When we are 20 years old and in college, most students are thinking about parties and their grades with maybe a sense of knowing what they want to do in graduate school. My case, however, was very different because my mother died in my arms a few weeks after I turned 19 which was a traumatic experience for me but didn’t deter me from wanting to become a medical physician. Only 18 months later during my final year of college, I found out my father has stage 4 cancer and less than 4 weeks to live. I couldn’t believe that I was going to lose both of my parents before I was twenty-one. I went into denial and believing my father was invincible whilst doing everything I could to alleviate his pain and look for solutions but tragically he died in my arms as well before I could finish college and have him see me graduate.
My parent’s death greatly affected me and left me with a sense of void and directionless in what I wanted to do and who I wanted to become. A few years later I met my wife who introduced me to reading books for growth vs fiction novels (which I never read for years). I came across a book called think and grow rich and how it was important to have a burning desire for your goals and a definite plan. I was hooked, it was the first time in years I felt something inspired me and gave me a sense of direction, you could say it aligned with me.
My wife also taught me to write down my goals because writing the goals is more impactful as I am building more neurological pathways through multiple senses vs just saying them or reading them. She told me that a dream isn’t built in a day but it will remain a dream if I don’t work towards it every day and see it as something possible. I believe dreams are something we wish and seem intangible but a goal is something we believe we can achieve by taking action towards it for it has to be specific, tangible so we know we have achieved the result. So I took a simple act of writing my goals daily and taking action every day to build momentum towards my goals.
A few years later I met a mentor of mine who is one of my closest friends and he told me to write my goals out a minimum of 5 times a day or whenever my state wasn’t in its peak state which meant I would have renewed strength, focus and put my energy towards thoughts of working towards my dreams vs being taken by the problems of the day and this concept allowed me to grow my business exponentially every quarter.
Another simple lesson and one of the most powerful if not the most powerful lesson I ever learned from my wife who is always happy is to reflect upon your progress and be grateful that we have become better off in some way. We are so busy in our daily lives and often our forget the little victories we have throughout the day which not only builds our self-esteem but programs our mind towards success because the little victories were challenges before they were solved. This mechanism also passes on to larger challenges with greater rewards which all contributes towards the momentum of our goals on a daily basis.
One of the best books on this to support the little victories and to build self-esteem and confidence in order to achieve the goals is Psycho Cybernetics. I believe anyone can utilize these 2 principles on a consistent basis will change their lives within months not years. We tend to overestimate what we can do in a year but underestimate what we can do in a decade.