It Works!... and I'm doing it!

With the new year here, I'm geared up for new goals, and fresh ambition... I'm not as much into "resolutions" as I am into "goals".

Since I was young I've always been goal oriented and a huge "list person". For me, it's a great way to stay focused and move forward with what ever I have my thoughts on. Sometime in the mid 1980's, my sweet Grandma Beaudry gave me a book called "Positive Imaging: The Powerful Way to Change Your Life" by Norman Vincent Peale. I read it and applied it to my situations as I was just beginning a career in the Fashion Industry. The concepts in this book took my list making and goals to a new level.

I will never forget not too long after finishing my "Positive Imaging" book for the first time, I became a specialty retail store manager of a pitiful small volume store in Portland, Oregon. I wholeheartedly applied "Positive Imaging" to my personal and store goals. I wrote down each goal on a piece of paper, framed it, hung it in my office where I looked at it almost everyday. I began visualizing each goal- IN DETAIL- getting achieved. With each goal, it was like running a movie in my head. I remember my District and Regional Managers noticing my goals in the frame on the wall and making comments about my list. Most comments were encouraging while a few others were filled with hints of doubt that I could accomplish such high expectations. That didn't bother me, I just stayed focused.

From that list of about 10 goals for that particular year, I recall having achieved all but one of them. Some of the goals where big and some were huge! I experienced victory in achieving these goals and also received promotion within my retail career as a result of my successful goal-oriented positive nature, high expectations, and actually producing results in areas others seemed to struggle.

What exactly is positive imaging? As Mr. Peale describes in his book, it's "the forming of mental pictures or images, based on the principle that there is a deep tendency in human nature to ultimately become precisely like that which we imagine or imagine ourselves as being... Imaging is positive thinking carried one step further. In imaging, one does not merely think about a hoped-for goal; one "sees" or visualizes it with tremendous intensity, reinforced by prayer. " You play out your goal and achieving your goal over and over in your mind so much that your sub conscious believes it to be true.

I read another great book at the end of 2008 called "Turn Your Dreams Into Realities ~ 101 Ways to Make It Happen" by Sue Augustine. AWESOME book! A lot of the same principles as "Positive Imaging", with doable ways to apply daily. The problem was, when I read "Turn Your Dreams Into Realities" I just read it and didn't make any efforts to apply the book to my life; I didn't benefit from all that I could have.

I'm sharing all this because I've been re-charged to re-read "Turn Your Dreams Into Realities ~ 101 Ways to Make It Happen" and "Positive Imaging" being deliberate and faithful in keeping the principals as a driving force to achieving my 2010 Goals and Dreams. I look forward to checking in bloggy world with each achievement!

I know goal setting backed with the power of positive imaging works and I'm doing it! I can't wait to share good reports of achievements.