The secret or the true formula for success in goal attainment is threefold:
- Visualize your self in the future as you want to be, whatever the goal may be. Visualize clearly, strongly, with all the detail you can muster and involving all the senses (what is the temperature, what does the air smell like, is it night or day, where are you, what are you wearing, how do you look, who are you with, and most importantly, how does being this future you FEEL). Involve your emotions and really feel the realization, the gratitude, the joy of being that you that has attained the goal and hold on to that feeling, this is your motivation for the next steps.
- Make a list of changes you need to make today and into the future to attain the goal, little steps at first, like dividing your goal into smaller parts, ones you can achieve very day. Be honest with yourself and analize all the actions you have done and still do today that have actually taken you further from your goal. Be forgiving and understanding with yourself, negotiate attainable changes that you feel comfortable doing right now. Honesty at this stage is your best policy. There are goals we set for ourselves that are very far fetched and therefore have a high probablity of failure, so we are losing our time and energy in something we are not really willing or able to do. Not that I don’t believe the seemingly impossible cannot be achieved, it can, sometimes by incredibly tenacious individuals. This, however, is not the majority of us. This is part of being honest with ourselves.
- Get doing and changing! Place your modified, realistic list where you see it every day, revise your to do list to include your goal every single day, make it part of your routine, of you. Become that person you envision in the future right now, remember the feeling that accompanies your goal and give yourself time, every night, to revise your accomplishments for the day, the steps you took to be closer to that goal, even if small, savor them, enjoy being one step closer to whom you want to become, being that person. This is your reward for applying yourself, and it is every bit as important as the other two steps. Be grateful for having done whatever you did, even if you could have done more and are not entirely satisfied with yourself, take a minute to be grateful for what you did do. Don’t judge, criticize or put yourself down at this moment. Enjoy this pure happiness and gratefulness for a few minutes before sleeping, if you can, keep this emotion as you fall asleep. This will ensure that you wake up ready and enthusiastic to do some more, and then more and more until you are there!