Training in life is important because it represents having a good nature and opportunity to grow knowledge, feelings, experiences and a fundamental base in ourselves; as well as acquire skills needed to become more effective in life.
I decided to construct the following guide for myself and others, as a follow up to my previous post on refining one's image. Self improvement has always been a deep facet in my lifelong's development.
The first step toward realizing one's dreams, and attaining a unique confidence in oneself, is through setting goals; but actually accomplishing said goals, require taking further actions and confronting a host of challenges. In the following 10 step guide, we'll examine the proven milestones needed for valuable, long-term behavior changes, that lead to success.
1. Have A Goal
Creating a goal is the first essential key for success needed to find personal and professional fulfillment. According to Dictionary.com, goals are defined as, "the object of a person's ambition or effort; an aim or desired result." For instance, it has been a lifelong goal of mine, to one day run my own clothing business." By setting a goal, you are providing yourself with a clear and precise target to aim for. Without having a target to focus on; you can easily find yourself wasting a lot of time, effort, emotions, and mental peace.
There are many benefits to having goals; they help us stay focused on relevant tasks, they rewrite our brains chemistry for learning (called neural pathways) to make better decisions, they establish a strong sense of direction, they highlight what is important, and help set foundations for healthier self-esteem.
SET S.M.A.R.T GOALS
S.M.A.R.T. is a mnemonic acronym, that highlights the specific criteria to help guide how we set goals. Use them as much as you need to increase the chances of achieving your goal.
- Specific: well defined, crystal clear picture of what is being accomplish
- Measureable: system of criteria to monitor the progress toward accomplishing the goal
- Attainable: with in reach, not impossible to achieve
- Realistic: relevant to life's purpose,
- Timely: a clear timeline of start and end date; and any other milestones.
2. Keep Yourself Motivated
Motivation is the inner drive or force of enthusiasm generated toward our needs and desires. The more you want something, the more likely you are to do what it takes to accomplish it. This true in situations where there are external factors influencing the environment. These influences are called: extrinsic motivations. Extrinsic motivations are always external, and short term by nature. Common examples of these motivations are money, physical harm, social opinion, and other outside influences. In situations where money, and even social alienation, aren't enough to motivate a change in behavior. We must fall back onto our intrinsic motivations to help us cope with setbacks and opportunities.
Intrinsic motivation can be understood as the desire to express, challenge, learn and expand oneself. When intrinsically motivated, you'll find that a person is compelled to act for the enjoyment or appreciation; rather than because of external products, pressures, or rewards.
Find Your Motivation
- Use Exercise - Exercise can be a great tool in generating motivation toward other goals by simply hot-wiring your brain, through physical activity, to love hard work. Let me explain. When we exercise, our brain's pituitary gland releases a chemical called endorphins. These little guys (endorphins) trigger our senses to feel more happy and euphoric, often described as the "Flow State". I'll cover that in a later post. For now, remember physical activity can be used to push you closer to your goals. So that means, get active. Swim; cycle; hike; lift weights,.. you get the drift.
- Positive Self Talk - Self-talk is the internal dialogue one has with oneself. No, that doesn't make you crazy. (haha) It is actually very normal for people to talk to themselves, we all do it. Self-talk is influenced by our subconscious mind, and reveals our deepest thoughts, beliefs, questions, and ideas. It's very important to make sure that you speak kindly, and encouragingly to yourself. Remove phrases like; "I can't, I won't, and I'm not." These phrases practically set you up to fail. You may also find yourself being the only person cheering for your success. If that's the case, keep cheering!!! Eventually other will become enamored by your positive attitude, that they'll want to join in.
- Give Yourself Rewards - Also known as self- managed reinforcement, rewarding yourself, is one of the ultimate ways of showing yourself compassionate care, stay motivated, and reinforce desired behaviors. Rewards and recognition are known to improve career longevity, health and wellbeing. They can also lead to more dedicated individuals to their jobs, thats why some of the top leaders of industry, reward and recognize their employees. But why wait for your job or someone else to give you what you deserve. Give it to yourself. You'll love what you're doing even more for it.
- Surround Yourself with Positive People - Surrounding yourself with positive people, is often easier said than done, especially when you live in a major city like New York. Fortunately, it is still very possible to find positive minded and good hearted folks where ever you find yourself. The key is to be positive, in earnest, too. Positive friends and family enhance your positive self-talk, which also helps to manage the symptoms of depression and anxiety. No one person is perfect, but when we come together, we can unlock each others potential for greater fulfillment.
3. Build Self-Confidence
Principles for Confidence Building
Do:
- Be honest with yourself about what you know and what you still need to learn
- Practice doing the things you are unsure about
- Embrace new opportunities to prove you can do difficult things
- Take calculated Risks
- Get feedback when you are looking for it
Don’t:
- Focus excessively on whether you or not you have the ability – think instead about the value you provide
- Hesitate to ask for external validation if you think you need it
- Worry about what others think — focus on yourself, not a theoretical, opinionated, and judgmental audience
- Copy cat someone else and expect the same results. Everyone in life has a unique path, and what works for one, might not work for others.
4. Monitor Your Progress
Progress monitoring can give you vital information to learn more about yourself, and perform more effectively. A simple tracking system, like a calendar, is a great way to keep up to date with the milestones to your goal. Being mindful of your progress toward your goal, helps us stay motivated, and identify what’s working and what’s not.
Ways to Monitor Your Progress
- Create an outline or plan for your goal.
