There are only two problems in life: 1. you know what you want but you do not know how to get it and / or 2. you do not know what you want. (David Allen, Getting Things Done)
This article offers you a LOT of content!
Je presents strategies to increase your efficiency, clarify your goals and motivate you to move forward to build the future you dream of!
First of all, here's a little story to ponder …
Once upon a time, he was a farmer.
One day, while walking in the woods surrounding his farm, he found a falcon egg.
He did not know what kind of egg it was.
Not knowing what to do with it, he put it in his henhouse.
The chickens considered the egg as one of their own, and so a falcon was born among the chicks.
Time passed and the falcon grew.
And what became of him?
A hen like the others …
Miming what the hen sisters did, he cackled, ate grain, and never wanted to fly.
The hawk passed his life in this way without anything disturbing his daily life, which he found nonetheless banal and repetitive.
One day, looking up at the sky, the hawk saw a great bird hover majestically above him.
Surprised by this wonderful apparition, he began to dream …
"How lucky this bird is! He thought.
Then he asked the hens what this fantastic bird was.
The chickens said, "This is a hawk, one of the fastest birds in the world. "
And the chickens hastened to add that it was useless for him to want to be like him one day.
He was only a chicken after all …
The hawk gets older and ends up dying without ever dreaming again that he was flying majestically in the sky.
He lived a life of chicken, among the chickens, because he was convinced to be a chicken …
Do not we look too much like this hawk?
We have tremendous potential but we convince ourselves that we can expect nothing better in life.
We let others break our dreams because they have decided to live a banal life and believe that they can not succeed.
We must change our way of seeing things …
Think, choose and … act!
The greatest resource you have for experiencing unlimited growth is your ability to think, choose and take action.
AT they alonethese skills can determine much of what will happen in your life.
These abilities are at the center of your control zone and they guide how you build the life you dream of.
By the time I started building my life in the early 2000s, I had absolutely nothing extraordinary.
I come from a family of the lower middle class, so not particularly rich …
I was average in most facets that do what I am. I had no experiences and few contacts.
I'm no more extraordinary today, but my life is no longer ordinary.
What changed ?
I realized that I could really become what I wanted if I took responsibility for the results I got.
And all that fell very well, because my life did not satisfy me and I felt a real urgency to live!
Today, I realize myself in all the areas that are important to me.
I have a long and harmonious relationship with all the people who are dear to me.
I eat very well and I exercise almost every day, because I intend to live long and healthy.
I published six books (one of my dreams) before I turned 34 and had the chance to be invited several times on radio and television.
My results and salary increase every year and I realize projects that I would never have thought possible to succeed before.
I know how to deal with failure and, the more I take initiatives, and the more I succeed what I undertake.
I do not share this with you to insinuate that I understood everything and that my life is perfect!
I continue to face my fears and I still live unpleasant moments, like everyone …
But I continue my growth every day that will never stop.
I'm talking to you about me because Discipline, learning, managing my negative emotions and getting out of my comfort zone helped me achieve an unparalleled level of satisfaction to which you too have access.
In summary, I just understood that I could get a lot more out of life and life, now, makes me feel good!
Of course, my choices, interests and activities may not be right for you.
This is the reason why you must learn to know yourself well and respect yourself.
To realize you fully, you may also wonder why some people are more successful than others.
The English philosopher Bertrand Russell once wrote that the best proof that something can be achieved is that others realized it before us.
While education and family wealth influence personal success, what we do and how strongly we do it also plays a very important role!
What does it mean?
Simply that you can expect a lot more from your life if you make sure you do the right things, like those who did it before you.
Your future depends on your present
There exists in nature a fundamental law that the human being is very easy to identify (sometimes in a biased way): cause-and-effect relationships.
According to this "law", what you get in the future depends largely on the decisions and actions you take in the present.
So you know that your past does not determine your future.
On the other hand, your present has this fantastic capacity!
Thus, success and self-realization do not happen by chance.
Repeated failures and inaction do not happen by chance either…
Success and failure have specific causes that you can identify and act upon.
Success depends on your ability to focus your vision and energy and combine them with what you are.
To change your future from your present, according to the law of causation, you must think clearly about what you desire and act accordingly to obtain it.
Focus on what you want
Human beings, like other animals, have developed through millions of years of trial and error in evolution.
And one of the "programs" we share with all living organisms is to mobilize in action to do something.
