Goals Worksheet
List 50 things that you would like to achieve, accomplish, or acquire during your lifetime. These things can be personal, financial, materials, etc. List them without regard to whether you think you can get them.
From this list, which ones do you think you can accomplish in 10 years, 5 years, 3 years, and one year.
Select the three most important one-year goals:
1. Look at your list. Why are your one-year goals important?
a. What are you doing now to work on these goals?
2. What will you have to do different? What habits, attitudes, or associations will you have to alter?
3. What can you do today to start on these goals?
4. Can you identify individuals who can help you?
Distorted Thinking
Most bad feelings come from distorted thinking
1. Nothing thinking: All of you look at things in absolute, black-and-white categories.
2. Overgeneralization: You view a negative event as a never-ending pattern of defeat.
3. Mental Filter: You dwell on negatives and ignore the positives.
4. Discounting the positives: You insist that your accomplishments or positive qualities do not count.
5. Jumping to conclusions: You conclude things are bad without any definite evidence.
6. Mind reading: You assume that people are reacting negatively to you.
7. Fortune telling: You predict that things will turn out badly.
8. Magnification or minimization: You blow things way out of proportion or you shrink their importance.
9. Emotional reasoning: You reason from how you feel. “I feel like an idiot, so I must be one.” “Should” statements: You criticize yourself or other people with “should” “shouldn’t” “musts”, “ought,” and “have tos.”
10. Labeling: Instead of saying, “I made a mistake” you tell yourself, “I’m a jerk” or “a loser.”
11. Blame: You blame yourself for something you were not entirely responsible for, or you blame other people and overlook ways that you contributed to a problem.
It was emphasized in the beginning of this book that your perception of events gives meaning to you and form your worldview or reality. Events have no meaning in and of themselves, and if you view events with a distorted view, negative feelings will evolve.
The cycle is thoughts – evokes feelings – evokes action – evokes habits. You cannot find the peace you seek as long as your thinking is distorted.