- Make a steady check-in schedule
- Record your data and analyze it
- Change details about your goals, if needed
5. Thoroughly Analyze The Risks & Opportunities
It is very easy to underestimate the level of difficulty associated with our goals; especially when we are on high of self motivation and determination. While being highly motivated and determined, are some of the keys to success; it is important to temper our enthusiasm with realism. You may have heard the saying, "Don't bite off more than you can chew"; the same applies when we analyzing the risks and opportunities associated with our endeavors.
Assessing risk is an essential part of determining how worthwhile a specific goal is, and the best process(es) to mitigate those risks. Risk analysis provides different approaches that can be used to assess the risk and reward tradeoff of your potential goal.
How To Analyze Risks & Opportunities
Developing your skills in identifying risks and opportunities is a key skill needed in just about every sector of industry today. Analyzing R&O (risks & opportunities) have been known to increase awareness of risks across organizational culture, boost confidence toward objectives and goals, promotes more efficient compliance with guidelines.
Here are some tips and tactics I use, when evaluating my risks & opportunities:
- Step 1: Identify the potential unforeseen risks and opportunities for success
- Step 2: Determine the probability of the risks and opportunities you foresee will happen
- Step 3: Determine how deep of an impact these outcomes will have toward your goal
- Step 4: Accept and treat the risk with a well thought out plan of action, to respond to the
- Step 5: Monitor, track, and review the risks. By building a process around uncertainty, you can drastically minimize your overall risk, and improve your chances of success toward you goal.
6. Anticipate Obstacles
Powerful Quotes to Overcome Obstacles
Here are some powerful quotes I use to help overcome obstacles in my life:
- “Convince your enemy that he will gain very little by attacking you; this will diminish his enthusiasm” ~//~
- “Therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? Look at the birds of the air: they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? And which of you by being anxious can add a single hour to his span of life?" ~//~ Matthew 6:25-27
- “Critics are loud, but success is louder.” ~//~
- "1 John 4:4
7. Remind Yourself: "You Are Improving!"
What happens when it seems like nothing is working? For example; you're searching for a job or better employment, and no matter how many versions of cover letters and resumes you send out: no one is responding to you. I know when I experienced this issue, I felt like there was no use to even trying. Then, one day I looked back at my resume, and realized the juicy value brimming from my skills and experience. Sure, no company wanted an interview; but that could be explained by a number of uncontrollable factors that have nothing to do with how much I've grown since I started my career.
The same can be said about you. Everything we do goes somewhere in our learning and development. If we can harness these rivers of natural energy toward our improvement and goals, there is no telling how far you'l go.
Have The Realization
- Avoid cramming too many tasks in one
- Structure and organize your time.
- Pay attention to the details
- Rehearse and visualize
- Focus your attention on one thing at a time
- Take a break
8. Resist Temptation
Admittedly, this is was the hardest step for me to master, personally. Temptation is part of everyday life, and it can approach in a variety of ways. Between social media, the status quo, and the company you keep. Temptation can attack at every angle. The best offense in this situation, is the best defense. YES! A defense of self-discipline. This is when you can allow your ego to run wild. Remember that temptation is the pervasive force that caused the Angels to sin against God, in the bible. To add weight on the scale; the Angels acted on their temptation, fully aware that it will cause their eternal end, and ultimate failure.
Learn from their experience, and incorporate diligence and hard work to stick to your plan or goal. As humans, we are notoriously inclined to inventing ways of negating consequences, in place of massive gain. Often times, the promised gain amounts to nothing in the bigger picture; and leaves us depleted. A study, carried out by Gollwitzer (2018), shows that by transforming our goals into specific contingency plans; i.e. if X event happens, then Y will be my response”. Let's say you want to cut sweets and pastries from your diet. The example would be, “if I see a delicious (x = pastry), then I will (y= avoid) that $h!t, simple. According to this equation, we significantly increase our chances of success by 98.99% from where ever you found yourself before. The strategy produces automatic behaviors. Meaning; we won't have to thing about confronting tempting situations, we just act!
9. Practice Taking Small Steps
For this next step, I'd like to refer to the first of Newton's law's: "An object in motion, stays in motion." Once we get those gears going in our mind, or the blood in our veins pumping to a groovy beat, it is at that moment, we know where we want to go. After that moment of realization, we know that each step along the way is bring us closer to our grand win! These are the small victories.
Nothing is more motivating than the power of having a small victory. As the saying goes, “The journey of a thousand miles begins with one step.” For example, a depressed individual can find the challenges and chores of everyday life overwhelming, but those difficulties can seem less burdensome after getting up from the chair and taking a short walk or a shower. Once a person gets going in the desired direction, it’s easier to keep going. Try it out!
10. Prepare For Regret
Anticipated regret can promote goal achievement by guilt about missed opportunity. It isn't too nice and cordial to feel the sting of an opportunity that got away for no good reason. Jay-z said in a lyric, on his ultra classic first album "Reasonable Doubt","Gotta learn to live with regrets". Now he's a Billionaire, plus. Go Fig. Regret helps people stick to their intentions and be more successful in self-control.
Conclusion
I hope you found this guide to be helpful. As I said earlier, I made this guide for those who want a clean slate at life. It's natural to grow out of old habits, friends, environments, and so on. As long as you remember what you're working toward, every moment should be a win. Please let me know what you guys where able to take from this list. If there are any additional keys that you know and would like to bestow them onto the community; feel free to share in the comments below.
