall? Is something just not working? Then you need to know the secret of the 21st century.
• If you assume that everyone lives by the same rules, you won’t get what you want.
• Pretty much everyone can be persuaded – as long as you know the right approach for each person.
• The best kind of persuasion is subconscious persuasion.
• The best way of getting what you want is using your own ‘celebrity’. Learn how to take the techniques of celebrities and use them for yourself.
• Sometimes the best way to get what you want is by email or text. Sometimes it’s by phone. Sometimes it’s face-to-face. Find out which ones work best and when.
• Flattery gets you everywhere, right? Wrong - it gives people the upper hand. Giving people credit gets you what you want – as long as you know how.
• Just because someone agrees to give you what you want doesn’t mean you’ll get it. You need ways of making them stick to it.
• Life ain’t aways pretty. A few people are out to get you. Fact. Learn how to spot them – and how to stop them from getting what they want.