Indeed, without action, without goals, any organism is doomed to die sooner or later.
Giving us a vision, making sense of our lives and deciding what to do next is very effective in motivating us.
In this we are beings teleological (Greek telos which means "purpose"), that is to say that we constantly pursue objectives, that we give meaning to our actions and our life.
Many people commit suicide because they have lost the sense that made them want to live.
So our brain works to continually ask, "What should I do next? "
Unfortunately, just because we ask a question does not mean we respond to it constructively …
Eating junk food and listening to hours of variety shows may be our answer to "What should I do next? "
You probably already have several goals or at least good reasons to wake up each morning.
But by thinking well and searching, you will get several results:
- You will find what are the best actions to accomplish to enrich your life.
- You will find what are the causes that will produce the best effects that you are looking for.
- You will see how much your conviction to succeed your goals feeds your motivation and your success.
- You will also discover how to identify adverse effects on your life and prevent them from occurring by eliminating their causes.
For example, if your income does not satisfy you, you will be able to identify how to get more from what you have or how to increase your income.
Perhaps you will also identify prejudices about personal finances?
In the long run, you will learn from all that you do and reproduce the successes of those who succeed.
The law of cause and effect is simple: if you combine it with your vision, your desire to improve your life and appropriate actions and perseverance, you are doomed to succeed!
But the most important thing to remember about this "law of causality" lies in this: your thoughts and your creativity are your best assets.
They allow you to create new opportunities and find more efficient ways to capture them.
Successful people think differently of people who leave their lives on the shores of despair.
Your way of thinking and believing in yourself is therefore constitutive of your success.
In other words, your life will change because you will change your actions, and your actions will change because you will change your way of thinking.
The scissors effect
I would like to provide you with some clarification about how to direct your vision to achieve the best results.
Think about what is a pair of scissors.
This simple tool is composed of two blades whose arrangement relative to each other allows to cut with precision.
If one of the two blades is missing, or if they are incorrectly adjusted, it is no longer possible to cut.
Well, your vision is the first of these two blades.
And what is the second blade?
It corresponds to the context and the society in which you will live your vision.
A vision is realistic if it is viable according to the context in which it is realized.
For example, when Gaston Lagaffe has the idea to build solar-powered flashlights (vision), he ends up realizing that it will not work!
Since his lamp only works in daylight (context), it is not useful to anyone! 🙂
Its scissor effect just does not work.
The more the two blades of your scissors effect allied with each other and the more you will get good results.
In other words, it's about bringing together the best conditions for success.
To enjoy the scissors effect, you need to know in which direction to move forward according to what is possible.
And one of the best ways to succeed is to first write lists of your goals.
The purpose of this planning is obviously not to predict the future!
It's about helping you identify the strengths that are available to transform your life.
Remember the two blades of the scissors when you set your goals.
I also suggest that you give yourself ambitious goals, objectives that seem disproportionate but that really motivate you.
These goals can even scare you a bit …
What is the problem with giving you such goals? It's all about perception.
Do you believe that Larry Page and Sergey Brin, the founders of Google, fled when they saw their company gargantuan proportions?
Not at all !
For example, you probably can not triple your salary in three months.
But if you see your goals as a game or as a challenge as you go, you will change your frame of reference.
You will seek ways to triple your salary and persevere. After some time, maybe a few years, when your salary will have more than tripled, you will not see your ambitious goals in the same way.
It will not have taken three months, but because you have believed, you will have succeeded.
It is because the human being has the unfortunate tendency not to leave his frame of reference.
We refer only to what we know to make decisions that are often very important.
For example, I know several people who have a job that does not satisfy them, simply because they chose among the possibilities they knew.
By choosing so quickly, preferring ease and security in the short term, they leave out a lot of what life could have offered them better.
Imagine that life is a huge table of food.
If we do not take the time to get to know each other and to know all the resources that society offers us to take advantage of the scissors effect, it's as if we start eating the food at the place where we are.
And when we realize that the table contains absolutely delicious food a little further, we are no longer hungry …
We limited ourselves by staying in our comfort zone.
Ideally, over time, your goals will become reality.
But even if this is not the case, you will find that you have advanced much further than you would have hoped!
Think how much time you would waste if you did not use a list when you go to the grocery store …
You would not know what to buy or you would forget items!
Well, as long as you do not know what to do, you will not do anything.
