The Practice of Setting Goals Begins with a Dream!
by Kristen Magnacca
My husband, Mark, introduced me to the practice of goal setting the first year we met.
It was my birthday and we were traveling together for both business and pleasure. Mark was to stay behind in Florida to finish up his work project as I headed home.
At the airport, as I collected my belongings to board my plane, Mark handed me a card and instructed me not to read it until I was in my seat.
Being a dutiful traveler, I stored my carry on bags in the overhead compartment and placed my pocket book under the seat in front of me leaving the card on my lap to read after I had buckled my seatbelt.
Settling in, I opened the card and a well-worn piece of paper slipped from the center of the card onto my lap.
The first thing I noticed was a laundry list of attributes and was confused at what they meant:
- Have a good sense of humor
- Be 100 percent loyal
- Have a cheerful sunny disposition
- Love to converse about anything
Then the realization hit me! Mark was sharing with me his “Dream’s List” of a partner. Years ago, he had written down his ideal image of the woman who he desired to be his spouse and sent it out into the universe and in doing so I found him and he found me!
At that given moment, a full-blown crying spell occurred and the very kind, little non-speaking English woman sitting beside me offered me a cookie.
And so it began… on our first New Year’s Day we began the ritual of creating our “Dream’s List” for our life and then carefully choosing the top three that we would concentrate on for the next twelve months.
We religiously completed this exercise each and every year until a life crisis hit, our journey through our fertility challenges.
I don’t know why we abandoned our practice. While we were under the fog of confusion, we didn’t complete this exercise and our life together took on a different existence. We were undirected, unconnected and experienced miscommunication over and over again.
There is something very magical about writing down your heart’s desires. The universe’s unseen forces align together in their invisible way and make things happen on a grander scale, a scale that we cannot even imagine!
The act of committing to paper your destination for the next twelve months is like plugging in a new address into your GPS. Your GPS needs to know your desired point of attraction to take you there safely. You can go via the highway, or input just the back roads and off you’ll go. All the while, the GPS is beaming out into this Great Universe where you want to go and takes you to your hearts desire!
Over and over again, I was skeptical about the validity of writing down your dreams and turning them into goals. I can speak from experience that the manifestation of your heart’s desires begins with the concrete act of putting pen to paper.
It is no coincidence that the first chapter of my book, Love & Infertility, begins with the creation of your “Dream’s List”.
To get you started I am sharing with you the “Putting It Into Practice” section from chapter one. This will give you specific directions on how to start creating the ritual of “Dream Casting” your heart’s desire into reality.
Excerpted from Love and Infertility:
There are two parts to this strategy. It’s important that you do both of them to maximize your chances of getting the universe to hear your intentions.
Take out a loose sheet of paper (or you may want to purchase a strategy notebook to keep your answers to the strategies organized). On that sheet of paper, write down the following statement:
If I had unlimited time, talent, money, and support from my family, here is a list of all the things I would do with my life for the next twelve months.
For the next five minutes, simply let your thoughts “pop” from your mind onto your paper. Don’t concern yourself about how outrageous your desires might be, just let them pour out. Be sure to state your responses in the present tense and in a positive manner.
Here are a few examples to get you started:
- Be a mom
- Give birth to a healthy baby
- Create a healthy environment for myself and my baby
- Take dance classes
- Plant an herb garden
- Redecorate our living room in earth tones
Congratulations! You have just officially joined the elite five percent of the population who have written down their goals for the future.
Now follow up that exercise with the second part of the strategy. Review your list and choose the top three goals that you want to complete in the next twelve months.
I recommend that you then take a 3x5 note card (I use the eye catching colored index cards) and date the card in the right-hand corner.
Then number one to three on the left. On the first line, write down the goal that you believe is your first priority, and follow that with your second priority and then your third priority.
I encourage you to put your card in a place that you’ll notice regularly. Mark keeps his in his wallet; I keep mine in my day-runner. You don’t need to take them out and read them every single day, but just having them in a place that you notice regularly makes things happen.
This exercise can and will have a profound impact on your life. By focusing clearly on your future dreams and desires, you can present the universe with the correct direction to make all things possible.
Motivational speaker Napoleon Hill said that your mind cannot tell the difference between something vividly imagined and a real experience. That’s why our dreams are so powerful. That concept resonated well with me, and I think it’ll resonate with you, too.
According to Hill:
“Anything your mind can conceive and believe, you can achieve.”
