The art of goal-setting | Brian Mayne masterclass for Slimpod

So hello everybody, my name is Sandra Roycroft-Davis. I'm the creator of the SlimPod Programme, and I'm a major fan of goal setting. It has made a huge, huge difference to my professional life and my personal life, and I'm very, very lucky to have a great friend friend and mentor, um, who is the creator of the most amazing goal mapping, um, and goal setting system. Uh, so Brian helped me to change my life 12 years ago, and I thought it would be a really great idea to introduce him to everybody in my community, um, so that he can help you to create amazing weight loss goals. So Brian is going to take you through his system quite quickly, but you'll find everything on his website and it's free. So Brian, hello, and I'm just really, really happy to have you here with me, well, virtually here with me, and I would just love you to crack on. So here you are. People, here's Brian Mayne.

Let me say thank you for the introduction because it was particularly lovely, I think, and it's a really nice feeling for me to know that I've helped you on your journey, and I know you've helped so many other people. I'd like to share my screen if that's okay so that I can give a short presentation and then show about creating the map. So I'm just going to go on to the share now.

Fabulous.

And bring up the presentation. Goal Mapping is a workshop that helps people in so many areas of their life. It's actually not new, it's been around 23 years, nearly 24 years. 1995 was the first Goal Mapping presentation and in that time it's reached more than 4 million people. It's used by businesses large and small of all types to help their people be their best and achieve their goals. It's used in schools. We have state schools in many countries using goal mapping with younger children as well as older children through to university. More than a million school children have created goal maps for a brighter future. Sports people use the program. This is the current world champion, Katalin Cognar, her name is, 3 years in a row now. Here's her map which she drew on paper, and she said that helped program her subconscious, give her the edge, and win the world championships. She's become one of the trainers of the system. There are more than 1,300 certified coaches and trainers, teachers of the system around the world, and it's been in the news a great deal. In various countries hear an article from CNN about using goal mapping to advance your career. Even world-leading coaches like Anthony Robbins have endorsed it, recommended it. I've made a lot of presentations for Mr. Robbins over the years, and in fact, my first role as a trainer was working with his organization. Here's a Goal Map. It's always created using this unique combination of words and pictures. Both aspects are equally important. The words are really for the conscious mind and allow us to be very clear and precise. You can see we've got a main goal here of being fit and healthy. We can be exact using words in a way that we can't with pictures. A picture may paint a thousand words, but it's difficult to quantify the picture to say how much, how many, by when. So words give us that ability. The imagery allows us to activate our conscious mind, which is also— sorry, our creative mind, which is also connected to our subconscious mind, because our subconscious responds to imagery much more than words. This is why dream boards work and have become popular in recent years. The challenge sometimes when I'm working with someone with a dream board or a vision board is they haven't got much clarity around their pictures. Got a lot of nice pictures but not a lot of clarity. They're not saying the weight they would like to be or their waist size, dress size, and they don't have an action plan often with a vision board. The goal map really brings it all together. By using words and pictures, it helps us to activate both sides of our brain. Now, this is just a simple model for understanding. The, the brain is very complex, and the latest research is showing that both sides of the brain can do all the different things that are needed. Generally though, the left brain is more logical and thinks in words. The right brain is more creative and thinks in pictures. We have a lot of brain cells. The estimate is 100 billion brain cells, and each one of our 100 billion brain cells, or neurons, grows these little arms and branches which are called dendrites. And here on the screen, the black dots represents the brain cell. You can see the arms and branches. They're all separated by a small gap called the synaptic gap. And here's the key thing to understand. If the thought that you choose to focus on is positive, whether that's a positive thought about yourself, your life, your health and well-being, the target weight you desire to achieve— if the thought is positive, then it triggers the release of a chemical called serotonin. From the end of the brain cell arm, and serotonin is the chemical that gives us a feeling of happiness and well-being. It's also a chemical that acts as a neuroconductor. It joins the brain cells together, allows our thought to continue on its journey, and we build up this positive pattern of thought. And it's joining the brain cells together this way and establishing the connection Because at first we sometimes have a good idea, but then the brain cells break apart again.

Yeah.

If we remind ourselves of the goal, if we repeat the thought, the connection becomes established and we form a belief.

Right.

