Each year, about the time we turn our calendars to a New Year, we hear a lot about goal setting (even though it is sometimes disguised as information about making your New Year’s Resolutions). While the research and polls show that most people don’t set goals.

It is a funny thing. People will say, “You really need goals.” But when you ask them what theirs are, they sheepishly reply, “I don’t have them, but everyone really should.”

There are many reasons why people don’t set goals. Some of the biggest reasons are:

• People don’t know how

• People have set them in the past but didn’t reach them

• People are afraid of failure

Of course setting goals is just an exercise that we know helps us achieve goals. So, while we all want to achieve goals, many of us don’t even set them.

The Real Objective
Think about it. Is goal setting really the objective? No. What we really want is goal achievement. Goal setting is a part of the recipe, so while we need to learn this skill, it is just part of your solution. The biggest missing ingredient in most people’s goal achievement recipe is faith, conviction, and lack of doubt. In other words, a deep seated, in the gut belief.

The fact is that most of us don’t achieve our goals (however clearly or vaguely they are set) because we don’t ultimately believe that we can reach the goal. That is why I believe the first step to successful goal achievement, regardless of your process or the steps you follow in setting your goals, is to absolutely believe that you can (will) accomplish it.

Driving a Ferrari doesn’t make you a race car driver. Having the best paints, canvas, brushes and easel doesn’t mean you will paint masterpieces. And having the best goal setting process won’t guarantee goal achievement either.

But belief will.

The Size of the Goal
Much is written about how big goals should be. They should always be big enough to stretch us – how much we should stretch depends in large part on what we can believe. If I have a total conviction that I am capable of and will reach the larger goal, then it is fine. Because without belief, you won’t hit the goal, regardless of what it is.

David Schwartz wrote in The Magic of Thinking Big, “Believe Big. The size of your success is determined by the size of your belief. Think little goals and expect little achievements. Think big goals and win big success. Remember this, too! Big ideas and big plans are often easier — certainly no more difficult — than small ideas and small plans.”

It is a known fact that our beliefs become our reality. Most of us accept this as truth, but haven’t applied it to goal setting. Beliefs lead to actions which lead to results. If you believe, you will act in accordance. If you feel your belief wavering, act as if your belief was strong and your belief will become stronger.

So rather than starting with a goal setting process; start from a state of belief. Begin by thinking about things you want to achieve, and believe you can and will achieve. Then write them down, and follow the process or format of your choice.

Start with belief – be it for your personal, family, financial, professional or business goals – and you will have taken the most important step towards achieving your goals.

The process of human change begins within us. We all have tremendous potential. We all desire good results from our efforts. Most of us are willing to work hard and to pay the price that success and happiness demand.

Each of us has the ability to put our unique human potential into action and to acquire a desired result. But the one thing that determines the level of our potential, that produces the intensity of our activity, and predicts the quality of the result we receive is our attitude.

Attitude determines how much of the future we are allowed to see. It decides the size of our dreams and influences our determination when we are faced with new challenges. No other person on earth has dominion over our attitude. People can affect our attitude by teaching us poor thinking habits or unintentionally misinforming us or providing us with negative sources of influence, but no one can control our attitude unless we voluntarily surrender that control.

No one else “makes us angry.” We make ourselves angry when we surrender control of our attitude. What someone else may have done is irrelevant. We choose, not they. They merely put our attitude to a test. If we select a volatile attitude by becoming hostile, angry, jealous or suspicious, then we have failed the test. If we condemn ourselves by believing that we are unworthy, then again, we have failed the test.

If we care at all about ourselves, then we must accept full responsibility for our own feelings. We must learn to guard against those feelings that have the capacity to lead our attitude down the wrong path and to strengthen those feelings that can lead us confidently into a better future.

If we want to receive the rewards the future holds in trust for us, then we must exercise the most important choice given to us as members of the human race by maintaining total dominion over our attitude. Our attitude is an asset, a treasure of great value, which must be protected accordingly. Beware of the vandals and thieves among us who would injure our positive attitude or seek to steal it away.

