I was on a conference call recently with a group of people from a goal setting club I belong to and we were talking about being at the beginning of the second half of the year and where we were in the progress our goals. GULP! I swallowed hard. I knew this moment was coming and I knew I was going to have to share my "not-so-exciting" progress. So I volunteered. I’ve always believed that when you face a tough situation, it’s best to just put your head in the lion’s mouth and get it over with. Things will go much smoother after the initial fear subsides.

When I got finished sharing some of my challenges we talked about ways to make the second half of the year much better than the first. Here they are for your benefit:

• Get clearer on your desires and your belief. One of the reasons that we get stopped along the way is because we forget why we’re doing something. We have to absolutely be clear about what we want – what the accomplishment of our goal will give us. Is it a new car? A new home? A longer vacation? New clothes? Time with your family? A healthier you? Whatever it is, get absolutely clear on it. We also talked about Napoleon Hill’s classic "Think and Grow Rich" and how the first two chapters of that book, Desire and Faith, are worth reading at the beginning of every month. EVERY month. If your desire is white hot and your faith is strong nothing on earth can stop you. Not even procrastination.
• Look at your actions. Most of us focus on our results when we’re working on our goals. That’s probably the worst thing to do. We need to focus on our actions. Our actions lead us to our desire. Its important to look at the results but if you’re not getting the results you want, focusing on that will debilitate you. Take a good hard look at your actions and where they are leading you. A good exercise is to make a list of what you do on a daily basis and get rid of anything that doesn’t lead you to your desire.
• Focus on the next 90 days. In the Marine Corps, they can take a fat, out of shape, bad attitude teen ager and transform that person into a trim, fit unstoppable war machine in less than 90 days. How? By laser focus attention. Over the next 90 days, preferrably a lot sooner, cut out the dead wood goals. You know–the ones that you’ve been dragging around and have been fretting about that you’ve done nothing with. You’ll have a lot more mental energy available if you cut out some of the things you’re not working on anyway.
• Do something radically different. If what you’re doing (or not doing) isn’t working, come up with a radically different strategy – a 180 degree change from what  you’ve been doing. Change your strategy, be radical and swim against the tide. It will re-fire your goals with new enthusiasm.

In the corporate world we used to do 6 month check ups. This is when you’d sit with your leader and review the last 6 months of your time with the company. It wasn’t a time to focus on what you did wrong, but a time to focus on everything you did, good and not so good, and formulate a game plan for the next 6 months to make it better. It’s time for you to do that. Set some time aside this week just for you and take a look at the first half of 2008 and evaluate where you are. Make some changes and get focused again. There’s nothing better for the heart and soul then new excitement in your goals and dreams.

I know you can do it and I definitely believe in you!

If you’d like some help doing this, shoot me an email or give me a call at 609-790-8757 and we’ll schedule some time so I can give you some help and guidance. Take care!