As the new year begins our hopes, dreams and goal setting flourish.  …and then the year moves on.

As time clicks by how strongly do you influence yourself to follow through with those hopes, dreams and goals?

Most people don’t even set goals and the majority of those who do set them find it challenging to stay on top of taking action.

Here are five tips to achieving these goals.  They’re basic, but usually ignored, therefore making them a bit helpful.

Years ago I wrote an article on Creating The Best Year of Your life that goes into more depth for you, though I have to admit I have trouble following through on the steps as much as anyone who has read the article.

Yep, I’m the guy writing about influence and admitting that he has the same human experience of not always being able to stay disciplined in influencing himself.  Because I’ve found this situation to be the case for most humans, not just me, it makes me wonder about  how realistic our influence is when it comes to the discipline of goals.

So many people make new year’s resolutions that excite and motivate them for a week or two and then they drop back into old distracting habits.  Gym memberships and attendance traditionally soar in January and then plummet in February.  Hmmm…. I wonder if Krispy Creme sales plummet in January and skyrocket in February too?

If you’re one of these folks, don’t beat yourself up.  Realize that influencing others who like and trust you is actually more effective than influencing yourself.  You have your own internal doubts and insecurities to live with and others don’t see those, though they have their own to live with.  Others probably see your strengths and value shining brighter than you do.

On the other hand, if you’re one who is very disciplined and have a good track record of internal influence please post a comment and share some of your secrets with the rest of us.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Influence is all around us and most of us are blind to it.  Hence, the title of this blog.

In reflecting on this I was amazed to see how far reaching influence is in our lives.  With the boom in social media this is becoming more and more obvious as people who were “nobodies” yesterday are using tools to influence, and be influenced by, thousands or tens of thousands of others from around the globe.  Learning and growing together and from each other is a beautiful thing.

On Twitter I am following people varying in age from 12 to over 70 who live small towns in America and cosmopolitan cities in Australia with a wide range in between.  I learn amazing, entertaining and helpful things from them all.

But to back up a minute from the new-fangled online world of communication tools and kick it back old school to mother nature, lets see how there’s nothing new in this.

I’m on my annual holiday family visit right now.  At my brothers house he has a 7 year old dog, Jake, that’s wonderful and has always been a little bit excitable and strong willed at doing his own thing.  This year he’s a different dog.

What changed?  He now has a little brother to influence.  After growing up with 3 boys this shouldn’t matter.  But, since this new brother is Gunner, a Golden Retriever 8 month old puppy it seems to matter a lot.

It’s amazing to watch how better behaved Jake is as he’s become a leader and an influencer to a puppy looking up to him for cues on what to do and how to behave.

We do the same thing.  We find deeper and more powerful aspects of ourselves the more we share ourselves and spread our influence.

In many spiritual texts the remedy given to someone feeling depressed is “Go do something helpful for someone else.”  At first this is counter-intuitive because if you’re depressed you think you need someone to pick up your spirits.  But it’s not.

Think about why people love being parents and owning animals and giving to causes.  It’s because they are extending themselves to contribute to someone beyond themselves or a cause greater than themselves.  A great example of how big this can be is the Global Hug Tour.

Have you given of yourself to someone and not felt better afterwords?  Probably not.  The phrase, “The more you give, the more you get” is a truism.

This is a great time of year to be aware of how influential you are.  I invite you to look for opportunities to extend yourself, your knowledge, your talents and gifts to influence others.  Not in an arrogant way, but in a humble and helpful way. ‘Tis the season, you’ll make someone else happy and you may even feel a little more expansive and joyful yourself.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Everyone loves to be influenced whether they admit it or not.  (And they love to buy and hate to be sold.) The fashion, music, entertainment and online industries thrive on this principal.  You, my friend, are a social influencer no matter whether it’s to a large or small degree.

Don’t you love to recommend cool music and movies to your friends?  Don’t you know at least one person who likes to know where celebrities vacation and what kinds of clothes they wear?  Don’t you remember how obvious this was when you were a teenager?  You still do it, you just have more self control now that you’re a mature adult.

Like it or not, if you’re in a human body you are an influencer and a marketer. If you choose to capitalize on this you may even become an expert used in influencer marketing.

The way you dress, the language you use, the city you live in, where you spend your time and money and many other factors reflect what you consume, how you think and what you do.

When you get excited about these things and talk to your friends about them you are marketing them and marketing yourself.  If you know about cool things first and your friends appreciate you turning them on to those things then you feel cool.

Marketing 101 theory is that people love to buy from people they trust and love.  In other words, people who’s opinions they think are valuable.

This value varies depending on your personal experience of the influencer who’s sharing or promoting a product or service to you. How you’re influenced by friends is the same deal as how you’re influenced by Madison Avenue, though your friends have more sway with you since you already like and trust them.

The main reasons that we like to be influenced are that we like to feel understood, appreciated and special.  We’re influenced greatly by messages that make us feel connected to a person, tribe, idea, product or service that we think is cool.

This is the basis of consumerism – people put themselves into debt and create a ton of stress for themselves by buying tons of stuff they don’t need with money they don’t have (credit cards, mortgages and car loans) to impress people they don’t know (and may not even like) but whom they think are worth trying to impress.

Psychological disorder, social brain washing or a marketers wet dream …or all of the above? – you decide.

I’m not judging this, just explaining it.  Look, this blog even has the word influence in the the title so you know I’m into it.

Now I invite you to pay attention to how you are influenced and how you influence others and comment here.  Do you agree with me or think I’m nuts.  Just post something to exert your influence a little and let me know you’re alive and reading this.

Tonight is the night of the second presidential debate.  This seems like as good a day as any to launch a blog on how you are marketed to by advertisers, politicians, experts, media, and sometimes even your friends. If you think you might hear at least one lie, fabrication or stretching of the truth by Barack Obama or John McCain tonight raise your hand.  (Wow!  That’s a lot of hands!)

Even better, we’ll sometimes cover ways you influence, sell to and market to your friends and sometimes even to yourself.

You are blindly influenced many times a day and you blindly influence others at least a few times a day.  Have you been told an interesting “fact” from a friend today that fit into your beliefs?  Maybe it was about Barack Obama, or John McCain, or Wall Street or any number of newsworthy topics.  Chances are that the “facts” you heard were somewhat truthful and somewhat dubious.

This isn’t a slam on you or your friends.  It’s simply a result of how the human brain works and how our marketing-saturated culture operates in 2008.

Blind patrotism is an obvious example of this.  The first few years after 9/11 we witnessed blind patriotism on steroids.  Emotions ran high which concurrently made critical thinking run low.  This resulted in Americans swallowing gallons of lies that fortunately became obvious in only a few years instead of a few decades.

Again, this is nothing personal, it’s how the human brain operates. Why do you think Tony Robbins and others using NLP (Neurolinguistic programming) have done so well?

As this blog grows we’ll explore how our minds deceive us and how others can use this against us.  By realizing how this happens you’ll be one of the few who isn’t going to fall for the B.S. – well, at least not as much of it as your neighbors.

So as you watch the debate tonight, and politicians speaking on any night, keep your critical thinking hat on and put on your glasses to see through the blind influence.