SKILL-SET #3:
YOUR SMART SELF-CONTROL MOTIVATIONAL SKILLS
    This link focuses your attention on the skills required for "Self-Control." The process of learning Self-Control Motivational Skills includes both "goal control" practice and strategic planning. Careful planning is necessary as a part of selecting goals and prioritizing plans.

    In order for you to create your own unique Self-Control Motivational Skill Set, this thinking process can help you concentrate on several practical steps for creating short-term, intermediate, and long-term goals and developing plans to achieve them.

    It is wise to develop a written documentation process so you can organize your wishes, dreams, and desires into goals with a coherent plan that will ultimately be remembered in both your brain's "working memory" and "long-term memory" resources:

    Step 1. Set Your "Target Goals" and Create
    Your "Action Plans" for Success

    Step 2. Measure Your Performance Objectively by
    Thinking in terms of "Continuums" and "Mindmaps"

    Step 3. Compare Your Actual Performance with
    Expected Performance by "Rating Your Results"

    Step 4. Live Happily Every Day by Being Conscious
    of Your Choices and Grateful for Your New Brainpower Knowledge!

SELF-CONTROL RATING PROCESS RULES
    The "Rating Process Rules" of the Smart Self-Control Motivational Skills process is a simple reasonable compilation of guidelines from many sources for effective and efficient use of one's "brainpower" to achieve successful results from goal-directed personal planning.

    You can capitalize on the new Brainpower Mindset knowledge database on this website by cherry-picking the ideas that mean the most to you, and then personalizing them by using the following memory enhancement exercise at the following link:
    Your Self-Control Motivational Rating Process

     You can begin to objectively prioritize your goals and plans by using the following methods:

     1. CREATE MINDMAPS:

     You can create your own planning process or "Self-Control Motivational Strategy" by creating a separate memory enhancing "self-map" for each of the immediate specific goals or plans that you want to accomplish in order to become a more successful person. The "self-maps" can help you objectively document your thoughts in a visual way, where they will be remembered in both your "working memory" and your "long-term memory" resources for easier recall.

    Whether your thoughts remain in your "working memory" or not will depend upon how much you think about them in the future in order to accomplish your greatest goals and best plans.

    The "Self-Control Motivational Skills" documentation process uses the creation of "self-map notes" for keeping an objective record of your most important goals and how much you are motivated to achieve them. You can ensure that your "long-term memory" resources will be triggered when you see the "self-maps" anytime in the future.

    You can think of your short-term goals and plans as being action-oriented for today or sometime in the next three months. Your longer-term goals and plans can be thought of as being postponed to be acted upon later when specific tasks have been completed a few weeks or months from now.

    It is helpful to make this distinction so you can unscramble your feelings and recognize how your memories of thoughts and feelings associated with your new goals and plans can either reinforce or extinguish your motivation to accomplish your most important goals and plans.

    Also many motivation experts or life planning counselors suggest that you should separate your most important goals and best plans into time zones, such as your short-term goals (which means between now and three months), your intermediate goals (three to six months), and your long-term goals (more than six months).

    To use Your Self-Control Motivational Skills, you need first to identify your most important goals, which are your highest priority goals. These goals are essential for your own safety and survival and belonging needs which are basic to surviving and thriving. They are goals that you think will make you the happiest when you achieve them. It is critical at this time to distinguish which goals are yours and which are other people's goals that you adopted from earlier experiences as a child or teenager. Earlier in your life, you may not have understood the tremendous resources of your own brainpower and you may not have understood just how much our global economic culture has influenced your thoughts and feelings and values.

    You may have learned from past bad relationships or bad advice from well-meaning friends and relatives that you have to be "perfect" in order to be appreciated or fully accepted by your parents and friends. Thus you will need to approach your daily planning process by paying close attention to the reactions of your family, friends and business associates.

    This is so because your happiness and fulfillment depend partly on "social validation," which includes your perception of how your friends and relatives will evaluate you and how it will make you feel, which can be called your "social-esteem." They will probably be surprised by your new lifestyle choices related to your new goals and plans for the future.

