From White Fat Cow

http://www.meditationexpert.com/WhiteFatCow.htm

I always urge people to make a yearly “To Do” journal around New Years. Ever since I started doing this I’ve achieved more, experienced more and had more satisfaction than my friends who don’t use the following system.

Remember the study from Harvard that showed only 3% of its graduating class ever bothered to write down its goals, but those people were definitely the most materially successful? They took the 1954 class from Harvard and asked whether any of these individuals ever wrote down their goals. They put those people into two piles and found the every-now-and-then goal setters made more money, had more free time and more fun than the non-goal setters.

Next they took this group of goal setters and started segmenting them into finer and finer groups. Those who wrote down their goals religiously once a year were compared to the “every now and then” group. Once again the more frequent goal setters had much higher incomes, more free time and more fun than the random goal setters.

How about those who set monthly goals versus yearly goals? Again, the monthly goal setters had a higher average income and net worth, more free time and more fun than the once-a-year goal setters. On and on they kept performing this analysis until they found at the very end that those people who made yearly, monthly and daily goals had many more times the income, free time and fun than those who never set any goals at all. I remember that with each smaller group the average statistics kept doubling … all because of setting tighter and tighter goals and trying to achieve them.

Why am I telling you this? Because you should adopt this method starting NOW. Every year, around the 31st of December or January 1st, I take a few days and write down in a small book all the things I want to accomplish or experience during the new year. The list might include a trip to Egypt, buying a new pair of shoes, writing a computer program, reading so many books (with their titles), learning how to do acupuncture, writing a book, ballroom dancing … use your imagination. You, too, should write down everything you want to experience or do this year and make this list in light of your larger life goals.

Once you have the yearly list of things you want to do (and know you can realistically achieve if you set your mind to it), break up those objectives into monthly activities. Some events I personally schedule at the beginning of the year, and others I schedule adaptively as the months go by, saying “this month is a good one to undertake this activity, so let me schedule it now.” When each month comes around, I break up that list of objectives into weekly and daily tasks. I was only able to learns cuba diving, something I always wanted to accomplish, because I used this scheduling and goal setting system. Several years ago come January 1st I said, “This year I’m going to do it,” I scheduled it in, forced myself to take the lessons at that time because it was in the schedule, and I did.

You must make this process very flexible. The point is to do it so that at the end of each year you can look back with satisfaction and see everything you’ve done was what you wanted to do. Your friends, colleagues and peers on the other hand will be looking back and saying, “I should have done such-and-such this year but let another year pass by.” The journal forces me to do things where I would normally get lazy, and will work for you this way as well.

Goals aren’t handcuffs you lock yourself into. Goal setting is a voluntary assignment; goals are purposes or objectives you voluntarily commit to. You set out to achieve them because they are important to you and you alone. If they weren’t important, you wouldn’t even bother to list them. All you ared doing is identifying what is personally IMPORTANT to you.

I know that without this system I wouldn’t do one-third or one-quarter of what I really want to do in life, so writing my yearly goals down and forcing myself to work on what’s important to me (you see, these are my goals and objectives so they are my priorities) has helped me immensely. If I cannot shape it all the way I desire because of karma, then if I really want that target then like Liao Fan I keep working on it.

If you do what I just said, and use the 6M method along with this routine, you’ll definitely have a much better chance of achieving any of your goals in life than anyone you know including all your other family members. Like Benjamin Franklin, you’ll also have a much richer and better life in the process.

So what are those things you want? What are the top ten places you want to visit before you die? What are the top ten events would you like to experience or what top ten skills would you most like to acquire? What things about your life, fate, future, fortune or destiny do you really want to change? What do you really want to accomplish to have made this a worthwhile life at your end of days, a life worth living?