Belief becomes a command to our subconscious. So goal setting really helps us to hold on to our positive thoughts, our intentions, aims, and ambitions.

Brian, can I just stop you there for a moment? Because I got a question that is completely relevant to that part, and it was from one of my lovely SlimPod ladies called Frida. She said, what level of belief do you, do you have to have in your goal? So with the whole belief thing, how How much belief do you have to have in your goal in order to give it the best chance of accomplishing it?

More than the belief that you won't achieve it. Right. Now that may sound like a very casual answer, but actually it goes to the essence of the science here. Your subconscious mind, and we all have one, Yeah, works like our own personal autopilot, right? It's like having Google Maps, and when you put in your goal, you're giving it the address, the direction. Now, the subconscious is amazingly powerful. The scientists still don't understand how it can do the things it can do. It's like your autopilot that does most of the driving for you in life. The one thing that it cannot do is make choices. That's the job of your conscious mind.

Yeah.

So your subconscious will always follow the strongest thought or belief. A belief is simply a thought that we've accepted as true, and it's become established. It's that established link between the brain cells. Now, when that connection forms and it's weak, we would call that an opinion. It's easily broken. When we strengthen that connection by thinking a lot about what it is we're going to achieve and telling ourselves we're going to do it, then it becomes a belief. And when we grow it really, really strong, it's a conviction. Well, they're all different levels of the same basic thing, and it's all about the brain cell connection. And the stronger the connection, the greater the command to our subconscious, the more it moves us towards the goal. By connecting lots of the brain cells. We work with our whole brain, and we have both an idea of what we want— you can't be interrupted— as well as a strategy, a plan, and an action of how we're going to achieve it. Goal mapping really helps to have this balance between our logical mind and creative creative mind. And through it, we are able to be consciously clear about what we want to achieve and then command our subconscious. And the analogy that I often use is the subconscious is like a magical genie. And we use this in the children's version of the program. Genies are all powerful and they can help your wishes come true, but they cannot wish for you. You must command the genie, and a goal map is just very effective in this. This map you're seeing here is the online version, and if I go to the home page of the online version, it looks like this. Each of the dots on the island is a piece of video from the goal mapping workshop. There are 4 hours of it that people can watch if they wish. What I'd like to do now though is to just come out of the presentation and go to the website so that people can see it in real time. The flashing dot marks the next video to watch and the path lights up to show your progress. There's a lot of resources, but the main thing to do is to create your map, because in creating your map, you're commanding your subconscious. Now I've got a lot of maps, as you can see. I'm going to go to an old map actually, which is this one here, because it's more focused on health and well-being.

Right.

There are 7 steps in creating the map, and all the person needs to do is to click on the button that says Create Goal Map. I go into the tab here, there's a little button that says Create New Map, and they can do that and create their map. I'm going to show one I've already created. When you go to Create Map, it's going to take you to this first step, which is Dream, and you write here whatever it is that you want to achieve. And my recommendation is that people write a minimum of 3 goals, but 5 is better. And as you write each one and you click Add Dream, they appear here as a list, and you can see my different goals. I'm positively attractive, I build belief in myself, I'm free to live the best parts of me, I'm healthy, glow from head to toe, and I expand myself. So this first step is about seeing what you want to achieve. A lot of people will create a goal map, as you know, focused on their weight and and their well-being.

Yeah.

The second step is to identify what's the main thing to achieve. You may want all the things equally, but there will normally be one that is the main focus. And if I put here this one into the center, because really me achieving a healthy glow from head to toe is about me shining That's me feeling full of vitality, which helps me achieve all of these other areas.

Yeah.

Then in step 3, we're going to add some photos. Now my photos are already here because it's my existing map, but you just click on the icon and you can choose from any of the folders. You can also upload images into your own personal folder that only you can see. And you can search here on Pixabay. So if I put, uh, diet in, bring up a whole lot of pictures, you click on any one and that goes immediately into your map, right? Step 4: Why do you want it? My reasons are reaching a higher level of health helps me help others, it helps me feel good about myself, I I love myself and my life when I am feeling healthy and I am more alive for my children. Step 5, when. Click on the date field and it will open up so you can choose an achievement date. And you can see this date is already gone because this is one of my older maps, but I can quickly move it forward. And with a health goal, normally it is going to be about 6 weeks. So that somebody can follow a diet plan. And then—

or an eating plan, or a— or just a food plan, because we don't really use the D word too much here. Okay.