An exercise to nurture your conviction: Make lists of your goals and actions
To your pencils! Take several sheets and book at least one sheet for each of the following major categories.
Your long-term goals
First, write the goals that are most important to you in the long run.
These are the goals that will bring the most positive results in your life.
They must match your values as they help shape your vision.
It is important to note them first because your short- and medium-term goals will form the steps that will help you achieve these goals in the long run.
And do not be afraid to be ambitious when you set these goals!
If you aim at the stars, you will give yourself the opportunity to touch the sky and perhaps catch the moon.
But if you only aim at the ceiling, you will only catch a light bulb at best.
People who have a long-term, rich vision are the ones who achieve the most and are most satisfied with their lives.
I also advise you to separate each of the important dimensions of your life.
For example, the goals you will achieve for "being perfectly happy at your job" will not be the same as for "living long and healthy".
Separating your long-term goals from each other will increase the clarity of your lists and the accuracy of your actions to achieve them.
Your medium-term goals
This list helps you to clarify what you need to be successful in order to get closer and closer to your ambitious long-term goals.
They are steps by which you must pass to succeed.
For example, if your long-term goal is to achieve you in all facets of your life, your medium-term goals will be about your work relationships, your income, your health, and so on.
These goals may change over time, and that is the beauty of self-realization.
As you go along, you will have some nice surprises and you will find more than you would have hoped!
Your short term goals
Your short-term goals are very important because they rhyme with action.
And without action, something terrible happens: nothing.
The short-term goals are the ones you will achieve in the coming weeks, months, and years.
They lead you to achieve your goals in the medium term.
If you want to improve your working relationships, salary, and health, your short-term goals will be in time and business management, conflict resolution and communication, what you can do, and so on.
And especially, they correspond to clear actions that you can start right now.
Your actions to accomplish
Once you've finished writing your short, medium and long term goal lists, it's time to start making them!
Your actions must focus on making your short-term goals a reality.
List on your list all the most relevant actions to achieve each goal in the short term.
Is there an important person with whom you could reconcile?
Could you read books or search the internet for information that will help you achieve a goal?
Then put these actions in order of priority.
Some of them take time, others are accomplished quickly.
Be sure to juxtapose your actions so that you can make it as easy and efficient as possible.
For example, make sure no action needs to be done before another, otherwise you will lose time waiting or efforts to start again.
Once you have identified your priorities, add a timeline.
The timeline is very important because it tells you whether or not you are moving forward.
I know several people who have given themselves several goals but who do not realize them simply because they do not set a deadline …
Of course, you will review your priorities and timelines as you move forward.
But the most important thing is to start now!
Choose a first action to perform in your list and start it right away.
If you put your goals to the next day, your whole life will be waiting!
Ideally, if you use a computer easily, make these lists directly into text files.
Those who are more advanced with computers can obviously use Microsoft Outlook or Microsoft Project.
Finally, there is a host of free software and mobile applications for time management and free project management.
But this subject is not my specialty, I will not make any suggestions for the moment …
These tools should allow you to easily change the order of items in your lists, erase what is finished and add to the right place what you think as you go.
Also check your lists every day, or at least every week, and pay attention to the goals you are achieving.
You will maintain your motivation!
Finally, do not forget to make any necessary changes to your lists so that they always reflect the reality of your vision and actions.
Strategies such as writing lists of your goals and actions are used by the most effective managers of the companies.
Unfortunately, we often forget this little detail: good management strategies are not just for business people.
All our life can benefit!
If we want to achieve goals but do not worry about them, nothing happens.
This is why lists and deadlines are also useful.
If you learn how to use these tools, you will become your own project manager, and your projects will build your life!
When you start writing these lists, you will quickly see how easy it is to take action.
The process of self-realization will become much clearer and you will know what you have to do to succeed.
Until you make that effort, it will be very difficult to get results that match what you want.
Think like those who succeed!
The least successful people continually think about what they do not like, what they do not want.
They focus on the negative dimensions of their lives, causing them to complain and enjoy themselves as victims.
They are looking for what are the events and the people who are causing their problems.
They take responsibility for their own lives.
This bad habit, far from improving their existence, only makes it worse.
And they usually do not understand why their situation does not improvewhich makes them even more bitter.
In contrast, successful people very often think about what they want and the best way to get it.
This ability to focus on results allows them to get much more than people who victimize themselves.
Better yet, successful people remain positive and optimistic.