Maybe your big goal is to become famous or create a business and become self-employed. I hope they are high goals, but I’m not here to tell you what your objectives are. I can only tell you a big secret: after a long struggle and much experience and wisdom gained, people commonly find “purpose in life” after they discover the joy and riches of helping others with service. But these personal objectives, the life you want to create, what you want to achieve, accomplish and experience is “your thing,” your goals, your dreams and desires. Other people may think they are silly but who has the right to criticize them? You must reap what you personally sow and learn from your own mistakes if what you go after is rather stupid or non-virtuous. So who cares what others think? They’re your goals, they are not set in stone and you’re free to change them whenever you want.

If your goals are wise and virtuous then you’ll benefit by them, whereas if they’re the opposite then you will suffer in some way. While you can ask people for their opinions when seeking wisdom, ultimately you have to connect with your deepest source to know what’s right for you, or find a very wise guru to keep you out of trouble and help you make this a life that matters. If deep inside you already know your dream targets are frivolous and lack virtue, your inner self will actually work to stop you from achieving them. But don’t count on this happening nor use it as an excuse to pursue anything and everything while counting on self-sabotage to protect you.

In short, now you know how to change your fortune, build the life you want, achieve the fate you desire, and accomplish the goals that are meaningful to you. It’s all based on you and it’s all based on implementing the 6M technique. All the evidence, including a very deep metaphysical background, has been provided that goes way beyond anything the New Age, motivational, success coaching crowd knows about. They know nothing about the deep foundations of karma behind fate and the fate changing freedom of meditation, mantra and merit.

Remember that you need the motivation to want to change things and make the effort. Without inspiration or ambition you will get nowhere, so you already know you must rally the horses. Maybe it’s money, time, autonomy, status, challenge, power, independence, freedom, ethics, recognition, a legacy, service to others or fame that you’re after, but to get it you first of all need the motivation to do something along a path of action that will achieve it.

Many people know what they want to accomplish but leave it at that. This is because you must be truly passionate and excited about your goals if you’re ever going to do something about them. You need a desire so burning that you’ll do anything to achieve it. You need inspiration or ambition that raises your vitality and engages you because if the goal isn’t exciting and motivating you won’t put a lot of work into overcoming the challenges to achieve it.

Effective goals must be big enough to stretch us without being too audacious. They must be challenging enough to invite us into our potential, but realistic enough that we don’t end up chasing clouds in the sky.

To take the first steps towards this type of goal and overcome lethargy and hesitation, even when you’re unsure a bit, and to really put that motivation it into action now that you have this technique and the rationale — that’s real motivation and for that you need to structure a plan of action. You have to move from just thinking about something to doing something and actually take those steps with single-mindedness.

That’s a big secret that the self help crowd doesn’t know about, which is that the single-mindedness of focus or the one-pointedness of execution are the characteristic traits of samadhi. In other words, it’s actually by cultivating samadhi that you can materialize a new fortune. Accomplishment all comes down to samadhi practice, which is the outcome of meditation. The higher your meditation, the higher your samadhi and the higher your possible level of accomplishment because the focused mind power of samadhi is one of the strongest forces in the universe.

It’s actually because individuals cultivate a type of mundane (rather than spiritual) samadhi that they can accomplish things in the world, so accomplishment in general (and especially against the fortune) is all a function of cultivating samadhi. That’s why the most effective people all turn to meditation. Once again, it’s basically the task of self-cultivation that leads to success … and if you cultivate samadhi, you can succeed at accomplishing almost anything you desire in the world. The big secret is that it is all a function of cultivating samadhi in a higher or lesser degree.

You also need a monitoring system — or “accountability partner” — for this materialization that’s going to keep you moving forward. You need someway or someone to make yourself accountable and not let yourself off the hook. Great individuals who have succeeded in the past suggest recognize the truth of accountability, and suggest you should be monitoring your progress on a daily, weekly and monthly basis so that you are constantly moving towards your goals and adjusting your behavior along the way. One of my Stages students wrote me that after adopting the Ben Franklin / Liao Fan daily recording method using Microsoft Excel, he had his best year ever. That’s what I’m talking about. You rpove this by doing this.

On top of that, do not forget — merit, mantra and meditation practice.