There are no tricks or secrets to achieving the goals we set ourselves in life. You simply have to follow a few steps that practically every author in the personal development world agrees on, and which happen to be the same steps that successful people followed, as some of them now say looking back.
How to get what you want in life
1. Picture yourself in the future
When people talk about visualising themselves as the person they want to become, or in the situation they want to reach, some fall back on the theory that the universe conspires to give us that if our desire is strong enough. There’s no need to resort to that theory when science today knows the benefits that picturing ourselves as the person we want to be has on our brain.
Our definition of what we want to achieve must be clear and precise, and we should picture ourselves that way so we start behaving in the present the way we’re imagining ourselves in the future.
There are scientific studies showing that even a change in the way we dress can change the way we act. People wearing a suit and tie have even been found to be mentally better prepared to win a negotiation.
The benefits of picturing yourself as if you had already achieved what you want act directly on your self-perception. In other words, it can change how you define yourself, and that’s essential.
But the most important benefit, and the one that takes us to the next point, is that you’ll belong to the small group of people who know exactly what they want to achieve.
See also: 4 decisions that can change your life
2. Focus on the goal
This is probably the most important point and the key factor in achieving your goals. You shouldn’t be like a man with a machine gun who aims at everything that moves, hoping to hit something. Instead, you should be the sniper who aims straight at the target and ignores everything outside the crosshairs.
Focus works magic when it comes to achieving our goals. That’s why Warren Buffett told us about his strategy of writing down on paper the 20 things we want to achieve, choosing the 5 top priorities for our life, crossing out the ones we didn’t choose and not thinking about them again until we’ve achieved the priorities.
Focus activates the reticular activating system (RAS), which is what makes a pregnant woman see pregnant women everywhere, and what makes you start seeing a particular car model everywhere when you want to buy one. It’s not that there are more pregnant women, or that more cars of that model happen to drive past on those particular days. It’s just that the RAS is now working for you, making you more aware of the part of your surroundings that interests you at the moment.
As soon as you have a defined goal and are focused on it, the RAS will work for you so you can see all the means within your reach to achieve your objectives. It will make you notice people with similar ideas and give you ideas you didn’t have before.
Focusing on something involves a great deal of sacrifice, because we have to avoid distractions. If you want to learn a new skill quickly, you’ll have to eat breakfast, lunch and dinner thinking about that skill. If you want to start a business, for the first weeks, months and even years you’ll live for the business and nothing else.
That’s why very few people achieve ambitious goals. They’re rarely willing to make sacrifices.
3. Commit and take action
How many times have you said you would do something and then didn’t? You were going to start going to the gym next month, but you never went, or you went for three days and then gave up. You were going to learn a new language, but you quit after a few weeks.
It may also be that you don’t know the difference between being in motion and taking action. For example, say you decide to start a business, so you start getting ready. You look at premises, talk to suppliers, finalise details and so on. The problem is that some people spend years finalising details. They really believe they’re making progress, but the truth is they’re as stuck as someone who isn’t even thinking of opening a business.
It’s as if I say, “I’m going to write an article.” I jot down the topics I could cover, look for sources, new ideas pop into my head and so on. I might think I’m being productive, since I’m working on writing an article; in other words, I’m in motion. But until I sit down and write the first lines of that article, I won’t have taken action.
And you have to be persistent, because even if I take action by writing a few lines, if I don’t keep writing until I finish it and hit the publish button, I’ll have got the same result as someone who never sat down to write an article at all.
Someone who exercises once every two months gets the same health benefits as someone who never exercises. The same goes for dieting. You have to be consistent. You have to be truly committed to the goal. But this brings us to the next point.
4. Work on everything you can work on
First and foremost, you’ll have to work on yourself. Remember that you’re your best investment (or your worst, if you don’t follow through). You need to work on your routines and your disciplines. Remember that having a talent is no use if you don’t put it into practice. Hence the famous saying: “Hard work beats talent when talent doesn’t work hard.”
But we’re not only talking about working at the job itself, but on your habits and disciplines too. You’ll need to build the habit of learning something new every day (reading, courses…). You’ll need morning or evening routines to plan the day’s schedule, and all kinds of other habits. Here are 25 habits of successful people. Remember that your habits define you, and it’s your discipline that makes the results appear.
Success is not something you chase, but something you attract as a result of the person you become.
5. Enjoy the process
Even if we’re repeating ourselves on this point, don’t stake your happiness on reaching a goal. Happiness isn’t a destination to be reached, but an emotional state we can choose. Have fun while you learn, and enjoy every rung of the ladder as you climb.
Be positive at every moment. It has been shown that positive, happy people achieve more than unhappy, negative and bitter people. Although there’s a neuroscientific explanation for it, the truth is it’s common sense.
You can achieve many things, you can succeed or you can fail, but don’t let that define you. If you are what you own, the moment you lose everything material, your existential problems will begin.
So, how do you achieve your goals in life?
Visualise what you want to achieve and picture yourself as if you already had it. Act like the person you want to be. Focus on your goal and avoid distractions. Commit to your purpose, and be persistent and consistent in the steps that bring you closer to that goal. Work on your disciplines and habits, work hard in pursuit of that goal and, above all, enjoy the whole process.
See also: How to radically change your life
Featured image: Wacky1976, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
