Five Little Tips to Help You Achieve Your Big Goal How to make it happen Justin Hartfield
1. Create a visual reminder of where you want to be
In order to achieve your wildest dreams you first must be able to visualize them, literally. Make a mental picture where you imagine yourself at your goal. What would you look like? What would you be like? Where would you be? Going one step further - keep a physical reminder of your goal. If you're on a diet, go out and buy jeans four inches too small. If you want to be wealthy, buy a Ferrari keychain. Hang the object up in a place which you will look at everyday. Whenever you need strength or inspiration, you can look to your goal, visibly and tangibly.
2. Allow yourself to cheat, responsibly
The secret to diets or any other regimented plan is to utilize the 80% rule. If you're on your diet 80% of the time and cheat only 20%, you will be successful in losing weight. In fact, you will be so successful and will enjoy losing the weight so much you will find yourself cheating less and less. The feeling of accomplishment can be extremely addictive. Use this to your advantage. Get over the burden of perfection when you undertake on a grand journey toward your chosen path. The most important part of reaching your goal is to actually take that first step. Some people have to be completely prepared to undertake a new project for fear of failure. What they don't realize is that preparation is acting as crutch to shield their egos from failure. It has been said that the best quality to have in a salesman is speed of implementation, e.g. how fast they can integrate new ideas into their sales pitches. Keep in mind that the first steps build the momentum you need to automatically engrain your new lifestyle and become exactly the person you want to be.
3. Slow down and enjoy the process
The challenges and difficulties which may seem unbearable to you right now have solutions. Everything eventually works out perfectly, if people would only let it sometimes. There is a life lesson to gleam from every bump along the road toward your goals. Winston Churchill once said, "Once in a while you will stumble upon the truth, but most of us manage to pick ourselves up and hurry along as if nothing had happened." Enjoy the trappings of early failure. They will be easy to laugh at later, just as you can laugh when you think about the first time you tried to swim or ride a bike.
4. Responsibilities which distract you from your goal must be eliminated
Rest assured, there will be individuals and events which attempt to impede you on reaching your goals. The solution is obvious: eliminate them. Alas, when it comes to real life, few things are so simple. The barriers to achieving your goals must be at least limited, however, if you are to have any hope of achieving a real permanent change. If your goal is to work out everyday for 45 minutes, then you must do everything you can to make sure you work out everyday for 45 minutes. Make it compulsory for yourself, like going to work or eating or breathing.
5. Use humor as your tool to overcome failure
Realize that the process to becoming the person of your dreams is a lot easier when you can laugh at yourself. Reflect on your successes and take pride in those accomplishments, let them be a source of future inspiration, but also reflect on the failures. Learn from them and share them to anyone with an open mind. They will laugh with you and respect you more; not only for trying but also for sharing your personal shortcomings so candidly. The man who can laugh at this own failings is a powerful man, indeed.