Martin Seligman, a researcher in positive psychology, has studied optimism at length.
According to him, optimism is an important key to living a happy life.
Optimistic people are more inclined to take initiatives.
When they fail, they see the problems as specific and temporary.
They then try to settle them.
On the contrary, pessimistic people see the problems and failures as if they were permanent and they generalize them throughout their lives.
They do not want to find solutions …
The more optimistic you are, the more enthusiasm you will have in your companies.
You will also have more energy and you will capitalize more on your resources to succeed and overcome failure.
Your optimism will also nourish your creativity and you will rely on your resources to succeed.
You will become a happier, healthier, richer person, and you will live long to enjoy!
Your dream life
In addition to pessimism, lPeople are often dissatisfied with their lives because they focus too much energy on concerns that do not improve their lives.
They follow the flow and are not proactive.
There are some strategies that will help you achieve success.
Here is one that will finish this article. But I will make you discover others further!
Think about your future constructively
Most Successful People Have a Plan.
This plan corresponds to the vision I mentioned earlier.
The greatest leaders in history all had in common a clear long-term vision.
Like them, you can imagine what your dream life looks like.
Once you have determined your ideal future, it becomes much easier to overcome your fears because you know what to do to succeed.
You also know that you will never reach that fantastic goal if you do not get out of your comfort zone.
You can even write several lists of what you want to accomplish in the next year, within five years, ten years and even 25 years.
This obviously does not mean that everything will happen as you expect, but you will have a direction to move forward, and this direction will allow you to discover yourself and get a lot out of your existence.
Unfortunately, most people do not focus their lives on the future.
They are especially concerned by their present, the immediate gratification of what they do in the day, and by the rumination of the past.
It condemns them to live in the short term and they do not know how to make their lives much more satisfying.
People who focus their lives thinking only of the present and the past are usually confused about their future because they rarely think about it.
And they may even get impatient if you ask them to describe their goals and vision for the future.
To build your life, you must first think about the goals you want to achieve and not about what you have been in the past, especially if your memories are unpleasant.
Think of all the months and years ahead that will allow you to accomplish and not what you can not change and that is in your area of unnecessary concern.
Realize your vision for the future!
In closing this article, I would like to summarize what we have just seen and present an example.
Overall, the steps to achieve you in all facets of your life are four:
- Think big. It's the stage of dreams, imagination and visualization.
- Specify the details of every little action you need to accomplish to succeed. This is the step of the action plan, which helps you direct every effort to get real results.
- Start quickly. This is the stage of action, without which nothing happens …
- Continue each day. It's the stage of perseverance, which helps you learn from your failures and triumph over challenges.
Do not you think these steps are simple?
So why are so few people really getting what they want out of life?
The problem often lies in the concrete actions to be taken to succeed.
Most people have goals, and even ambitious goals.
Take the example of Benoît, who works in a large manufacturing company.
He has been in his job for several years and is approaching the end of his twenties.
Benoit caresses the ambitious goal of retiring at age 55, but he is not doing anything concrete to succeed.
Fortunately, a friend of Benoit knows the importance of financial planning.
He explains that by saving a little each year, and investing, he can not only achieve his dream, but he will precede and retire at age 50!
Benoît immediately realizes that small concrete actions in the present can make a big difference to his future.
So why do not we realize our dreams more?
Because we often formulate beautiful objectives (stage 1), but these remain so general that we never go to the second stage which consists of specifying the concrete actions to be undertaken to achieve them.
These big dreams, because they remain abstract, end up discouraging us.
We consider them inaccessible and soon we forget that we had them …
If you learn to determine a vision for the future, you will also gradually learn how to achieve it.
You will clearly know what you expect from your life and you can explain to others how you are working to make these goals a reality.
You'll know exactly what your relationship, your health, your vision of yourself, your income, your career, etc. will look like.
Your goals will be clear.
And this clarity is terribly important, otherwise you will never know what actions to accomplish to succeed.
Finally, constantly asking yourself the question "How can I achieve my goals and reach my long-term vision" will require you to think about your future from the actions you will have to accomplish.
You will become more positive about your future because each "How? Will bring you closer to your dream life.
The more you ask yourself how to succeed and more you will find ideas to really realize you.
If you liked this article, know that it is from my book Unlimited growth. You can get it in ebook version to read it in full.
Two excellent books that I recommend to go further:
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