Running In Circles

It seems that additional clarification may be helpful to better understand some questions posed in the “Understanding Your Tendencies” sections. Beginning with this post, I will be providing added context to many such questions.
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The following question is from Lesson III: Goals and Dreams, Understanding Your Tendencies, Question #9: 

• Do you realize the mental process of bringing goals and dreams into reality can be used to solve personal problems?

Many may assume that the mental process of bringing ideas, goals, or dreams into reality is reserved for some large scale “change the world” kind of thing, and if not, should be used to help one accomplish a major long-term goal or their “life's purpose.” Few realize, however, that such things may also be used to aid one in solving or overcoming personal problems, irrespective of size and complexity.

Take something as simple as being punctual.

Some of us are constantly late regardless of where we're going or what we're going to. This is, for the most part, a harmless personal problem as it isn't necessarily destructive, and in most cases will only result in making us relatively annoying to certain people. Oddly enough, if asked, we never say we want to be late. In fact (generally speaking) no one wants to be late. More often than not, the reason our tardiness persists is simply because we haven't figured out how to be on time. Of course everyone “knows” how to be on time, in an intellectual sense. But (as discussed in the previous post) knowing how to be on time and being on time are two entirely different things.

So what can be done?

To begin with, a person who is constantly “running late” could define a basic objective of “being on time.” As described in Lesson III: Goals and Dreams, the entire process (which consists of five steps) flows from this first step of “defining what one wants,” provided that one is willing to (and does in fact) focus or concentrate on their objective. The short answer is that when one focuses on a specific objective, over time, it becomes a dominating thought in their mind. In other words, they start thinking in terms of their objective (in this case “being on time”) and because of this, are able to work out ways to accomplish it. Once a method has been worked out, assuming one acts upon it, and assuming one is willing to persist through potentially ineffective methods, the said person will, eventually, accomplish his or her desired goal.

The main reason people fail is that they (assuming they have a defined objective) never really focus or concentrate on “being on time” on a consistent basis. When they happen to be running late, they think to themselves “gosh I hate this, I need to be on time!” They never define their objective in a specific way, nor do they keep it before them. As a result, they soon forget, until once again, they happen to be running late and think the themselves “gosh I hate this, I need to be on time!” Essentially running in circles, perpetuating their problem. In fact, they may convince themselves that they are just a “late person,” believing their tardiness to be a characteristic of who they are.

I do understand that this is a rather elementary example, but the main point to be remembered is that our minds work out ways to accomplish the things we focus on (assuming of course our focus is goal directed), and these things need not be “pie-in-the-sky” massive in scope and scale dreams, but may be simple, everyday personal problems as well.