New Student Orientation Resource Book

Notes from The Magic Lamp:

2. [Goals] locked me in a cage when all I wanted was the freedom to be open to every opportunity, but the obligation to pursue none.

3. What if I really could count on myself? What if I could figure out exactly what I wanted from life and then make it happen? What if making a wish come true was as easy as setting a goal?

4. Wishes are goals. If you want to make good things happen in your life, think in terms of wishes instead of goals.

5. Today I’m going to make my wishes come true.

6. The moment I changed me, the world changed around me.

7. I assume that you already want more from life than what you have and you’re searching for a way to get it.

8. [One] must first do more than he is being paid for, to make himself worth more than he is being paid.

9. To get whatever you want from life you have only to set in motion the appropriate cause, and the effect will take care of itself.

10.You are literally your own genie, brimming with the godlike power of creation. Congratulations!

11.What will you ask the genie to do? Before you can make your wishes come true, you must first decide what to wish for.

12.Without this definition of purpose the astonishing power you have to grant your own wishes sits idle, double-parked, the motor running with no one behind the wheel.

13.Figure out what you really want - not what you're supposed to want, not what someone else wants for you, but what in your heart of hearts want for yourself.

14. Your achievements in life are not the source of your worth as a human being; they are the result of it.

15. The noblest purpose of all is to make the most of yourself as a human being.

16. A L.A.M.P. Plan is a simple plan of action in which you break your wish into steps so compellingly small that you can't wait to get started on the first one, then the next, and then the one after that until before you know it you have made your wish come true.

17. The L.A.M.P. Plan is a bridge from thinking to doing.

18. Having a plan gives you the freedom from the distraction of worrying about what to do next. Freedom to focus all your energy and attention.

19. What steps do I need to take to _______________?

20. What is it that most limits your progress?

21. The law of inertia: A body in motion tends to remain in motion; a body at rest tends to remain at rest. Inertia is the single greatest barrier to success. It's also the easiest to overcome. All you have to do is act.

22. A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.

23. You can create new habits the same way you created all of your existing habits-through repetition. In thirty days you can turn almost anything into a habit, if you practice it for a few minutes every day. If you skip a day you have to start over.

24. Even ordinary effort over time yields extraordinary results.

25. Make this one change in how you spend your day-work on what is most important to you before you take care of everything else - and you'll find that your schedule begins to take on the shape of a life, instead of your life taking on the shape of a schedule.

26. Work on one wish at a time. Power comes from focus; focus comes from priorities. So set your priorities.

27. When you think like a victim, you turn yourself from a cause into an effect. Nothing will kill a wish faster than that. When you blame the world, you lose your power to change it.

28. Success flows from passion, not from self-discipline.

29. When you're passionately in love with the process of making your wish come true, you allow yourself to treasure the moment, instead of waiting for some distant payoff.

30. The greatest gift you can give yourself is the gift of enjoying today. Why do you think they call it "the present"?

31. Know what comes next. Part of the follow-through is to focus on the next wish as the first one is coming true.

32. Once you embrace patience as a source of strength in making your wishes come true, and you embrace waiting as a way to develop that strength, then delays will only encourage you, setbacks will only strengthen you, and time - perhaps for the first time in your life - will finally be on your side.

Outline

1. What is a goal?

2. Purpose of Goals

3. What Do You Want?

4. The L.A.M.P. Process

(a) Lock On

(b) Act

(c)  Manage Your Progress

(d) Persist

5. Figure Out What You Want

6. Brainstorming Activity

7. Bubble Sort for Priorities

8. Purpose

9. Are You Willing to Pay the Price?

10. Make Your Wish Presentable

11. Four Different Modules for Working Toward Goals

(a) Goals and Strategies Worksheet

(b) Major Goal Worksheet

(c)  Where Do I Want to Go? Worksheet

(d) Planning Your Blueprint

12. Discussion

WHAT IS A GOAL? 

I am master of earth and air and wave, but slave of the lamp and the bearer's slave. What will you have, Master, what will you have?

The Genie of the Lamp
One Thousand and One Arabian Nights

 

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The L.A.M.P. Process 

1.  Step One: Lock On

Decide what you want to wish for.

When you take action, you make a giant leap from thinking to living

3.  Step Three: Manage Your Progress 

Track the causes you've set in motion to make sure they are producing the effects you want.

4.  Step Four: Persist

Finish what you start.

From The Magic Lamp, Goal Setting for People Who Hate Setting Goals by Keith Ellis, Three Rivers Press, New York, 1996.

FIGURE OUT WHAT YOU WANT

WHAT YOU’RE SUPPOSED TO WANT

NOT WHAT SOMEONE ELSE WANTS FOR YOU,

BUT WHAT YOU IN YOUR HEART OF HEARTS WANT FOR YOURSELF.

BRAINSTORMING

1.Write the topic you want to brainstorm in the form of a question at the top of a clean sheet of paper.

2. Write whatever pops into your head.

3. Accept with gratitude whatever pops into your head.

4. Keep your pen moving. Write for at least two minutes.

5. Save your criticism for later.

WHAT WOULD I REALLY WANT FROM LIFE

IF I WERE ABSOLUTELY, POSITIVELY CERTAIN I WOULD GET IT?

WHAT WOULD I WANT TO ACCOMPLISH IN LIFE

IF I WERE ABSOLUTELY, POSITIVELYCERTAIN I WOULD DO IT?

"BUBBLE SORT"

Set priorities by combining your "wish lists", number them and then look at items 1 and 2. Which is more important to you? In your mind, label that item the "Current Choice". Then move on to number 3 and compare it with your Current Choice. Which of them is more important to you?

Repeat this process for each item on your list, comparing each one with whatever your Current Choice happens to be at that moment. Whenever you prefer a new item over your Current Choice, then that item becomes your Current Choice.

Continue until you’ve gone through your entire list.

When you come to the end of your list, the Current Choice that remains is the single most important item on your list. It has become your "First Choice".

Go ahead and rank your second, third, fourth, etc. choice until you have your top 10 items on your list.

From The Magic Lamp, Goal Setting for People Who Hate to Set Goals by Keith Ellis.

Rumor has it that a philosopher in Europe once posted this message on his telephone answering machine:

"This device is programmed to ask two simple questions: Who are you and what do you want? Most people live their entire lives without ever answering either one".

ARE YOU WILLING TO PAY THE PRICE?

Every wish has its price. The price may be in dollars and cents. Or it may be in effort - the weeks or months or years it will take you to make your wish come true. Or the price may be in sacrifice, what you have to give up in order to get what you want.

It's not what you achieve that brings joy and fulfillment; it's the person you must become in order to achieve it.

You don't get what you want from life; you get what you are.

11.Take immediate action.

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