A couple of years ago, a friend, who had been assisduous in his practice of mindfulness, found that his life was simply go around in circles or, in fact, was sort of going down the drain! In the cours of one of our discussions, he announced to me that he had no goals! This was his problem - he was mindful without a purpose. He was not alone, some years ago, research at Harvard suggested that over 80% of graduates had no goals - had no idea what they wanted to do having graduated.

How can you achieve what you do not know you want?

You've got to provide your subconscious mind with some sort of guidance as to where you want to go in the greater scheme of things. If you don't, you'd probably be better off operating on automatic pilot, as most adults do. At least it enables them get by! However, the last couple of months' Ezines have assumed that that is not enough for you - getting by - and I, for one, subscribe to that view. The problem is, however, what kind of guidance can a mind that is steeped in normal upbringing, normal education and everyday normal interaction with lots of other normal people provide? Doesn't our normal conditioning condition what it is we think we want to achieve? And, consequently, won't stating our objectives constrain rather than liberate us?

Today's Video and Quick Tip attempt to address this question. They, I hope, provide you with some of the building blocks that will enable you give your subconscious mind a feel for the kind of effortless happiness and success that you would really like to achieve. They are the beginnings of an attempt to throw off the constraints of normal goal-related thinking whereby we often set goals the achievement of which either leaves us cold or comes at too high a price.

You see, it's not a question of knowing what you want to achieve - it's more a question of what it would look and feel like to achieved what's best for you and those you love. Normal thinking will never enable you get you head around that!

Two quick and irresistible stories. The first, more of an observation, comes thanks to the British Psychological Society's monthly magazine, The Psychologist. The calendar of events always includes a series named, aptly, no doubt, Psychology in the Pub. Is this bar stool psychology? Not at all. It is, apparently, the real thing. But, for January, they're way off the mark... some bright spark is facilitating sessions on Mindfulness... in the Pub! Sorry, mate, those two things are mutually exclusive unless, of course, you're on the dry!

My second anecdote this week comes thanks to La Poste, the French postal service. They're going green - postal deliveries on our road are now made by a brand new electric kind of quad bike - utra silent, utra clean. But that is, unfortunately, only half the story. The other half? Well, only letter deliveries are made by the green machine... we now have two postal deliveries each morning because the parcels are still delivered by the old diesel van!! As I said, irresistible!