When you ask people what they see as the key goals of their lives you hear some pretty interesting answers:

• To make a lot of money
• To take care of my family
• To make a contribution to the world
• To work at a job I love
• To have great friends
• To travel extensively
• To live an exciting life
• To teach others
• Less stress/more peace

Most people's goals are about what they want to get or to give. Nothing wrong with that. But there is one goal you almost never hear, and it is one that can change your life. It can create a framework for your thoughts, actions, and interactions that aligns them in a way you have never before experienced. It is a truly life changing goal - and if you embrace it, it will revolutionize the way you live. It can be simply summed up in an eight-word sentence: "My goal is to realize my full potential."

Read it again. "My goal is to realize my full potential."

What would change in your life if this were truly your goal, your fervent intention, and your guiding framework?

Based on my own experience and my observations of many others who I have supported in making the shift to embrace this goal, let me share with you some ways your life will be different:

1. You will quite naturally make it a top priority to discover your potential - to discover what makes you unique - where you strengths, skills, abilities and desires intersect.

2. Your criteria for deciding to engage in any future job or endeavor will shift, and your key criteria will become the opportunity it offers you for learning and personal or professional growth.

3. You will choose carefully the people you spend time with because you recognize that relationships are both a catalyst for your growth and a mirror by which you can witness and adjust your personal evolution. If you are in business for yourself this will translate into a sharpening of your definition of who you work well with, and a willingness to focus on business relationships where you get back as much as you give.

4. You become willing to re-sensitize yourself - to shake off the numbness of every-day life - to hone your awareness of your sensations, thoughts and feelings because these are the vehicles that inform you of your present reality, and you recognize that your self-actualization is a present-oriented activity.

5. You trust your own intuition because with the realization that your potential is not the same as anyone else's potential, comes the companion realization that only you can know what is right for you.

6. You become the judge of your own worth. You decide what is important to you - your values and ethics, your standards, and your passions - and are comfortable making decisions based on these points of reference.

7. Self-care becomes a natural priority with the knowledge that the health of every cell of your body contributes to your overall well being and serves as a point of awareness that informs your observations of what is happening within and around you. You become able to witness your own blossoming through the loving eyes of one who is nurturing the growth of a life that is precious beyond measure.

8. You let go of things that anchor you to the past - including memories of past hurts - because expending your time and effort to "protect" yourself by putting up walls and engaging in fear-motivated behavior seems a waste of precious energy that could be better directed toward exploration and expansion in the present.

9. With your eyes fixed on the glorious horizon before you of endless possibility for adventure and experimentation in your journey of self-exploration and expansion, the small stones in your path receive scant notice or attention. With the reserve of peace and well being that builds as your stress hormones decrease it takes more to bring you to annoyance, anger, or open conflict.

Looking at it from a slightly different perspective, having a goal of realizing your full potential is clearly inconsistent with certain behaviors that may hold sway in your current reality, the top three of which are:

1. Consciously or unconsciously trying to live your life to please other people.

2. Morphing who you are or how you live your life into the image of what you believe others or "society" think you should be or what they think you should do.

3. Making acceptance and validation by others your de facto definition of "success."

If you are not living and enjoying the type of life you really want, perhaps it is time to try a "goal-ectomy." Be willing to re-examine and excise goals that are no longer working and try on a new one: "My goal is to realize my full potential." This shift can be not only refreshing and enlightening, it can also be truly life changing.

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