So we’ve covered it all…or just about. You have the basics of what it takes to achieve just about everything that you’ve ever wanted. You have the four quadrants covered, at least in theory, and are working day by day to get them covered in reality. You’re working on yourself physically, mentally, spiritually, and monetarily. You have an exercise system and diet going well. You spend time in nature and meditate. You read books and write.
And so on and so forth. What now? Is that all it takes to achieve almost everything that you’ve ever wanted? Not quite. There’s still a final part that we have to address to bring it all together. Right now you essentially have a rocket that’s fueled up and ready to go. Ready to take you to the places that you want to be.
What you need now is the ignition. The thing that’s going to set it off and place it on the right course to achieving almost everything that you want to achieve. But what is that ignition and how powerful can it truly be?
Let’s get into it.
The North Start Of Success
Even when you have all your bases covered, all the quadrants mastered, you can still fail to get anywhere without this one thing. This one thing is goals. Big overarching goals as well as day to day goals that build up to something bigger. Earl Nightingale said that success is “The progressive realization of a worthy goal.” meaning that success is working day by day and step by step to achieving a worthy goal.
But without a worthy goal all the hard and smart work in the world won’t add up to much. You have to have a north star, something that focuses your efforts and drives them all towards something worthy. What your north star is or may be will be different from mine and different from everyone around you. We all have a unique north start or at least the path required to get there.
And it has to be specific for it to have power. You can’t just say “I want to be a success.” because that has no true meaning. What does “success” mean to you? What is the personal definition to you. Visualize what success looks like to you. What does it feel like? Make a picture in your mind of success. Then bring that into definable terms. Put it in a sentence.
“I want to make six figures and live in area X by 20XX” or something like that. You have to put it specifically so your mind can get it and make sure that you’re working towards it. Have a big audacious goal that’ll serve as your north star, but don’t stop there because there’s another part to goals you have to master.
Brick By Brick
Goals are not achieved overnight, neither is success or anything else that is worthy of pursuit. They are achieved through daily consistent action over a long period of time. Put another way, goals are achieved through the right habits. Habits are what make up your day to day life and how you spend your time. Put bluntly, they control your entire life. Have good habits and you’ll be a success, have bad habits and you’ll be a failure.
What you do day by day is what determines where your life ends up. So when you look at what your big overarching goal is you have to then break it down and see what daily habits are needed to achieve it. We did this a little bit in previous sections with making daily habits that cover the four quadrants. Now we just need to make sure we take into account what our big overarching goal is and make sure that it’s getting covered.
Which will take research, learning, and time. Big goals are complicated by nature and take many different factors to bring about success, not all of which are under our control. So we need to sort out and find the things that we do control and make sure that we have them covered. We need to make sure we are cultivating the daily habits that’ll take us where we want to go all the while pruning the bad habits that take us off track.
But don’t try to do this all at once, you’ll get overwhelmed and fail. Take one bad habit and one good habit. And work on that. It’s best if they sort of work together. For example taking one bad habit and replacing it with a good habit. Let’s say you mindless browse social media when you wake up instead force yourself to read a few pages in a book for that time. Whenever you remove a bad habit you need to fill that vacuum with a good habit.
Otherwise you’re setting yourself up for having a hard time.
Quadrants & Goals
There you have it, the best guide that I can provide in the space allotted for achieving almost everything that you’ve ever wanted. It is foolproof? No, but nothing is. Is it guaranteed to work? Nope, not at all. But it should give you the best shot at achieving the things that you want in life. And as with everything, remember, this is the start, not the end. I have not laid out the end all, be all guide to everything.
Use this as a starting point, a jumping off point, to give you a head start on your journey. Nothing less and nothing more. You’ll never have to stop working, learning, and growing as you move down the path. But that’s the journey and in the end, it’s worth it.
If you’d like advice beyond this or a more detailed guide you can sign up for my coaching program. Regardless I hope the information here helps you and as always, thanks for reading.
-Charles Sledge
