Brian Tracy is a well known author and book written by him ‘Goals’ helped me developing a life changing habit of ‘Reading’. Here is chapter wise summary or some bullet points I found useful to read again & again from his book ‘Goals’

Chapter 1: Unlock your potential
1. Your ability to set goals is the master skill of success. Goals unlock your positive mind and release ideas and energy for goal attainment.
2. It doesn’t matter where you’re coming from; all that matters is where you’re going.
3. Living without clear goals is like driving in a thick fog. No matter how powerful or well engineered your car, you drive slowly, hesitantly, making little progress on even the smoothest road.

4. Goals are automatic. When you set goals, you move towards them clearly.
But why people don’t set goals. There are 4 reasons:
a. People think it’s not important. If no one in your home or social circle has set goals & committed to them, you don’t know its importance.
b. Don’t know how to set goals in first place. Even worse, many people think that they already have goals, when in reality, what they actually have are a series of wishes or dreams like, “Be happy,” or “Make a lot of money,” or “Have a nice family life.”
c. Fear of failure: Failure hurts.
d. Fear of rejection: Fear if they fail, other will criticize them.

5. Greatest need of the human being is for a sense of meaning and purpose in life. And Goals give you a sense of meaning and purpose.
6. The elevator to success is out of service. But the stairs are always open.

Chapter 2: Take charge of your life
1. If I wanted things to be different, I would have to be different.
2. Don’t justify all the time to avoid negative emotions. e.g. In case you got fired, be cool. It happens everywhere all the time. It’s not personal.
3. Don’t blame anyone. Take responsibility for your work.
4. Become a growth stock. Consider If, I am a stock trading in market, how to increase my price 25-30% per year so that people can buy this.
5. Starting point of goal setting is to first realize that you have unlimited potential to achieve anything & willing to work long, hard to achieve. Secondly, accept complete responsibility of your life, and everything happens to you without any blames or excuses.

Chapter 3: Create your own future
1. Leaders think about the future and what they want to accomplish, and where they want to arrive sometime down the road.
2. We greatly overestimate what we can accomplish in one year. But we greatly underestimate what we can accomplish in five years.
3. Imagine that you have a “magic slate.” You can write down anything you want. You can erase anything that may have happened in the past, and create whatever picture you desire for your future. You can clean the slate at any time and start over. You have no limits.
4. When you fantasize and imagine your perfect future, the only question you ask is, “How?”
5. Just Do it: The primary difference between high achievers and low achievers is “action-orientation.”
6. Plan your perfect calendar. Design your year from January to December as if you had no limitations. What would you change, starting today?,

 

Chapter 5 – This whole chapter is a nice read. So, don’t want to cut off for some points.

Chapter 6 – Telling about focusing on 1 thing.

Chapter 7

1. The only thing that stands between a man and what he wants from life is often merely the will to try it and the faith to believe that it is possible.

2. Napoleon Hill said, “Whatever the mind of man can conceive and believe,it can achieve.”

3. Unfortunately, only two intelligences are measured and reported throughout school and university: verbal and mathematical. But you could be a genius in the areas of visio-spatial intelligence (art, design,), entrepreneurial intelligence (business startups), physical or kinesthetic intelligence (sports), musical intelligence (playing musical instruments, writing music), interpersonal intelligence (getting along well with others), intra-personal intelligence (understanding yourself
at a deep level), intuitive intelligence (ability to sense the right thing to do or say), artistic intelligence (creating works of art) or abstract intelligence(physics, science).

4. Within every difficulty or obstacle, there is the seed of an equal or greater advantage or benefit.

 

Chapter 8:
1. Your problem is to bridge the gap between where you are now and the goals you intend to reach.

2. Imagine that you were going to take a long trip across the country. The first thing you would do would be to choose your destination and then get a road map to determine the very best way to get there. Life is very much the same.

3. Once you have decided upon your values, vision, mission, purpose and goals, the next step is for you to analyze your starting point. Exactly where are you today, and how are you doing, in each of the important areas of your life, especially as they relate to your goals.

4. Most important quality of leadership is the “reality principle.” He defined this as the ability to see the world as it really is, not as you wish it were. He would begin every meeting to discuss a goal or a problem with the question, “What’s the reality?” Peter Drucker refers to this quality as “intellectual honesty,” First, you have to be completely brutally honest with yourself.
5. You must sit down and analyze yourself in detail to decide exactly where you are today in each area.