Having the right attitude is one of the basics that success requires. The combination of a sound personal philosophy and a positive attitude about ourselves and the world around us gives us an inner strength and a firm resolve that influences all the other areas of our existence.

If a super computer which is a logical system was fed with a self contained program, with no input and output, there is but only two possibilities.

The super computer will either stop and say it has finished the calculations and come up with the answer or it is never going to stop and is going to go on calculating forever, without ever finding the answer. It’s one or the other.
Now comes the real problem, how can we tell if a program we are running is never going to stop? Or which program is extraordinarily difficult or fundamentally unsolvable?

The answer is we can’t. There is no systematic way in mathematics to find which problem can or cannot be solved.
And this is Alan Turing’s version of Gödel’s incompleteness theorem.

So why is this so important? Because if we were to find happiness we need to at least understand what is the human limitation on understating happiness.

Human beings are a kind of logical systems much like the super computer. And if a human being was fed with a problem, like the super computer he or she has only two possibilities. They can either find the answer to the problem or they will spend their whole life looking for the answer.

Now since each human being in this world is a special and unique individual, each one of us will yield a different answer to that problem. So what does it all mean?

It simply means that some of us in our lifetime will find the answer to Happiness. But since the answer is subjective it cannot be wholly accepted. Since we cannot accept someone else’s answer we tend to find our own answer without actually finding it.

Why? Unlike computers which are only logical systems, human beings are opinionated individuals with logic. It is because of these differences in opinions and perspectives that ultimately allow an individual to accept or reject the reality he or she is living in.

So what drives our opinions and perspectives? well it’s attitudes. The attitudes we adopt ultimately allows us to find happiness.

So Is it any wonder, then, that many of us have, consciously or not, turned our lives into quests for happiness? We may jump from one job to another, maybe even spouse to spouse, looking for fulfillment.

We might change flats and hairstyles. Perhaps we repeatedly buy the latest electronic toy and the newest book. We may obsess about building up our portfolios and biceps. But the quest always ends in failure.

Here is what I believe – You will never be happy if you continue to search for what happiness consists of. You will never live if you are looking for the meaning of life.

Yet we keep on searching, despite, and perhaps because of, our continuing unhappiness. We keep on banging our heads against the wall. We think happiness must be just around the corner, in our next job, at the bar, or with the person we’ve met through work.

Part of our problem today, one reason we so readily look for happiness through materialism, is that we confuse pleasure with happiness.

Pleasure, whether it comes from eating a fine meal or listening to a brilliantly performed song, is a physical sensation. Happiness, on the other hand, is a psychological sensation of fulfillment and satisfaction. Pleasure, by its very nature, is transitory, while happiness can be permanent.

Now, don’t get me wrong. I’m all for pleasure. In fact, I suggest you get as much of it as you can. I certainly do. In no way am I suggesting you give up the things that bring you pleasure. I haven’t and don’t intend do. There’s nothing wrong with buying a new pair of shoes because they tickle your fancy or drinking a can of beer if you’re in the mood. Life is short, so if you can afford to indulge a bit now and then, go for it. What matters is you realize these indulgences won’t bring happiness.
Instead of looking for happiness, you need to start listening for it. Close your eyes and open your ears. The simple truth is, nothing external will make you happy. Nothing you can see will bring fulfillment to your life.

W can lose all the weight we want, find a wonderful life partner, get a fabulous job that pays us an incredible salary, buy a magnificent home and furnish it with everything we’ve dreamed of, and we’ll still be unhappy.

Yet we can have none of these things and still be happy. We can get pleasure from external factors, but happiness is an inside job. It requires listening to our heart and soul. It has nothing to do with the physical facts of our life and everything to do with your attitude toward life.

There’s real suffering in the world. There’s pain and sorrow and misery and guilt and grief. Lots of it, in fact buckets and buckets full of it. A new attitude may not be able to change the world, but it can change your world.

