Have you ever wondered how some people have
everything that they dream of, whilst for many others their dreams simply remain
a fantasy?
Fortunately, it's not a question of genetics,
upbringing or luck. It's simply down to the thinking strategies that we use.
Here are some quick tips on how you can improve
your thinking strategies to help you turn your dreams into a reality:
- Identify what's important to you
If a goal is in line with your values, you get the energy, motivation and inspiration that leads you towards your goal.
Most of us have experienced this type of energy
and motivation at some time in our lives when we’re doing something that we
truly love and that no-one has to tell us to do.
Whilst it may seem obvious to align your goals
with your values, it’s surprising how few people take the time to truly identify
their values and use them to help them move towards the things that they truly want
in life. Because people spend so little time aligning their goals with their values,
they end up having a high failure rate when it comes to actually achieving them.
You only have to look at the setting of New
Year's resolutions to see this in action. People set New Year's resolutions with
such good intentions and convinced that ‘this year’ they will be achieved. But
how many of these resolutions are achieved? Have you set New Year's resolutions?
Think about how many you actually achieved. Was it a lot? Or was it only a few?
What do you think the difference was between the
resolutions that you achieved and the ones that you didn’t?
If we have a greater understanding of our
values, set our goals in line with them, and address some
of the other key areas listed here, we are rewarded
with the energy, motivation and inspiration to make our goals happen.
- Optimise how you use your time
To optimise your time working on, and towards,
what you want, you must first gain a greater insight into what is important to
you (we’re talking about values again!). Once you’ve identified what’s
important to you, you must then distinguish between the activities that you do,
identifying which are important to you, which are urgent and
which are neither.
In my experience this is not a regularly
practiced technique. Too many people are reacting to what’s happening in their
lives, rather than taking control of what’s happening and what to do, and quite
often leave important tasks until they become urgent. You’ll see examples of
this throughout your day. Are you leaving the paying of bills until the last
minute or are you working for a demanding boss or chaotic organisation. This
reactive approach to tasks can lead to a sense of near-permanent overwhelm.
Once you understand which tasks you’re spending
your time on, and which ones you should focus on to achieve your goals, you’ll
find that the number of important goals that you achieve will increase and be achieved
more quickly than you first thought possible.
- Start with what you have now, and with the end
in mind
Now that you have established goals that are in
line with your values, identified the actions you need to take and optimised
your time so that you can work on your priority actions, you still need to take
the most important step in achieving any goal – you need to make a start. No
destination will ever be reached without taking the first step.
Waiting until everything is perfect before
starting on a goal is one of the biggest sources of procrastination for people.
It’s important that you start working on your goals with what you have, and
where you are now.
Keep your goal in mind, and make sure you stay realistic
about what you can achieve with the resources that have right now, and how long
your goals could take. Thinking you can achieve your goals in a very short space of time, or without the necessary resources, will soon lead to disappointment,
which will turn to frustration and little or no significant progress, and which
can ultimately result in you giving up on your goals and dreams.
At the end of the day, we have 3 main resources:
Our energy (both physical and mental), our time, and our money. It’s important
that we learn how to make the best use of these resources, and how we can target
them to help us to achieve the goals that are important to us.
Whilst we can plan our goals and the action
steps that we think we’re going to need
to take to achieve them, no amount of planning will cater for every
eventuality.
Many people see unplanned challenges as problems that prevent
progress and the achievement of their goals, and they soon start feeling
frustrated before eventually giving up.
People that achieve their goals are
not put off by these events, they see them as being ‘on the way’ to achieving
their goals, rather than ‘in the way’. They view challenges as exciting parts
of the process, and opportunities to grow and develop personally. They allow
these challenges to provide them with the energy to get through the challenges
and help maintain them on course towards achieving their goal.
With the right mindset,
the journey to the achievement of your goals can be viewed as one opportunity
after another to reinforce your ability to succeed.
- How you use your imagination
All human beings are blessed with incredibly
powerful imaginations. However, many people spend their days imagining negative
outcomes of the future. Imagining
negative outcomes leads to worry, stress and fear and that drains you of your
energy and motivation.
Imagining a positive outcome of the future
releases more of the energy and motivation that you need to succeed at your
goals.
The good news is that the structure that we use
in our minds to imagine negative outcomes is the same as that which we use for
imagining positive outcomes!
With the right level of self-awareness and
conscious action, you can start to use your skill of imagining negative events
and generating fear, stress and worry, to start creating images of positive
events and outcomes that generate excitement and anticipation and which can
help propel you towards your goals.
When forming your goals, it’s essential that you
consider more than just the end result that you’re trying to achieve.
It’s important that you also have a compelling view of what you will ‘lose’ when you
achieve your goal.
Many times the likely loss will be holding you back from
achieving what you want because you haven’t adapted your thinking around the
loss. As a result your subconscious holds onto the fear of your ‘loss’ and ends
up pushing your goal away.
Let’s imagine you had a goal to learn a particular
skill, but you also had a fear of failure. As soon as you set your goal to learn
the new skill, you might start to worry that people will soon be asking you to use
your new skill, only for you to fail. Acquiring the new skill can mean that you
‘lose’ your sense of comfort with your current situation. And the fear of this
loss can sabotage your efforts towards achieving your goal, even though you may
be convinced that the goal is in your best interests.
When you factor the perceived
loss into your future vision, along with what you will achieve, your chances of
success are increased considerably.
- Believing that what you want is both possible
and that it is for you
Many people hold negative beliefs about whether
their goals are achievable, and
even whether they really deserve to achieve their goals.
It’s important to overcome any negative and
limiting beliefs, or you’ll sabotage the end result before you’ve even started.
Fortunately, we’re not born with our beliefs, we’ve picked them up over time from our
parents, the people around us and the information that we’ve taken in, and the negative
beliefs that we developed through childhood and into the present moment can be changed.
Take the time to identify your beliefs, and see
which one’s might be holding you back from achieving your goals. Once you’ve
identified a limiting belief, you can then start to work on changing it to a
more empowering belief, one which will not only help you to achieve your goals,
but which will propel you to achieve them faster than you ever thought
possible!
