Most of us have goals, and by and large, we are probably pretty good at achieving most of them. Most of us have dreams, and by and large we only dream about them. Only a few turn their dreams into reality. Simple as it may seem the techniques which you use probably automatically and subconsciously for achieving the small things are the key behind getting those dreams.
Step 1: Stop Dreaming
A dream might be nice to dream about, but think about how much nicer it would be if it were reality. To achieve a dream you need to get out and take concrete action to achieve it. Major projects are divided into stages with performance measures and specific descriptions of how to achieve each stage. Break your goal down to smaller steps. In order to gain your goal you need to know what you can do today that means in six months you have achieved what you thought was impossible. Small steps are easy, jumps are much harder.
Step 2: Just do it
When achieving a goal there are two things which are really hard: the first is starting, the second is continuing. When faced with a daunting goal it is easy to procrastinate. This is one reason why the goal can be broken down into small steps, the smaller the step the less courage necessary to climb it, the smaller the staircase, the easier the climb. If you still lack confidence, think of other times you have done things that you thought you couldn’t and read biographies of people who you admire who have achieved the impossible and see what they overcame. Use other people’s success to motivate your own. Everything is easier once you’ve jumped the first hurdle, you develop pace and momentum. When I go skiing I look up towards the mountain slope and think that it doesn’t look too steep. Then on top of the mountain it suddenly seems much steeper and I ski along the top ridge hesitating to make the first turn, the scary turn. When finally I do, everything becomes easy, I forget about the slope, I forget the fears and doubts and I enjoy the process. The hard part was getting started.
Step 3: Keep at it
At the beginning stages of something new, you always need discipline to maintain it. Work into you plan time off and rewards to maintain motivation. When you have acquired competence in a skill or acquired a certain level of fitness you will start enjoying the activity for what it is. At the initial stages, accept that sometimes you might have to do it even if you don’t feel like it or don’t want it. And if you are having doubts look back at the overall goal and check that it is worth it in the long run. Maintain focus, maintain the bigger picture and get through the rough.
Tips for maintaining motivation
Keep your goals to yourself
Research has shown that people feel like they have achieved more and do less to achieve their goals when they talk about them. It’s fine to mention your goals to friends and family so they know what’s going on in your life, but don’t talk about them too much, stay focused on achieving them.
Make it fun
Find out what sort of things you enjoy and try to organise your goals so that you enjoy the process of achieving them. Many people decide to lose weight and take out a gym membership when gyms often feel isolating and exercises just seem like hard work. A better solution might be to take up a team or club sport which gives you social opportunities and also something to distract you from the hard grind of exercise. If you are doing a sport you enjoy it can also act as another form of motivation to go to the gym. In which case you might end up doing twice the amount of exercise you intended and enjoying all of it. If you are enjoying the process of achieving your goals, you are much more likely going to keep at them.
Keep you goals in front of you
People can be pretty good at ignoring things, but when it comes to goals you need to keep them in mind and remember to implement them. In order to keep my goals in mind I write up the specific goals that I want to achieve over the course of the year, and I write down what I need to do on a weekly basis to achieve those goals. I then put that list somewhere I can’t miss it, so it reminds me throughout the day and throughout the week of things that I have promised myself to do and the overreaching goals which motivate me to do them. I use these goals as the wallpaper on my computer. That way my goals keep me honest to myself.
When flying high, we need to stay grounded in reality.
To help you improve your life, develop meaning and achieve your goals contact Peter.
Copyright © Peter Campbell, NLP Master Practitioner, www.cogniscientNLP.com and Mind Design Ltd www.mind-design.co.nz.
A common misunderstanding is that the best way to deal with a traumatic experience is to talk about it. The idea is that this gets it ‘out of the system.’ Although this is correct to some extent, it is important to understand that some ways of discussing issues can cause trauma and not heal it. There are two types of conversation which are typical when recalling traumatic experiences; one is regressive, the other progressive.
The way we think about events can be altered and changed by how we talk about them. Talking is a way of trying to work through events and understand what that event means to us. However, if we focus on the event as a very real experience which continues to control and threaten our lives, we will often start to feel the symptoms commonly associated with trauma.
Fortunately, there are other techniques which are more useful and safer for people to use. These techniques which are based on Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP) approaches avoid focusing on the event itself and deal with how the recollection of the event is remembered. This technique has been used successfully around the world in trauma cases involving Vietnam veterans, victims of the September 11 attacks in the USA, and genocide and terrorist victims in Bosnia and Russia. The advantage of the NLP approach is that it is a simple method which gets people to mentally rehearse the event in a way that is without the emotional content. By using this technique we can remove the trauma associated with an event, thus making it emotionally neutral and safe.