And so then, how? And in my map, meditating twice a day. I do TM meditation for 20 minutes. Exercising, fast walk and a few push-ups, and then reminding myself to choose to focus on what's right in my everyday experiences, because it's a very easy trap to fall into thinking about what's wrong. And I use my physiology a lot to support me in positive thinking, so positive body stance. And then Step 7, who? Sometimes the who is another person, and often it is yourself. And when it's yourself, it's important to go beyond saying me or your name. Yeah. And to think about who you need to be to follow through, take that action, achieve that goal. So I've got I'm aware, strong, etc.

Right. Yeah. So I say, who do I want to become? Or who would I be if I was this? Person.

Yeah, so if I'm going to achieve this goal, who do I choose to be? Yeah, and if you look, we've got a main goal in the center with side goals, and at the top we've got our motivating reasons why. And the stronger the reason, the greater the motivation will be. Yeah, we've got a start date, we've got a finish date, so it gives us a timeline. And then how we're going to do it, the actions. And who's going to be involved. And in this case, the who is all me and his ways of being. My recommendation to people, once they've created their map, and they can give it a name— so I've called mine I Am Free— and then they can share it. And it really strengthens commitment when you share the map. You can share it with email, you can take the link and share it and indeed you can work with a coach and share it with your coach. And if you wish to, you can generate an image of the map, so that will generate an overview of words and pictures together, which can be used as a screensaver, can be printed, you can use it in a lot of different ways. The key is, for a minimum of 10 days, but longer is better, look at your map once a day, and as you look at the map, say the words. Because it's activating the whole of your brain. It's re-establishing those brain cell connections that grow into beliefs that command your subconscious.

Right. And I'm just going to cut in here because one of the questions that I got a lot of actually was how to remain focused. So people are asking me how to remain focused on their goals as they, you know, because they have such busy lives and And I've had several questions on that. So is there, you know, I mean, I, I kind of have the goal map in my, on my wall and it's there and my subconscious just, you know, checks in with it. But what would you suggest? Because this one is, this, I'll learn from this one too.

I think the more places you have it, the better.

Right.

I have mine as a screensaver on my phone here. You can see it.

Yeah.

It keeps it in my consciousness. I have another printed out in my folder. This is my health bits. I have more than one, so I've also got a work yoga, which is just a to-do list. And it's about— and I will look at them online, of course. And it is just about making it part of your morning routine, right? First thing in the morning is the best time. Last thing at night is also very good. The reason why first thing in the morning and last thing at night are good is because those are the times when you have the greatest connection with your subconscious, right? And if you're looking at the pictures and saying the words you're helping to form that strengthened command to your subconscious.

Yeah.

Once your subconscious has the goal, it's going to move you towards it.

Yeah.

This is what happens when people think about a destination, get in their car, start driving, and before they know it, they're there.

Yeah.

They don't really remember making the journey, and it's because their subconscious was doing a lot of the driving.

Exactly.

I get people write to me telling me they've done a goal map and they put it up and they've looked at it once a day and they don't like exercise, for instance, but some have found themselves out taking a ride on their bicycle, and they don't remember making the decision to do that. It was sort of like a spontaneous thing, and it's because of their goal map. When they've looked, they've got a picture of them riding their bicycle because it forms that deeper command.

Yeah, absolutely. And a lot of— I mean, my community know an awful lot about that because they're traveling on that journey. So this is why this is such amazing addition to their lives. I have one last question, and that's from a lady called Jenny. She said she wanted some advice on how to set goals that are meaningful, ambitious, but also actually achievable. So I think that people, when they think of big, hairy, audacious goals, they they think that they're actually not going to achieve them and what's the point. And so it's— there's a fine line, isn't there?

Yes, it's an interesting question. It's one that often comes up. The challenge is that it's very difficult to say what is reality and what is fantasy. One person's goal will be a reality for them, but to somebody else it looks like fantasy. I was, I was told not to set half the goals that I've set, right, achieve them. But hey ho, I have achieved them. Yeah, you don't really know how much you can do until you try. Mm-hmm. If the goal is too big, your subconscious will reject it. A lot of the psychology studies state that when we're goal setting, we should look at no more than a 20% increase.

