Goals – Commentary Hello, this is A.J. welcome to the commentary. Let’s talk about goals. Goals are very important, but you need to use them correctly. You must understand how to use goals to achieve success, to get everything you want in life. In fact, there are two kinds of goals, you need to use both. The problem for many people is they only use one kind of goal and that’s why they fail. You are going to use both kinds of goals and you will succeed. You will speak English powerfully. You will speak English confidently. You will use English to get better jobs, to make more money, to get more respect, to travel the world, to make international friends, to get everything you want. What are the two types of goals? Well, it’s very easy. There’s the big dream and then there are the small goals. See, what happens is too many people just focus on the big dream. It is important to have a big dream, the big dream is powerful, but if you only have the big dream, probably, you will fail. Let’s talk about these two kinds of goals and how exactly to use them to get what you want. 1. Step one – The big dream
Goals – Main Lesson Hi, I’m A.J Hoge and welcome to our main lesson Many years ago, I was in Japan New Year’s Day and I was climbing a mountain The mountain was in northern Japan and it was snowing In fact, I was climbing the mountain during a very intense snowstorm The snow was up to my waist during some parts of my climb, so it was very difficult walking, moving through the snow up the path to the top of the mountain It was hard work climbing the mountain in the snow and my body was sweating Little by little, step by step, I went higher and higher until, finally, after maybe an hour and a half, I reached the top of the mountain It was still snowing and I looked out over the landscape, over the countryside I could see far into the distance the snow-covered landscape I sat down and thought about my life Specifically, I thought about my career as an English teacher I thought about all of the problems I saw in English teaching, in English education Of course, the worst problem was that most students never learned to speak English fluently and clearly like a native speaker This bothered me and then I got a vision There at the top of the mountain with the snow coming down, a vision of a new way of learning; a vision of English students smiling and laughing and enjoying English class; a vision of English students really learning to speak English well, not just memorize grammar and vocabulary lists And I decided there on that mountaintop that this vision was my new dream, my new big goal for my career, my purpose, my mission I didn’t know how I could this, but I decided that eventually I would After that, for several years I researched about different teaching methods I read books I read articles I went back to school and got a Masters Degree Whenever I met someone, especially an adult, who spoke English very, very well I always interviewed them I asked them about their study methods How did they learn? How did they get that success? After doing all of this research, all of this searching, I then decided on some new goals, some smaller goals to help me achieve my dream I realized that first I needed to try all of these new ideas and new methods with real students, so I got a new job where I had more freedom to teach and then in my new job in each class I tried these new and interesting methods I was learning about and thinking about Sometimes those methods were successful and sometimes they were not, but little by little I found more and more and more powerful methods and little by little my students got better and better and better results Step by step I developed a completely new system for teaching English, listening and speaking and I thought that I was getting close to my dream However, I soon faced another big problem At my new job, my bosses found out about my new methods They found out I was not following the normal, traditional, textbook methods and they were www.EffortlessEnglishClub.com not happy In fact, they called me into a meeting, they criticized me and they told me I had to change I had to go back to using the old textbook methods I was very upset, as you can imagine I thought about it for a few days and I decided that my dream, my vision, was more important than just one job and so I quit that job I quit the job and then I moved to San Francisco and eventually found another job, a job that had more freedom in teaching and, once again, I continued to try new methods, continued to develop my own method, my own system However, eventually I realized that I would never have total freedom unless I started my own business I would never achieve my dream, my big goal, unless I started my own business so I could have total freedom This scared me This was a big difficult step to start my own business I was an English teacher, I didn’t know anything about business, so I created more new goals to learn about business, to learn about marketing, to learn about the Internet and for another year I studied and learned and achieved each of these little goals Until, finally, in the fall of 2006, I started Effortless English and Effortless English quickly became a very big success Students, learners, loved Effortless English They loved my lessons because they were effective The lessons were effective and after about six months I started to get lots of great comments and emails from Effortless English members telling me about their success, telling me about their improvement with their English speaking and, of course, that excited me That made me happy It gave me even more motivation to continue improving my methods, to continue improving Effortless English, to keep going for my dream Now, many, many years later, I’m still trying to improve Effortless English I’m still working to be better I’m still going for my dream because my dream is huge I want to change English learning, English education, everywhere in the world I want to help people all over the world be happier and more confident and have better lives using English to help them achieve their goals It’s a big dream It’s a lifelong dream It’s a huge lifelong goal I’ll always be working on it I will always be trying to improve and get better I’ll always be making new goals to help me get closer to that big, big vision, that big, big dream that started so many years ago on a mountaintop in Japan That big dream and all of the smaller goals that I’ve worked towards since then have brought me where I am today As a result, Effortless English is a huge success internationally As a result, tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions of people have been helped and now speak English confidently and powerfully That’s the power of goals Goals have helped me completely change my life and goals have helped me help many, many, many other people Goals are powerful www.EffortlessEnglishClub.com ... making new goals to help me get closer to that big, big vision, that big, big dream that started so many years ago on a mountaintop in Japan That big dream and all of the smaller goals that I’ve... everywhere in the world I want to help people all over the world be happier and more confident and have better lives using English to help them achieve their goals It’s a big dream It’s a lifelong dream. .. new goals to learn about business, to learn about marketing, to learn about the Internet and for another year I studied and learned and achieved each of these little goals Until, finally, in the