All of us have aspirations for the future. But what makes causes some of us to achieve them and some of us to always fall short?
There are many reasons:
1. Lack of perseverance: Goals take time to achieve. It is common for people to lose interest just at the point when they are meant to try harder.
2. Fear of failure: Many people have a disproportionate fear of failure and humiliation. This causes them to either stall or not do everything in their power because in their minds the fear of failure outweighs the pleasure of possible success
3. Unwillingness to work without rewards: Sometimes, achieving a tough goal requires the ability and the willingness to keep working when results seem meagre or absent. There are no guarantees. Those who want proportionate rewards for all their efforts will certainly lose heart and consider the lack of outcomes to be unfortunate and their effort to be misdirected.
4. Negative self talk: Wrong thought patterns can be demotivating.
All of us face the above issues. But still, some people progress while others don’t. The difference is the mind-set that makes some stay positive and some negative.
Having a positive mind set has the single biggest impact on your goal fulfilment. Here are 10 things one can do to stay positive:
1. Begin with the end in mind: Have a goal and align all efforts around the goal. You feel dissipated when you are working hard and don’t know towards what end.
2. Understand the why of it? They say if you want to cross the sea, don’t look at ship plans. Instead, develop a passion for the sea and its depths and wonders. Always dig deep and solidify the ‘why’ of your work? On low days, the remembrance of this ‘why’ will keep you going.
3. Have a plan and execute it: Once you state a goal and the ‘why’ you must break the goal down into a daily plan. Without a plan, you are like a ship on a sea with no course or map.
4. Your routines define your success: Goal fulfilment doesn’t come down to what you do once in 3 months. It comes down to what you do every day. Watch your thoughts very carefully for these become your routines which in turn become your work. Unproductive thoughts = unproductive routines = lack of progress on goal.
5. Stay in the company of people better than you: Surround yourself with an immediate circle of people who share and feed your aspirations. Avoid people who are cynical or unambitious. They will drag you down.
6. Be a problem-solver: Faced with a hurdle while chasing your goal? Don’t ask “why?” Instead say “What can we do?” Always focus on action to seek a solution. Never dwell in the problem and panic or resort to self-pity.
7. If you are upset, don’t be for too long: Setbacks are par for the course. Expect setbacks and don’t let them bring you down. It’s OK to vent once in a while. But later, try to analyse the situation and find out what can be improved. Do not stay upset for too long and do not come out of it without a lesson to pre-empt the problem.
8. Progress is > perfection: Countless plans have been abandoned because the doer was unhappy with the way things were and waited for conditions to be perfect. In truth, nothing and no one is perfect. Things are forever imperfect and in a state of flux. The secret is to start somewhere and grow by 10% every day. A job well done today is better than a possible perfect job tomorrow.
9. Live in the now: The past is full of regret. The future is full of anxiety. NOW is the only place that is in your control and where you can be productive. When you begin the day, you think of all the work there is to finish and you feel anxious. Instead break your day into 8 hours. In this hour, focus only on what needs to be done now. Stay this way, hour after hour. 8 hours later, what looked tough is completed!
10. RESET on a daily basis. Schedule sufficient time for self-care or ‘Me time’ to rejuvenate. For some people it is listening to music, hanging out with friends, for some it is a good workout in the gym or a jog in the park. Do whatever you need to do to refocus and –RESET yourself to a fresh state every day and every time you need to do it.
About the Author:
Sandhya Reddy is a Life coach and Leadership coach based in Bangalore, India. She is the Founder and Principal Coach at Chapter Two Coaching, a coaching consultancy that enables everyone from CEOs to work-from-home parents to achieve their goals by replacing self-imposed limitations with enabling stories.
Sandhya, a life coach in Bangalore, who runs a life coaching academy, can help individuals with a desire for change to examine their beliefs – or their ‘stories’ – and change them for the better, so they can achieve their goals.
Many of us in our thirties experience a disquieting realization: what brought us to middle-management may not take us to senior-management. This is true. To chart a new career path, one needs to think and do things differently. This is where Sandhya can help. She is a coach. Life coaching, executive coaching, personality development, leadership coaching… they are all part of her forte. Her Executive coaching programs helps tomorrow’s leaders set new goals, make new plans to achieve those goals, get that elusive promotion through a blend of knowledge, action and image-building, enhance influence among the leadership team, be more productive, get more out of one’s team, and be known in the company as an indispensable performer and future leader.