Personal Development

The Ultimate Guide to Goal Setting: Avoiding Failure

Terry L. Fossum, an accomplished Air Force officer and top 1% in marketing, joins Myrna Young to discuss the ultimate guide to goal setting and why most people fail to reach their goals. They delve into Fossum’s revolutionary “Oxcart Technique,” grounded in Nobel Prize-winning science. Learn how harnessing both positive and negative emotions can dramatically boost your goal setting success. Fossum shares personal stories, like preparing for a survival show and emphasizes the importance of actionable daily steps, leveraging pain and pleasure as powerful motivators. Tune in for insights on transforming mindset and achieving success in various aspects of life.

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Key Takeaways:

The Oxcart Technique: A unique goal setting method combining both positive visualization and negative visualization to drive persistent action.
Emotion as a Driver: Emotion, not facts, is the true motivator behind human actions, steering us more effectively by leveraging potential pain.
Personalized Action Plans: Customized and fluid action plans, guided by failure scenarios and success scenarios, significantly increase goal setting success.

In today’s fast-paced world, setting and achieving goals can be a tricky balancing act, often overwhelming and leading to failure. Terry L. Fossum, a highly successful motivational speaker and author, shares profound insights into why people fail at reaching their goals and introduces a revolutionary concept called, the Oxcart Technique. The Oxcart Technique, leverages both the propulsion of failure avoidance and the pull of success aspirations, creating an effective tool for those serious about transforming their lives.

The Oxcart Technique: A Game-Changer in Goal Setting

Terry articulates, the Oxcart Technique, as a triad structure comprising three crucial documents: the Failure Scenario, the Action Plan, and the Success Scenario. At the heart of this technique is the paradoxical truth backed by Nobel Prize-winning science—humans are propelled more powerfully by the fear of failure than the lure of success.

Terry shares his personal breakthrough moment when he vowed to break free from a self-fulfilling prophecy of failure: “I took that pain. I took that failure, all those failures. I took all that self-doubt. And instead of letting it tear me down, I harnessed it and I used it to build me up.” This emotional transformation fueled his resurgence and subsequent successes, profoundly illustrating the technique’s power.

The Power of Negative Visualization

In contrast to the traditionally lauded, positive visualization, the Oxcart Technique, equally emphasizes the importance of vividly visualizing failure scenarios. Terry describes this with an evocative metaphor of running from a bear: “I can run pretty fast to try to chase that bear you know… you know when I can run faster?” he says, “When that bear is chasing me!”

The Science Behind It: Prospect theory proves that humans will do more to avoid pain than to seek pleasure. Reflecting on this, Terry notes, “We’ll do more to go away from pain than to go toward pleasure.” He further dissects the psychology, underpinning the Oxcart Technique: “Emotion, not fact, is the driver of all action.”

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Personalized Action Plans for Goal Setting: Key to Consistent Progress

Terry emphasizes the importance of developing personalized, actionable daily steps that bridge the gap between failure and success scenarios. “It’s a fluid document,” Terry explains, “If it’s not working, revise it.”

Steps of the Action Plan:

Draft daily actions tailored to your personal goals.
Ensure the steps are realistic and adjustable.
Integrate the action plan seamlessly into daily routines.

Terry cautions against overly ambitious initial steps, urging a gradual build-up: “Start small, start easy. We can, baby, step it up.” This incremental approach helps avoid burnout and maintains consistent progress.

Emotion as a Fundamental Driver of Goal Setting

Lastly, tapping into the emotional aspect of goal setting distinguishes, the Oxcart Technique, from conventional methodologies. Emotions invoke a compelling drive, with fear acting as a powerful motivator.

Harnessing Emotional Drive:

Failure Scenario: Detail the comprehensive fallout if goals are unmet, inducing fear and urgency.
Success Scenario: Draft a vivid and desirable picture of potential success to maintain aspiration.

Terry skillfully underscores the importance of integrating emotions: “Write down your failure scenario… Write it with emotion. Emotion, not fact, is the driver of all action.”

He narrates a powerful, personal anecdote about a survival reality show, elucidating how, negative visualization, (failing and thereby tarnishing the reputation of Boy Scouts) drove him more profoundly than the lure of winning $250,000.

Enriching Your Life with the Oxcart Technique

Terry posits that, the Oxcart Technique, isn’t confined to business success but extends to various life domains, including personal relationships, health, and financial planning. The technique’s adaptability means that it mimics life’s dynamism, ensuring persistent relevance and utility.

Practical Application:

Financial Stability: Develop and adhere to disciplined savings and investment actions.
Healthy Relationships: Use the technique to nurture relationships through consistent, meaningful actions.
Physical Health: Embed daily health rituals, fueling these with the emotional realities of potential health decline.

As Terry highlights, the failure scenario propels as much as the success scenario pulls: “My subconscious should be screaming, ‘Ain’t no way I’m gonna let that happen.'”