Before you come in your front door this evening, take two or three minutes to park today's work cares in the most appropriate place... to one side until you start work again tomorrow. Work and business are games - you must play your part in those games to the best of your ability, but what you do beyond work is real.

So, this evening, as you step off the bus or train, as you pull the key out of your car's ignition, as you hear your own steps approach your front door, as you turn the key in the lock, remind yourself of where you are and who might be waiting for you to arrive home... body and soul.

These may be just minor points but, when we start letting minor points go, we facilitate a slow downward spiral in general behaviour. Have you noticed how many people walk straight past when you hold the door for them? Or how many people just drive on by when you let them out from a side road? Have you noticed how many people actively try to jump a queue or push past you on the street? Have you noticed how many people completely ignore the waiter or waitress as they put their food in front of them in a restaurant?

When we let little things go, big things follow. I mentioned a couple of weeks ago that an elderly man had been charged with manslaughter as a result of an argument over a disabled parking space. In China, a disguntled motorist who had lost out on a parking space to a young mother, took her infant out of its buggy and threw the child on the ground in anger. If you stop and take a look at normal people's behaviour, there's a lot of inappropriate behaviour going on all around us, all of the time.

We cannot be responsible for others' behaviour - but we're sure as hell responsible for our own. Or are we? If you haven't taken responsibility for your own state of mind today, you're in no position to control your behaviour.

Last week, I touched on the relevance of goals in terms of how they direct our moment to moment focus. I also pointed out that goals should direct us, rather than obsess us. Today, I want to explore how best we might set our goals within their proper context, within the greater scheme of things.

As ordinary mere mortals, we have little or no concept of the greater scheme of things. Spiritual belief aside, even a cursory few minutes trying to get one's head around quantum physics' explanation of how all our energy is interconnected and interdependent would shed some little light on how prosaic and parochial the normal perspective is. Even closer to home, if one considers the normal definition of success - which underlies how we frame our goals - six or seven years ago with today's post-recessionary perspective, it becomes abundantly clear that the normal mind is not best placed to determine for which goals we should strive. Not only do our wants change with the times, they are swayed by what our next-door neighbour has, or that latest gadget on the market. Normal goals are as changeable as the Irish weather!

In fact, normal goals could better be described as wants. Yes, the hollowness of material success on its own may have been exposed over the last few years, but, as normal people, we tend to think in terms of what we want - what we want to achieve and what we will have to show for our achievements. But, armed with a normal mind - which is akin to walking around with a hand grenade with the pin removed - how the hell do we know what we really want? Or, more to the point, how could we possibly know what it best for us?

This last question is the key question. We need to 'set our minds' to achieve our objectives, not on the basis of what we want, but on the basis of what is best for us. As what is best for us is unknowable in all its detail, we should set our objectives and, therefore, our 'operational' goals, on the basis that they will take us towards the kind of happiness, effortless success and peace of mind that materially-focused goals may facilitate but will definitely not deliver on their own.

In short, you need to reflect upon your priorities in life, in terms of happiness and peace of mind. Put these first and what is best for you in terms of success will flow... and it will flow effortlessly.