The other day, I was working with a client on her goals and I asked her, “What specifically do you want?  What does it look like when you’re doing it? What do you say to yourself and what do others say to you? And what does it feel like when you’re achieving what you want?”

All she could say was that she wanted to complete the NLP Master Practitioner Course and get her certification.  And I followed through by asking, “What will you do after you have the certification?” She stated she would register her business.  So I asked, “And then what?” And her reply was that she would have achieved her goal.

Her goal would be achieved when she had a piece of paper from my course saying she was a Master Practitioner and an NLP Coach and a piece of paper from the government saying she opened her business. 

It isn’t about the piece of paper!!

What about clients for the business?  What about revenue? What about marketing, conducting talks, or working on a website? If your goal is just a piece of paper, then you’ll have a very smart wall but you won’t be doing anything with the information you’ve acquired and paid for.

So many people get MBAs, Doctorates, or other advanced certificates and never do anything with it other than hang it on a wall and add a few letters to their name. What’s the point if you aren’t doing anything? 
What’s the point if you don’t have a plan of what you’re going to do with that information.  As I’ve said before, data is just data until you add action to it.  Then and only then, does it become knowledge. 

I’m an NLP Trainer but I don’t get paid because I have a certificate that says I’m a trainer.  I get paid because I’m training people in NLP or because I’m coaching them with NLP techniques.  Notice that I only get paid when I’m doing something. I only have great relationships when I’m doing something about creating great relationships.  I don’t have a great marriage because I have a marriage certificate!  I have a great marriage because I work my butt off making sure it’s a great marriage!  I don’t have a goal to achieve a medal in running or a “certificate of participation” in some sport.  I’m setting my goals to become something more than I am today.  Action is required to achieve your goals.  It’s required to maintain constant and never-ending improvement – to build a better you!

When you look at your goals, make sure you see yourself, hear yourself and others, and feel while you’re doing your outcome, when you’re living it. Otherwise you’ll end up like my client has so far, with a lot of pieces of paper, unhappy, unsuccessful and thinking that a few more pieces of paper will solve the problems she struggles with.