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Seeds for Change Wellness
Tips for Working with Spiritual Law when Setting Goals    by Julia Melges-Jablonski
Driving Toward Success:
Tips for Working with Spiritual Law when Setting Goals
Author: Julia Melges-Jablonski

In dreams, driving in a car is often a metaphor for how we move through life. In fact, if we're the
drivers, how we operate any vehicle in a dream may reveal how we are moving through our lives.
If the vehicle is an airplane, the metaphor may pertain to our spiritual paths. If it's a boat, it may relate
to our emotional lives. A car tends to signify physical or practical goals, how we're living in the
"real world."

As our psyches already have associations between driving and how we move through our lives,
it's natural to apply that metaphor to goal setting. Let's say we live in New York City, but we
aren't happy there and we want to move. Instead of setting a negative goal of getting away from
something (NYC), we must set a positive goal of where we want to go. Without this positive goal,
we're like a driver who gets in the car and just starts driving around, looking for who knows what.
Look at people you know well, and you'll see lots of these types of "drivers." They don't like the
relationship, job or home they're in, but they've not yet determined what they want instead. They
drive in circles and never really go anywhere.

First we must set a positive long-term goal. Let's say we decide we want to move from our home
in New York City to 123 Success Street in Seattle. We have a long-range goal, now we need to
establish some short term steps or mini goals in order to get there. This is how we take control
and make things happen. It's like drawing a map of how to get from where we are to where we
want to go, so we can take the most direct route there and avoid delays and detours along the way.
This is essential no matter what the goal may be, from getting a new job to creating the love we
want in our lives.

Tips for Working with Spiritual Law when Setting Goals
The age old practical advice of writing down goals is wise. Putting words to what we decide we
want gets the energy moving and focuses our attention. By writing down our goals, we clarify
them and begin the process of bringing them from the realm of thought into the physical. It's also
wise to state our goals out loud, but to state them in the form of affirmations, like they're already
here or ours. Writing down our goals or giving voice to them also puts our subconscious into
action, and draws assistance from Spirit. The law of attraction then begins to produce the perfect
"coincidences" to support our fulfillment.

It's essential to state goals in positive language. Instead of saying, "I am now letting go of fear
and overcoming my tendency for procrastination," we are much wiser to say, "I have confidence
and faith in the future, and readily take action to achieve my goals."

It's also wise to state or write goals in the present or past tense, as though they are already realities
in the now. If we imagine what we desire as far off in the future, we'll never feel it moving in. Even if
we imagine it "on its way to us," we keep it ever "on its way" or on the horizon. As we imagine
things to be, so they are. Imagine what you desire is here now, and it will be.

Remember that we can achieve anything we desire, but we can't always determine the details.
For example, we may determine exactly what we want in a mate and what we want to create in
a partnership, but we can't determine who will fit that bill. It may be that our present partner is
not a match to what we really want. If we cling to trying to make that person who we want him
or her to be, we will remain frustrated. To extend the driving analogy, we can decide we want to
move to Seattle, but we can't make a road that leads to Florida take us there, no matter how
much we may want for this to work.

Similarly, we can't force others to conform to our desires. We can achieve whatever we want in
our own lives, but we can't control what others do or want for themselves. Instead of trying to
get our lover to come back, we'd be wiser to focus on creating the perfect romantic relationship
for us. Not even "magic" can ethically force others to act as we'd like them to.

Be as specific in determining all goals as possible, but don't be so specific that you doubt your
ability to succeed. There is a point in specifying desired details where we tend to bite our lips or
raise our own eyebrows. Often this is when we're focused on result goals versus performance
goals. For example, stating "I will lose ten pounds in two weeks" is a result goal, and there are
many factors here beyond our conscious control. We may do everything we can to make this
happen, and still not achieve it. It's wiser to state specific performance goals, and allow the results
to unfold as they will. A performance goal might be, "I will stick with my eating plan and run three
miles a day for the next two weeks."

Put the power of your imagination to work for you. What we think is real on subtler planes. The
more we think something and the more emotion we evoke in thinking it, the more power we give it
for manifestation. The clearer our mental vision of our goal, the faster we will achieve it.

We are all using our imaginations to create in our lives everyday, but some of us do it far more
consciously and constructively than others. When we worry, we give mental energy to failing or
what is not desired. We must consciously choose to focus on positive images of success. A great
way to get into the mental and feeling state of success is to remember how it felt in the past to have
what we want in the future.

Let's say we want new love; we should remember as clearly as possible how it felt to be deeply
in love in the past. Remember a time in the past when you FELT the way you desire to feel now,
and immerse yourself in that feeling. The more fully you can recreate that feeling state, the greater
the fuel for your future success. Remember to ask for that feeling or experience or something better,
so you remain open to ever greater fulfillment.