Specific leads to terrific

Specific goals require specific plans to get terrific results. You need to figure out what situation you desire to influence, how you will do it, and a measurable way to track your progress. You decide what is realistic and feasible not based on other people's standards, but on your own. One of the hardest things may be to define your own standards and ideas for wealth creation without distracting, outside influence that draws you away from your core reference points.

Consider that if your ultimate aim is to increase the balance in your bank account, you would benefit from defining the exact sum you envisage. This doesn't mean simply taking a random figure from the sky. Identifying a monetary amount itself doesn't typically come with attachment. To take it further, determine the desire or dream behind your quest for the money. The money is just a means to achieve your desire. Once you isolate a realistic timeline, you'll be in a better position to take steps to make this quantifiable thing happen. If you don't know what you want or why, it's unlikely you'll make the particular sum.  Most business wealth creation is measurable.

Consider that you aim to assist millions of people with a series of motivational books you write, yet, you're unable to predict who will publish them or the timeline. Would this imprecise factor detract from your ability to create wealth? If you're open to new ideas, you create wealth in the form of a learning process all along the way. Promoting book concepts allows you to reach your audience, empowering them to clarify priorities and enrich their lives. This would reveal how the market perceives your writing and its intangible value before books are published.  Progress along this timeline isn't measured by financial milestones.  Financial rewards would come later.

You may aspire to be worth a large sum of money.  You may set a goal of earning a million dollars in five years, and a $200,000/ year salary would achieve this. However, you may have no money left after five years. You may have devoted long hours to achieving what amounts to nothing.   In creating this idea of financial wealth, you have expended time without achieving a set goal. This reminds you the ultimate goal would be what you want to achieve, not the amount or when.  You may not control all the variables that affect when you achieve your wealth creation goals, but without setting a measurable plan, you may achieve a financial target but find that it was in vain.

The Tao of you

Tao means 'the way.' Self-directed goal-setting known in the West doesn't influence this picture.  Taoists believe that the goal will evolve without you seeking to influence it.  According to Tao, you grow to learn during each moment and each step of your existence, and have no reason to worry about creating end goals. 

Instead, you can realize that goals are waiting to be discovered in each of your experiences. In this mindset, goals are not perceived as destintations.  Rather, your own evolution is the goal which can be happening constantly.  To be living and choosing to learn is to be 'at the goal.'

The Tao of you is uncharted territory.  You have no recipe or map to guide you on this journey.  It's not possible to follow in someone else's footsteps and find your way.  As you evolve to live your life with courage and explore your unknown, you must go forth alone.  Only as you become more aware of yourself can you create your own patterns and unconditional freedom.

Taoists believe that personal freedom is desirable at the same time as they realize it has no traditional safety or security. The real way, your way isn't found in crowds, which by their nature, offer safety in numbers yet, don't compel you to seek and inquire on your own.  If you borrow someone else's truth, or conform to goals established by others, you never know you.    

Mirror of the past

The Tibetan Book of the Dead speaks of a sense of success as an ego-bound state of thoughts, speech and actions.  We undergo such a process of inner judgment while living and also dying.  Death is apparently a phase where we will have an opportunity to peer into an 'all-seeing mirror' which will reveal the consequences of all our actions. Each of us will weigh our past actions in a life-review. It is possible we will frame success differently in this existence and in others.  How we come to recognize our underlying nature, our impulses, and tendencies will supposedly enable us to come face-to-face with our individual identity. Whether or not you realize what you set out to achieve in your life will be one way you redefine success in the past, present and future.

Eyes as big as saucers?

To feel reborn in a place is a kind of re-education. You may take in your surroundings and notice details that you had missed before.  What is it that would prompt you to see life differently? If someone told you to change or that you could change, would your eyes grow as big as saucers?

Some people suddenly realize there must be more to what they had seen and done without the need for any further travel.  They describe this as a kind of awakening or revelation about details they've always known. They tell themselves they always have more to learn and still value the evolving state of their perception. As long as your mind is open, you're free to embrace learning.

What is it that would cause you to examine what you learn and how in more depth? It has been said that stepping back and increasing objectivity raises awareness and redefines education.  Consider how your own mind may limit your sense of potential before you interact in schools and learn about opportunities to perform different social roles. Were you ever told you had to follow a particular path? Did you ever feel stifled and ready to undertake something new but held back?

In order to continue raising your awareness, take time to realize societies and structures tell you what they think you should know, what they desire you believe, who they think you should be and how they think you should live. It's up to you to learn to sift through it to define your truth. 

You against them or yourself?

Who or what do you consider your opponent? Are you not ultimately competing against the core of your own nature?  As you take a closer look at the basis for your values and principles, you will realize this perceived enemy has only ever been an opponent in your mind and grew from there. 

What if you aren't really competing against anyone then? What if you simply create the illusion of competition to motivate yourself to raise your own standards?  As far as people are concerned, their behavior may evolve into the role of an opponent which is defined by your deepest fears.  After all, you may be conditioned to feel that everyone needs a role and you aim to shape them.

As your fears take shape, you may sense that something desires to conquer what you stand for.  What if you only imagined your life was a struggle and you also only imagined yourself as victim?  What if each step of your life actually enabled you to gain new insight,  strength and ideas?

Take a moment to consider that you have options to roll with life's punches, to cooperate with people, to embrace events rather than to struggle and compete against it. Consider that you're not required to condemn anyone or anything, seek revenge or retribution. What if learning about your feelings and desire to judge and criticize are all part of a process to learn to rise above it? What if controversy was concocted to provoke arguments and distract you from more meaningful pursuits?