Or at least provide you with the best chance of doing so. It’s no secret that times are hard right now for much of the Western world. The economic situation is dire for many folks and that doesn’t include the social maladies and many other disharmonies taking place across the lands. Much of the advice of the generation previous to ours and one above can seem trite or even foolhardy anymore, and it often is.
Just keep your head down and good things will happen, hard work pays off, you get what you put in, however you can do all of those things and still end up with jack to show for it. It sort of remind me of those preachers who talk about how they prayed and good cured their malady/money came to them/whatever. And then they preach how to do the same.
Except they were saved by happenstance or privilege or some combination of the two. Not because of what they did. The same can be said of much of the advice of those that came before. A combination of good economic times, stable politics, and well, privilege allowed many to live a life that they did not work for. Now that’s not to say that there aren’t still many of those around or that we are all blameless or anything of that matter.
Nor is it to say that hard work doesn’t pay off or things of that nature. Simply that the picture is far more complicated than it used to be. Sort of like with dating advice. But that’s a horse we won’t be beating today. Simply put things are different.
But then they are also the same.
How To Get What You Want Out Of Life
Or at least get as close as you can. There is a virtuous cycle of success that the more you stay on the further that you go. Now the issue is, that many were born low on this cycle and have far longer to travel than others who were born high on it. Even if the ones who were born high on it do nothing and squander the gift that they were given. This virtuous cycle is made up of three distinct parts. The first is having a goal. Now I know you’ve heard about goal setting before and heard about how important it is.
It’s normally the first thing any ‘success’ type of literature talks about and with good reason. It works, well it works when there are other things that go along with it, like consistent action. But even then that’s not enough of it’s own, which we’ll talk about later. The other things will goals is that they have to be done a certain way to have maximum effectiveness. SMART is a good acronym that I’ve seen used alot.
Essentially a SMART goal is a goal that is
Specific – Meaning not “be a better person” or “have a better job”. Better ones would be “get a charity up and running” or “have a job that pays 10$ more than current.”
Measurable – Has to have numbers or meaning attached. Not “do better at competition” but “win 80% of my matches” or something of that regard.
Achievable – If you’re 4’3 then being an NBA player is never going to happen. Likewise with the goal above if you “win 100% of matches” that’s not going to happen. Though it’s good to have in your mind.
Relevant – Know your “why”. Why do you want to achieve this goal. Write it out, feel it, visualize achieving it. Is it relevant to your overall long term goals? If not, then why not?
Time Bound – There has to be a completion date. This is both for you and your subconscious. Without a time stamp this will be “whenever” instead of a set time. So there will be no urgency to your mind or yourself. There needs to be a time when you want to have this goal achieved by.
One More Thing Concerning Goals
Write them down and look at them everyday. Yes, you’ve heard that before. But it’s very important. You have to look at your specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, time bound goals each and every day. Have them front and center. Write them out with pen and paper not with an electronic device. There’s power to writing them out. Then think about what needs to be done each and every day to achieve those goals. You should have big goals, medium goals, and small goals.
Big goals generally take a year or two, medium goals measured in months, and small goals measured in weeks. You should also have daily goals. Meaning the night before you should write out everything that you want to accomplish the next day. Yes, this is a lot of writing and tracking and yes it takes time and effort.
But pleasure tell me you didn’t think you’d be able to ‘accomplish all your goals and live the life that you want without effort’ because that’d be crazy.
Right?
Anyways that covers the first part of
How To Accomplish All Your Goals And Live The Life That You Want
Next week we’re going to cover part 2 which should cover the next 2 parts of the success machine.
Until Next Time,
-Charles Sledge
