To achieve anything in life, you need to have the right mindset. You need to work towards it. Otherwise, nothing will come your way. People who have achieved their dreams tell of how they visualized it in their minds first. How they worked towards it overcoming many trials and tribulations along the way until they triumphed.
Here are ten steps on how to do it.
1. Identify Your Dream
Single out what you want to achieve. You cannot achieve what you don’t know, so ask yourself questions. What’s it you want to achieve? Why? How will you feel on when you achieve it? You can even write the questions down and your answers to them. Once you identify your dream, you can then proceed to the next step.
2. Create a Positive Desire to Achieve
Without a positive attitude, your mind will always be riddled with self-doubt. Eliminate this by believing firmly that you will achieve, that you have everything it takes to make it. Tell yourself again and again that you are going to triumph. A desire to achieve fires up all the engines in your mind and you will find yourself performing extraordinarily. It creates in you an active attitude towards success.
3. Set Realistic Goals
The next step towards achieving is to set clear goals. Remember your dream is no longer a dream now but a tangible goal that you are aiming at. Write them down and formulate ways you will use to achieve them. Make them short term and achievable. Short term goals will give you the confidence to soldier on every time you achieve.
Long term goals, on the other hand, might make you lose focus and give up along the way when you don’t see measurable progress. You can even break down a long-term goal into short phases. This way, you are likely to gauge how well you are progressing.
4. Make Plans
Create a plan on how you are going to execute your goals. It will help a lot if you write down the plans. This way, you will be able to stick to the plan and avoid doing things haphazardly. Allow for different strategies, so you aren’t tied to one particular way of doing things.
5. Take Action!
After you have made up your mind to achieve something and you have created a plan how to, it’s now time to get down to work. This is the most crucial part of achieving your dreams. If you don’t start, nothing will happen. Delaying will likewise not yield any positive results. It’s now or never. Avoid the temptations to shelf your plans until time is favorable, there’s never a favorable time. Start as soon as possible, and maintain positive energy all through.
6. Have Role Models to Emulate
The world abounds with people who made it. It’s often easy to get information about how they did it. They have books they have written about their lives. Or you can use the internet to research about them. From them, you will draw inspiration.
Try to see if their paths were similar to yours. Perhaps you can learn a thing or two from their success stories? But bear in mind that you cannot be them. Situations are always different, and so are your thoughts. Their stories should only act to inspire you to work hard toward your goals.
7. Eliminate Fear and Accept Shortcomings
Fear of failure is the most common cause of failure itself. Remember when you were learning to ride a bicycle for the first time? The fear that you wouldn’t make it caused you to actualize failure. It’s the same in life. And one single failure along the way shouldn’t be cause to doubt whether you will make it. Abandoning ship just because there was a hurdle on the way will never take you to your destination.
If a shortcoming happens, rectify it and move on towards achieving your dream. It will never be smooth, and the secret is never to give up. Better still, learn to count achievements rather than failures.
8. Take Time Aside Every Day to Listen to Your Inner Self
Times of solitude are great to help you meditate. You will be able to delve into your mind and reflect on your life. Solitude revitalizes your brain and charges it up to face life. Just a few minutes to yourself every day is enough. Take this time to reflect on how everything concerning executing your plans is going. Have you relaxed in your momentum? Is there anything you are not doing right or according to set plans? Asking questions like these will help to keep you on track and prevent you from deviating from your initial action plan.
9. Believe In Yourself
The biggest danger in any plan to achieve success is beginning to self-doubt your capabilities along the way. This happens if you begin to view yourself negatively or as a result of low self-esteem. It might be caused by slow progress in achieving goals especially if you had set high targets.
Whatever happens, don’t give up. You can relax the targets a little, but let them still stand. Examine circumstances that led to this. Don’t allow yourself to feel like you are one circumstance yourself. Some happenings might be beyond your control. The secret is to keep going no matter what. Remember the adage that’ only losers quit’? Believe that you will make it.
10. Stick to Your Plans and Avoid Temptations to Quit
Most ever don’t ever attain their goals because they quit along the way. Yes!, working towards your dreams will never be easy. It calls for dedication. Sometimes it may turn out to be stressful.
You might be tempted to turn to bad habits like drinking to release the stress. Or non-stop partying. These will only cloud your judgment and focus, and your dreams will remain just a pipe dream. To relax, get yourself busy with a hobby like music, dancing or playing your favorite musical instrument. But stay focused to achieve your goals.
With the right plan of action, anyone can achieve their dreams. It all depends on how focused you are towards it, how hard you work to make it happen and how consistent you are in reaching the goal line.
Originally published at medium.com