    How do you to use your time and energy effectively and efficiently?
    Armed with the new "Brainpower Mindset" of factual ideas based upon scientific evidence and your reasoning ability, you will have Your Smart Self-Control Motivational Skills, which will give you the personal power to implement your specific goals and plans according to your own values. Then you will have the personal power to take the necessary actions that are relevant to the achievement of your most important goals and plans based upon your own self-analysis of your perceived needs or values.

    You can now think of the difference between your "subjective wishes," and your "objective needs" for a fun-filled future for your own health and happiness? Your "wishes, dreams, and desires" continually bounce around in your stream of consciousness until you purposefully categorize them as being factual needs or wishful fantasies.

    How will you distinguish between your "wishes" and your "needs" in the context of your values, which are represented by your new "Brainpower Mindset" as you seek your most important goals and plans during the next few months and years?

    In order for you to keep your focus on your most important goals with so many competing potential "real needs" and "wishful fantasies" each day, it is helpful for you to develop a way of rating your daily and even hourly progress toward the achievement of those goals and plans, at least while you are adjusting to your new rational humanistic values.

    The main objective criterion you can use is the "time factor." It is simply your estimate of when you want something done and how long it will take to accomplish any goal by setting a "deadline" based on your best estimate at the moment.

    Another useful objective method of making decisions is to create a practical formula consisting of creating "continuums" of relative values, rather than "dichotomies" of opposite values. Through willful choice, you can change dichotomies of extreme "shoulds" and "should-nots" into continuums for every need that you set a deadline to accomplish.

      What specific goals and plans have you formulated in enough detail to be passionate about achieving either for your own benefit or for the benefit of others?

    Each morning when you wake up, you can think of the acronym SMART as you think about the activities and achievements that you hope will bring you the greatest security and also the greatest happiness as you plan your daily schedule. You can choose to make each of your goals and plans both smart and fun:

Specific
Measurable
Achievable
Realistic
Time-Limited

    The following directions from the book, Psycho-Cybernetics 2000, is one concise outline of a way to think about using a similar "SMART" formula for achieving your goals successfully:

    Become the person you want to be. Program your "success mechanism." Correct old programming by tapping into your success instinct.

      [1] Change habits of failure into habits of success by focusing on your destination!

        (1) Make two lists --- one positive and one negative.

        (2) Write down all negative thoughts that you would like to "cancel."

        (3) Visualize your new path and follow it into the future!

        (4) Keep the positive and negative "events" in your life in perspective by seeing the BIG PICTURE of the direction of your goals for the future and don't dwell on any negative events as personal weaknesses.

        (5) Fake it till you make it --- imagine your way to success by actively imagining your goal!

        (6) Free yourself from false beliefs.

        (7) Learn to relax and give your success mechanism some slack! Just say "YES" to life!

        (8) Live life by your own "script" by learning how to choose and set your own goals.

      [2] Goals are your "set points" for success. Get started now and avoid living someone else's life script.

      [3] Plan your work before you work your plan.

      [4] Set your goals the "SMART" way by being practical:

        1. S = Specific

        2. M = Measurable

        3. A = Action-oriented

        4. R = Realistic

        5. T = Time-conscious

      [5] Make your goals SPECIFIC. Set MEASURABLE goals and develop an ACTION PLAN for achieving them:

        (1) Identify and write down REALISTIC goals.

        (2) Assign dates for achievement of your goals.

        (3) Identify possible obstacles

        (4) Surround yourself with people who want you to succeed.

        (5) Focus on your skills and follow a plan of action.

          Ask yourself, "What's in it for me?" and "What's in it for others?" Then decide what goals are realistic for you!

      [6] Set TIME-CONSCIOUS goals and don't lose sight of them!

      [7] Move ahead from "goal-setting" to "goal-getting!"

      [8] Now write down or draw a "blueprint" for change in your life!

