How to Keep Yourself Engaged in Life

As we begin the new year we need to be clear on what it is that we would love to create for ourselves moving forward. To have a plan of action for your life as my accountability group was speaking of during our discussion last Wednesday.

One of the participants had brought up the idea of writing down our goals for the year both professionally and personally. I had mentioned that for years I had kept a group of index cards each one representing the goals for that area of life. I marked off those goals that were achieved and added new ones through the years. I explained that having such a record was truly amazing in noting that I had achieved a great many of them through the years. I did all but one training that I had on the list and all but one of the conventions that I had on the list. I had traveled to more countries than I ever thought was possible — including bringing my expertise to the developing world on two different occasions in 3 different ways. Those opportunities came about because I kept that goal in mind without knowing how to make that happen — they just showed up on their own in the form of others inviting me to do these incredible things.

I have written 4 1/2 books at this juncture, and have received two Master’s degrees one right after the other fairly late in life. The second one met my desire to go back to Israel while living on the Mediterranean sea. Both of those Master’s gave me insights into the current world situation than pretty much anything else that I could have done without knowing at the time how valuable that education would be.

To live a fulfilled life means constantly generating new and interesting pursuits, higher levels of competence in different areas of life, and being able to do these things in places where you are happy and contented.

I learned from the late great ‘Dean of American Hypnosis’ Ormand McGill that the true means to a happy life is to use your life up, instead of it using you up. He died quietly in his sleep at the age of 92 a week after traveling from his home in California to Great Britain for the last training he conducted. He wrote over 25 books and traveled the world first as a magician, then as a stagecraft hypnotist, and lastly as a trainer of clinical hypnotism. He was a very happy man and never had a nasty word to say about anyone — at least that was what all the people who actually knew him said about him.

You see, happy people going about their business of living a fulfilling life need not knock anyone down. Instead, they are there to help others to reach the goals they aspire to use their knowledge and wisdom to do so.

My question to you today on January 1. 2022 is simply this, Do you have a means of writing down your goals and keeping a running record of those that you have accomplished? If not, perhaps it is time to finally take the 30 minutes to an hour to construct such a list and to keep it in a place where you can mark off that which you have achieved and add those new experiences and things that you would like to master to the list. You will be very glad you took the time as the years go by and you are able to actually see in black and white all that you have accomplished and the fulfillment you received along the way by doing so.

How about sharing those goals you have for this year in the comments below.