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Make Your Goals A Reality
Setting goals in writing is the first step towards achieving them. The next is to develop habits and ways of thinking, believing and acting that ensure they are achieved.
By Michael Jeffreys
It’s not easy. The road to a goal-oriented successful personal and business life is tough with many twists and turns. These eight success secrets that changed the lives of some of the world’s best motivational speakers are the tools you need to dramatically raise the likelihood of attaining your goals and turning your dreams into reality.
Success
Secret 1: Take 100% responsibility for
your life
In a society where people blame everything from their parents to the government for their failure to get ahead in life, successful men and women refuse to buy into the mentality that says: “I could succeed if only it weren’t for…”.
They realise that when you say someone or something outside yourself is preventing you from succeeding, you’re giving away your power to that someone or something. You’re saying: “You have more control over my life than I do!”
Successful people don’t buy into this victim thinking. Rather, their personal credo is: “If it’s to be, it’s up to me!”
Consider Les Brown. Abandoned by his
parents at birth and labelled “educably mentally retarded” by his school
teachers, he had every reason to give up on himself and his dreams. But when a
high school teacher told him that “someone else’s opinion of you does not have
to become your reality”, Brown realised in that moment that his future lay in
his own hands. He went on to become a state legislator and author, and today
earns $20 000 (about R140 000) per hour as one of
What Brown understood was that there are
certain things in life you can’t control, such as nature, the past and other
people. But there are things you absolutely can control, such as your thoughts
and your actions. Taking 100% responsibility for your life is one of the most
empowering things you can do for yourself.
Success
Secret 2: Live your life “on purpose”
What separates superstars from others more than anything else is that they live their lives “on purpose”. That is, they are doing what they believe they were put here to do. These speakers will tell you that the time they feel most alive is when they are on stage, connecting with an audience. Says Wayne Dyer: “Having a sense of purpose in your life is the most important element of becoming a fully functioning person!”
The difference between living your life on purpose and not living it on purpose is like night and day. The latter consists of simply getting through the week with the least amount of problems while expending just enough effort to get by.
But when you live your life on purpose, your main concern is doing the job right. You love what you do, and it shows. Your conviction is as evident as it is persuasive. And you will find that people want to do business with you because they sense your commitment to giving your all.
How do you live your life on purpose? By
finding a cause you believe in and creating a business around it. For example,
Mike Ferry, who was once a top
Success
Secret 3: Be willing to pay the price for your dreams
Wanting a big house, a luxury car or a million rand in the bank is all very nice, but the problem is, practically everyone wants these things. The question is: Are you willing to pay the price to get them?
This is one of the major differences between the successful and the unsuccessful. Successful men and women find out what it’s going to cost to make their dreams come true; then they find a way to make it happen. Most important, they don’t complain about the work it takes to achieve their dreams.
Les Brown has a callous on his left ear. Why? “When I decided to get into speaking, I had no credentials, no reputation, no credibility and no experience. So I had to call a lot of people,” Brown explains. “I called over 100 people a day, day in and day out, to ask for an opportunity to speak to their group.”
You can get practically anything you want
in life if you are willing to pay the price.
Success
Secret 4: Stay focused
Every day, we are bombarded with hundreds of tasks, messages and people all competing for our time. This is why the ability to focus on your goal is so critical to achieving it. Focusing requires giving up some things in the present because you know the time invested will pay off big-time down the road.
When Jack Canfield and Mark Victor Hansen
compiled their first Chicken Soup for the Soul book, they were turned down by
30 publishers. But instead of giving up, they stayed focused on their goal. “We
did three to four radio or newspaper or magazine interviews a day, five days a
week, for a whole year,” Canfield recalls. In every interview, they talked
about why the country needed this book now more than ever.
Eventually, a small publisher called Health
Communications Inc. decided to take a chance and publish the book. It not only
became a number one bestseller, but also hatched an entire series of Chicken
Soup books that have sold more than 10 million copies! That’s the power that
staying focused on your goal can give you.
Spend as much of your day as you can
focusing on achieving your goals and dreams. Every day, ask yourself: “Is what
I’m doing right now bringing me closer to my goal?” If it’s not, do something
that will. Focusing is like any habit; the more you do it the easier it gets.
Success
Secret 5: Become an expert in your field
One striking factor about all 15 motivational speakers I interviewed is how seriously they take their profession. Their drive to be the best at what they do is phenomenal. They’ll do almost anything if they think it will help improve their speaking skills.
For example, Patricia Fripp, who speaks to
Fortune 500 executives on how to become more successful, took a comedy workshop
and hired a private speech coach because she wanted to improve her speaking
ability. Fripp did this after she had already been named “One of the Ten Most
Electrifying Speakers in
If someone followed you around at your
business all day with a video camera to make a how-to tape for people who want
to do what you do, would it be a tape you’d be proud of or embarrassed about?
If the latter, make the decision today to work towards being the best in your
field. How? By studying the experts. The quickest way to become successful is
to find out what the best are doing, then do what they do.
Success
Secret 6: Write a plan for achieving your goals
Taking the time to write out an action
plan, or a map, for how you’re going to achieve your goals is one of the best
ways to get there faster. Brian Tracy, one of
Most people try to reach their goals
without taking the time to write out an action plan. This is like trying to
drive from
Success
Secret 7: Never give up
It may sound simple, even obvious, but when you’re truly committed to achieving your goal, giving up isn’t even an option. You must be willing to do whatever it takes to make it happen.
In the mid-1970s, Wayne Dyer quit his job
as a professor at
Once on the air, Dyer would give out the number of the local bookstore and say that his book was available there. After the interview, he’d quickly drive over to that bookstore, where the manager would say: “Oh, you’re Wayne Dyer? We’ve been getting lots of calls for your book!” Dyer would reply: “Well, I have a case in the car; would you like some?” The response: “Oh, yes! And would you sign some while you’re here?”
By the end of the year, The Tonight Show
was calling him. And by the end of the 1970s, Your Erroneous Zones had become
the number one bestselling non-fiction book of the entire decade. This is what
the power of perseverance can do for you.
Success Secret 8: Don’t delay
In his book Live Your Dreams (Avon Books),
Les Brown recalls talking on the phone one day with a friend named
The lesson here is that
Published 27 October 2009 | Editorial Disclaimer
© Entrepreneur Media SA (Pty) Ltd / Smart Business Solution (Pty) Ltd. All rights reserved.
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