    Click on this Book Outline:
     Psycho-Cybernetics 2000

    2. MOTIVATE YOURSELF:

     Your basic "motivational needs" are met at home or on the job by the amount of recognition you receive for your achievements and work well done. You can develop a sustained positive motivational attitude by learning to evaluate your successes objectively and by rewarding yourself when you know that you have accomplished what you intended, regardless of what other people think about your performance. Or, you can learn from your initial efforts to achieve a goal or plan that you need to change your assigned priority and disregard the goal or plan for something that seems to offer you an opportunity for satisfying a greater need by the possibility of achieving a greater reward.

    When you get opportunities to achieve your goals and plans through independent action, you have the conditions essential for self-creation, high self-esteem and self-actualization. This potential can be accomplished at home or at work when you assert yourself and create your own opportunities to realize your most fulfilling potential goals and plans in spite of what others may think about them.

    When you achieve the level of full "self-actualization" or complete need-gratification at one level of your personal motivational "hierarchy of needs continuum" you can describe yourself as having fun or flowing or flying!

    You will find that your family and your co-workers can all provide you with extra satisfaction when they understand the value you place on your own goals and plans and the steps it takes to achieve them. To assist your reflection, you can access Maslow’s motivational skills chart at this Your Smart Motivation Skills link:

    Maslow's Motivation Theory

     Maslow's Motivational Skills Chart

    As you continuously adapt to unforeseen circumstances during the day, your original schedule can change. You can consciously apply the mindmapping strategy of planning your activities according to your unique timetable. By understanding your "prime time" as "high energy" effort, you can begin to measure the degree of your success on an hourly or daily basis, whichever is more appropriate for the possibilities or expected outcomes.

    Every day you can grow in self-confidence and higher self-esteem as you apply your new knowledge of how you use your time and energy to accomplish your most defining goals and plans. Your SELF matters, which means you are worthy of high self-importance, because you validate your own importance in the broader scheme of the known universe of possibilities!

    With increased self-confidence, you will be able to adapt your behavior to meet unforeseen opportunities. When you achieve more Self-Awareness of the consequences of your action --- or inactions --- you can deal with both your predetermined daily goals and plans and the unexpected opportunities and challenges that you face every day.

    As you become more aware of how to evaluate the ideas that come streaming into your consciousness in more positive ways, you will understand that you have many options at each step of the five-part "SMART" success formula for achieving your most valuable personal and work goals and plans.

    You will need to be careful not to jeopardize the possibility of success by self-imposed obstacles, such as the "ANTs," or automatic negative thoughts. Your ANTs are actual memories of negative self-evaluations which have been stored in your brain's long-term memory resources due to previous traumatic personal experiences or depression in your life. You need to be careful not to perpetuate the self-destructive tendencies that may have overly influenced your past decisions.

    In conclusion, you can rely on your own inherent human resources or intellectual capital. You can create your own intellectual capital by understanding your genuine need to feel safe and Self-Confident as you set goals and make plans for the future. The core feeling can be a sense of gratefulness for the existence of your phenomenal brain.

    Your new perception of your amazing brainpower and memory skills can give you the ability to learn and apply the new knowledge of the way your brain works. This "Self-Knowledge" can save you from boredom or the distress resulting from the negative impacts of cultural influences that can keep you from achieving happiness and the feeling of fulfillment that is your birthright as a healthy human individual being.

    The two most important socially correct personal values --- your wisdom and your maturity --- are two sides of the same coin with respect to defining your essential motivational needs in their proper sequence of importance. Your ultimate aim in the real world is to be consistently happy and satisfied for being alive with the power to consciously make your own decisions and choose your own goals and make your own plans to achieve them. Wisdom or survival knowledge is based on having verifiable objective rational humanistic "science-based" values. And maturity is the recognition that wise decisions and actions were done to create effective habits for surviving and thriving.

    YOUR BRAINPOWER POTENTIAL
    IS A TERRIBLE THING TO WASTE.
    YOU CAN MAKE YOUR LIFE COUNT TODAY AND EVERYDAY!
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