Let’s face it, your unhappiness isn’t anywhere near as profound as the agony experienced by someone who saw a loved one die or has suffered some other terrible trauma. Some of us may be feeling that kind of pain, but for most of us, feelings of unhappiness stem from a dissatisfaction with the circumstances of our lives.

Still, psychological and emotional pain can be as debilitating as physical pain; battered self-esteem can be as incapacitating as a broken leg. Unhappiness is never good. Whether we’re feeling miserable because of some type of actual physical trauma to us or loved ones, or we’re depressed because we feel somehow inadequate, it’s essential we free ourselves from the grip of unhappiness.

There is a way to make our unhappiness go away, to show it no tolerance. Whether we’re unhappy about how our life isn’t measuring up to expectations, or we’re depressed because we received a bad grade, we can be happy right now. We already have all the tools we need inside our head, and it’s never too late to find fulfillment.

We are told that the devil is next door and we should not speak or listen to him. But you go, not in the cover of darkness but in broad daylight with a marching band to sleep with him.

Sometimes the smartest thing to do is to know who to ask.

Running away is often the best way of avoiding death in combat. If everyone on your side runs away, then you will probably all get killed. And thus is a cowards’ dilemma born. Imagine that you and many others have been drafted. You are now in combat facing enemy troops.

Let’s assume that none of you are very patriotic, and your paramount objective is personal survival. The best way to avoid danger would be if you ran away, but all your fellow soldiers stayed and fought. Of course, if everyone else on your side ran away, then it would be even a better idea for you to abandon your combat position, for you certainly don’t want to be the only one facing the enemy when they cross your lines. Running away is therefore the safest strategy you could follow regardless of what your fellow soldiers do.

A dilemma arises because if everyone on your side runs away, it will be easy for the enemy to hunt you all down and kill you. Thus, you all might be better off if everyone stayed than if everyone ran away. Individually you are all better off being cowards. Collectively you’re all better off being brave. Armies solve this cowards’ dilemma by the court-marshaling the soldiers who run away. The potential for being killed for cowardice thus actually helps soldiers as it saves them from the dilemma.

Before the personal computer, there were mainframes. IBM was the primary producer of mainframe computers. Large companies, not individual consumers, bought mainframes. Apple was the first company to sell easy-to-set-up computers to consumers and its early success caused IBM to enter the desktop computer market.

IBM wanted to sell a desktop computer, but it didn’t want to design all of the computer parts itself, so IBM asked Microsoft to write an operating system for its personal computer and asked Intel to manufacture its computer’s microprocessor. IBM’s personal computer was a huge success and far more people bought personal computers from IBM than Apple. Unfortunately for IBM, the sale of clones caused most of the profits from the personal computer industry to go to other firms.

IBM clones worked almost exactly as an IBM-manufactured computer did. Most importantly, they would run software that had been explicitly written for IBM personal computers. These IBM clones still mostly used Microsoft operating systems and Intel microprocessors. Microsoft and Intel made far more money from personal computers than did IBM or Apple. The vast majority of the personal computers in use today have Microsoft operating systems and Intel microprocessors—not necessarily because of these products’ quality, but rather because of network externalities and coordination games.

Almost all things mankind has ever conceived is overrated.

Even Love. Sometimes it really makes me wonder why people destroy themselves over love.

There are a gazillion things you could spend your time thinking about, but many of us concentrate on those things that we find most upsetting or distressing.

I feel you should not ignore what bothers you, but don’t let yourself focus on it so much so that you forget about the things you enjoy most.

And I don’t not need to show you the stats that people who regularly ruminate over negative subjects and unhappiness are less likely to feel content than those who do not.

I have been making a list of things they don’t teach you at school.

They don’t teach you how to love someone.

They don’t teach you how to be famous.

They don’t teach you how to be rich, or how to be poor.

They don’t teach you how to walk away from someone you don’t love anymore.

They don’t teach you how to know what’s going on in someone else’s mind.

They don’t teach you what to say to someone who’s dying.

They don’t teach you anything worth knowing.

Do they?