Right.

So if we're, if we're wanting to increase our wealth, for instance, more than 20%, the conscious mind goes, yeah, but not really. Now, a goal map helps you push past that conscious barrier because it's the conscious mind that questions and doubts. I think it's good to lead with your right brain imagination and say What does my ideal life or my ideal outcome look like? And then to consider how achievable it is, given the starting point you have and the resources available to you.

Yeah.

And then it's a question of how long. A lot of people approach goal setting by saying, by this time I will achieve, and I think that becomes very limiting, right? Because you automatically start to think, what can I achieve within 1 year, 6 months, whatever the time frame is? I think it's much more beneficial to say, what does my ideal life and my ideal self look like? Create a map around that. It may be long-term, but then you create additional maps, right, shorter term, that become part of your plan to move towards it. And I have 5, 6 goal maps on the go at any one time. Some are long-term, some are short-term. Some I've been working on for many years. Like, my big hairy scary goal is to help 7 million people with goal mapping. When I set that goal, a lot of people said I was crazy. Yeah. But I've now reached more than 4 million people. Setting the goal completely changed the way that I worked.

Right.

I was doing a lot of work with high-level executives in companies like Microsoft, and it was teams of 10 people. Never gonna get there.

Yeah, it's gonna take you a long time to get to your 7 million by doing that.

So once I got clear, then I started doing other things like keynoting at conferences, so there'd be a couple of thousand people, but that still doesn't really get me to the 7 million, right? The online program has helped a great deal, and the other thing that's really helping is that there are so many people teaching the system.

Yeah.

When you add up their efforts, because some of them are presenting to thousands of people each year, that, that's really making a difference. But all of those changes, and they have all been good changes, come from setting a big scary goal. Yeah. But I didn't know at the time— at the time of setting the goal, I didn't know how I'd achieve it. My subconscious helped me to be aware of those things. And yeah, I could do this, you know. So I think it's the right way to lead.

Well, same with me when I did that. Absolutely. When I set mine 10 years ago, I had no idea that I'd be working with the NHS. It was one of the goals, but I had no idea how it was going to happen. And now tomorrow I'm going to be presenting to 200 people in, you know, with diabetics in Manchester. So it's really, really exciting. But again, you know, it's It's setting the goal of what you would love to achieve, and then, as you say, you have to know what it looks like. That's the thing, don't you?

Yeah, if you don't know what it looks like, you have no chance of getting there.

Yeah.

I was driving to London to make a presentation just before Christmas, and I couldn't remember the name of the hotel. And so I just wrote into Google Maps London, and of course it took me to the center of London, which was correct, but it was nowhere near my hotel.

Yeah.

And then I searched the hotel and I gave the exact address, and it took me exactly there. And this is why the words of the goal map are important. We can be very precise with the words, but it is actually the pictures that pushes the subconscious forward. Because when we, when we go to sleep at night, it's our conscious mind that sleeps, our subconscious comes to the surface. We have dreams, and those dreams are always in pictures because that's the language of the subconscious. And so it's this balance of being precise with the words about your health, your well-being, your achievements, and then having meaningful imagery. You can see in my map some of my pictures are drawn because I like to I draw my maps on paper and I crop them and I upload them into the system. And some of them are images from the internet or family photos sometimes. The important thing is the meaning of the image for the user.

Right.

The stronger the meaning, the more brain cell stimulation it creates.

Right.

So for instance, using a family photo, which is why we have a private photo, a private folder where people can upload personal photos. A picture of your children, that's going to have a huge amount of brain cell stimulation.

Yeah, yeah, fab. Look, I've kept you long enough, and so we— shall we get the big screen up again? Do you want to— shall we— that's it, perfect. So yeah, I just want to thank you because this is— it's fab. I've been talking about you a lot in my programs And, and it's just brilliant to do this and go through it. So I'm expecting lots and lots of success from everybody out there.

Perhaps they will share their goal maps with you.

Yeah, absolutely. And so in SlimPod Club, in our private SlimPod Club community, I'd love you to do that. And Brian, you could even come in one day and do some in our private Facebook group and answer any questions perhaps.

I would love to, it would be my pleasure.

Lovely, super. Thank you so much and we'll talk again soon.

Thank you for inviting me, Sandra, lovely to be with you.