101 Goals for 2011

By the time you are reading this I am on my way to Honolulu via Honiara and Nadi. It is 2011, a brand new year with many unknown experiences to discover and many goals to achieve.

I actually missed the New Year celebration in Port Moresby because I went to sleep early because of power outage. By the time I woke up it was 2.30am in the morning.

Instead of complaining about missing the New Year fireworks I openned by personal journal and wrote the 101 goals that I want to accomplish this year. I do that every year so that I have definite things that I want to accomplish in one year.

The next thing I did on the second day of the New Year was that I wrote down some of the affirmations of the goals that I set for myself. These affirmations were written in such a way that I have already accomplished my goals.

The next thing I did on the 3rd of 2011 was that I deliberately set about visualizing my future. To help me stay focused on this process I consulted Jack Canfield’s The Success Principles:.

“Visualization—or the act of creating compelling and vivid pictures in your mind—may be the most underutilized success tool you possess because it greatly accelerates the achievement of any success in three powerful ways.

(1) Visualization activates the creative powers of your subconscious mind.

(2)Visualization focuses your brain by programming its reticular activating system (RAS) to notice available resources that were always there but were previously unnoticed.

(3)Visualization magnetizes and attracts to you the people, resources, and opportunities you need to achieve your goal.

According to my inspirational mentor, visualization simply makes the brain achieve more. And though none of us were ever taught this in school, sports, pyschologists and peak performance experts have been popularizing the power of visualization since the 1980s. Almost all Olympic and professional athletes now employ the power of visualization. When you visualize your goals as already complete each and every day, it creases a conflict in your subconscious mind between what you are visualizing and what you currently have. Your subconscious mind tries to resolve that conflict by turning your current reality into the new, more exciting vision.

Since it is a New Year I have set myself some new goals for this year to get to where I want to be. I am also closing some chapters of my life. One of the chapters, unfortunately, is the Steven’s Window, your favourite column. I have given much thought about this decision before today.

I have two important reasons for this. First reason has to do with the demands of the new job as the Arthur Lynn Andrews Chair in Pacific and Asian Studies, in the School of Pacific and Asian Studies, University of Hawaii that I am taking up this year. I expect the demands of the job to take up the best part of my time in the USA.

Second reason is that I will take the next 6 months to edit a book of all the articles appearing in Steven’s Window. I plan to have the book published some time this year. I will contribute to The Weekender from time to time, but for now I have to move onto meet the challenges I have set for myself.

You can follow me on my blog: www.stevenswindow.blogspot.com. If you are a follower on my older blog: www.manui-manui.blogspot.com I encourage you to sign on to the active blog shown here.

I take this opportunity to wish all the loyal followers of Steven’s Window, a happy, prosperous, and wealthy New Year. May the goals you have for 2011 bring you greater joy and happiness! I hope that you will grow rich and wealthy in mind, body, and visions that you have of yourself.

I urged you to keep in mind some of lessons I shared with you. New Year is like a strange country you walk into only to discover that it is not what you expect. Some culture shocks, sacrifices, and adjustments, such as saying NO to counter productive habbits, need to take place before you fit into the rhythm of life in it.

One final thought: If 2010 was a tough and painful year for you then consider picking up the broken pieces of your life and keep walking to where ever you are going. Others like you are doing exactly the same. Break free from the negative past and embrace the future. Replace whatever you have given up with positive thoughts, images, and the benefits to reinforce the program you have set in your mind.

I would like to say farewell aioni-bamahuta with the inspirations from my motivator Jack Canfield.

“Set aside time each and every day to visualize every one of your goals as already complete. This is one of the most vital things you can do to make your dreams come true. Some psychologists are claiming that one hour of visualization is worth 7 hours of physical effort. That’s a tall claim, but it makes an important point—visualization is one of the strongest tools in your success toolbox. Make sure you suse it.

“You don’t need to visualize your future achievements for a whole hour. Just 10 to 15 minutes is plenty. Azim Jamal, a prominent speaker in Canada, recommends what he calls “the Hour of Power”—20 minutes of visualization and meditation, 20 minutes of exercise, and 20 minutes of reading inspirational or informational books. Imagine what would happen to your life if you did this every day.

I leave this space in The National newspaper I thank my ever reliable editor, Magaret Daure, admirable Malum Nalu, the editorial team and the management of the newspaper company for giving me the opportunity to fulfill one of my goals last year.

I have found it enriching and humbling to share the thoughts and experiences I have as a Papua New Guinea writer, scholar, and teacher.