Our inventions, big and little, our medical discoveries, our engineering triumphs, our business success – were first visualized before they became realities. A goal is an objective, a purpose. A goal is more than a dream; it’s a dream being acted upon. A goal is more than a hazy ”Oh I wish I would”, A goal is clear “This is what I’m working toward”. Nothing happens; no forward steps are taken until a goal is established. Without goals’ individuals just wander through life. They stumble along, never knowing where they are going, so they never gat anywhere. Goals are essential to success as air is to life. No one ever stumbles into success without a goal. Get a clear fix on where you want to go. The important thing is not where you were or where you are but where you want to get. Without goal we cannot grow. No goal is like going to an airline ticket counter and saying “Give me a ticket”, the people selling the tickets just can’t help you unless you give them a destination. And the most important lesson in career planning, before you start out, knows where you want to go.
Two steps that will help you to forward planning:
1. 
Visualize your future in terms of three departments: work, home and social. Dividing our life this way keeps you from becoming confused, prevent conflicts, and helps you look at the whole picture.
2.Demand of yourself clear, precise answers to this questions: What do I want to accomplish with my life? What do I want to be? And What does it take to satisfy me?
Planning guide below help us an image of me, 10 years from now:
A.Work Department: 10 years from now.
1. What income level do I want to attain?
2. What level of responsibilities do I seek?
3. How much authority do I expect to gain from my work?
B.Home Department: 10 years from now.
1. What kind of standard of living do I want to provide for my family and myself?
2. What kind of house do I want to live in?
3. What kind of vacations do I want to take?
4. What financial support do I want to give my children in their early adult years?
C.Social Department: 10 years from now.
1. What kind of friends do I want to have?
2. What social groups do I want to join?
3. What community leadership positions would I like to hold?
What worthwhile causes do I want to champion?
Success requires heart-and-soul effort, and you can put your heart and soul only into something you really desire. Switching from what you don’t like to do to what you do like to do is like putting a five-hundred horsepower motor in a ten-year-old-car.
People these days are measured by the size of their dreams. No one accomplishes more than he sets out to accomplish. So visualize a big future.
Five weapons are used to commit success suicide. Destroy them, they’re dangerous:
1. Self-depreciation. Example: I would like to be a doctor (or executive, etc.) but I can’t do it, I lack brain, education, etc.
2. Security-it is. Person who say “I’ve got security where I am” use security weapon to murder their dream.
3. Competition. The filed is already overcrowded.
4. Parental dictation. But my parent wants me to do this so I must.
5. Family responsibility. It would have been wise for me to change over five years ago, but now I’ve got a family and I can’t change.
The only way to get full power, to develop full go force, is to do what you want to do. Surrender to desire and gain energy, enthusiasm, mental zip and even better health. And it’s never too late to let desire take over. Successful people have their eyes focused on a goal, and this provides energy. The point is this – energy increases, multiplies, when you set a desired goal and resolve to work toward that goal.
When you surrender to your goal, the goal works itself into your subconscious mind. Your subconscious mind is always in balance. Your conscious mind is not, unless it is tune with what your subconscious mind is thinking. Without full cooperation from the subconscious mind, a person is hesitant, confused, indecisive. Now, with your goal absorbed into your subconscious mind you react the right way automatically. Example: Our goal through our subconscious mind signal us saying “do this” or “don’t do that it won’t help get you where you want to go.” The goal constantly speaks. “I am the image you want to make real.” Here is what you must do to make me real.” Use goals to live longer. No medicine in the world and your physician will bear this out – is a powerful in bringing about long life as is the desire to do something.
The person determined to achieve maximum success learns the principle that progress is made one step at a time. A house is built a brick at a time. Every big accomplishment is a series of little accomplishment. Commit this question to memory and use it to evaluate everything you do: “Will this help take me where I want to go?” If the answer is no, back off, if yes, press ahead. Examine yourself. Decide what specific things you should do o make yourself more effective.
Lots of conscious effort, invested day by day, made the person what he is. Building new positive habits and destroying old negative habits is a day by day process.
It’s true that many factors outside your control do affect your destination (maybe serious illness, death in your family, you may meet with an accident). So here is a point we must fix firmly in mind: prepare to take detours in stride. If you are driving down a road and you come to a “road closed” situation, you wouldn’t camp there, nor would you go back home. The road closed simply means you can’t go where you want to go on this road. You’d simply find another road to take you where you want to go. (Ex. Military leaders do, when they develop a master plan to take an objective, they have a plan A that if doesn’t’ work, switch in to plan B). When we detour we don’t have to change our goals. We just travel a different route.
The biggest and most rewarding kind of investment is self-investment, purchasing things that build mental power and proficiency. Profit comes from only one source: investment. To profit, to get the extra reward above a “normal” income in the year ahead, we must invest in ourselves. We must invest to achieve our goals.
Two sound self-investments that will pay handsome profits in the year ahead:
1. Invest in education. True education is the soundest investment you can make in yourself. Let’s be sure we understand what education really is. Some measure education by the number of years spent in school, or number of diplomas, certificates and degrees earned but these doesn’t necessarily produce a successful person. (Ex. General Electric with 12 out of 41 executives has no collage degrees and two of the most outstanding presidents never had an opportunity to attend collage. They (the business) are more interested in competency not diplomas). A diploma or degree may help you get a job, but it will not guarantee your progress on the job. Real education, the kind worth investing in, is that which develops and cultivates your mind. How well educated a person is, is measured by how well his mind is developed – in brief, by how well he thinks. Anything that improves thinking ability is education.
2. Invest in idea starters. Education help you mould your mind, stretch it, train it to meet new 
situations and solve problems. Idea starters serve a related purpose. They feed your mind; give you constructive material to think about. Resolve to purchase at least one stimulating book each moth and subscribe to magazine or journals that stress ideas. But it costs too much. Obviously a much more successful minded person replied. “Well, I’ve found that I can’t afford not to take it” Again, take your cue from the successful people. Invest in yourself
