Success is the progressive realization of a worthy ideal
-Earl nightingale
Do you set goals that you never achieve?
Do you feel your dreams are not going to come true?
Do you get the feeling that something is blocking you from achieving your goal?
If you answered yes in agreement to these questions … you are not alone
According to a survey done by USA Today over 80 % of adults don’t have an overall goal for their life. And for those adults that manage to set goals… only 8% felt they achieved their goals.
Goal setting is the master skill for success in life. However many people fail to set goals in the most important areas of their life.
From my over 2 decades experience of goal setting… one of the reasons many people fail to achieve their goals is …that they don’t feel worthy of the goals they set
You need to have a sense you deserve to achieve your goals
How sad? Because as motivational speaker Earl Nightingale points out you are successful to the extent, to which you feel you deserve a goal that you are pursuing
In order words, your success in life has nothing to do with material possession.
You are successful when you truly pursue what you really want from life
Would you say Mother Theresa, and Nelson Mandela were not successful?
No. Of course these individuals were successful!
Why? Mandela made the dismantling of the apartheid system in South Africa his lifelong pursuit.
He succeeded at ending the apartheid regime in South Africa that led to the establishment of a democratic system of government in South Africa
Do you remember Mandela went to prison for 28 years?
He had the opportunity to renounce his dreams . Nevertheless, because Mandela felt the pursuit of freedom was a worthy cause…He refused to compromise.
That is why Nelson Mandela is a revered icon of freedom globally
Confront the silent critic within stopping you
This brings me back to our discussion today…
Why do you struggle to achieve your goals?
Do any of these scenarios describe you?
- You start a project but give up at the last step…
- You want to start a business… but as soon as you start, something deep down tells you “it’s too risky”
- You think that becoming wealthy is as a result of being lucky
If you agree that any of these statements describes you … you may have the belief that you don’t deserve success
Trust me I have seen my friends and family who have the same belief -that they are unworthy of success.
Here’s how you know…
These individual say one thing and do the exactly the opposite of what they say.
I also had the same mindset until I realized that the only barrier stopping me from achieving the goals I wanted to achieve was within.
Your greatest enemy says an African proverb is the enemy within.
The mind games that you allow your mind to play on you… are stopping from achieving your goals
You may be thinking, “How do you know it’s my mind and not something external blocking me from success?”
Trust me I know because I have had the same experience.
I remember when I was at college. Do you remember those times when you wanted to start dating?
I was shy in asking girls out for dates. I struggled with asking out the girls I fancied because of the voices in my head.
Here are some of the voices I heard any time I took a step towards dating:
“You are not handsome enough”…
“She’s from a wealthy family, what makes you think she is going to go out with you? …
“She’s already dating someone else”
Do these statements sound familiar?
To make matters worse… any time I summoned the courage to ask a girl out, …my tongue would fail me; my heart would be pounding…thump! Thump!
And I‘ll start sweating!
One day fed up living like a wimp. I looked at myself in the mirror.
I don’t know what came over when I shouted aloud …I HAVE NOTHING TO LOSE! “The worse thing any girl could do to me is decline to go out with me”
You see, the moment I asked myself the question… what’s the worse that can happen to me if my proposal was rejected-the voice in my head stopped
What happened next amazed me.
I just started making a list of girls I wanted to go out with then I started asking them.
The result was that I became bold and kept on asking other girls for a date until… I found someone who said yes.
When you confront your doubts about achieving your goals… they melt away as you take bold steps to achieve them….
that is why you must never allow the “silent critic” to dominate your thoughts about achieving your goals
One thing I found was that any time I allowed doubts to stop me from doing something… my mind will find excuses for why I cannot succeed at accomplishing that task.
Change your negative belief to an empowering belief
Let’s now go back to the question: how do you overcome feeling unworthy of the goals you set?
The answer is simple.
Look for the belief that is making you feel unworthy. And replace the belief with a belief that will help accomplish your goals.
For example when it comes to building wealth…it’s the beliefs you have about money that’s stopping you from becoming wealthy
I grew up in a family where they believe that virtually all wealthy people were crooks.
When I was growing up my father used to say things like
“money does not grow on trees” …“You know Mr. X…he is a crook.
“I will rather be an honest man than lose my integrity because of money”
As I grew up I decided I wanted to be wealthy. Because I could see that I was better off wealthy than being a poor person.
So I had to confront the beliefs that was blocking me from reaching out to build wealth
You too can do the same. You can use a simple method I learned from a mentor Dr.Joe Vitale.
Here’s how it works.
You take out a sheet of paper and divide it into 2 columns. Next, you write on one side the belief you think is the obstacle to achieve your goal. On the other side, write the benefit of this belief
| Belief | Benefits of belief |
| Investing is risky |
|
When you look at the belief that investing is risky, you’ll see that there are merits to having this belief…
However the question you must ask is : how does this belief help me in achieving my goal of become wealthy?
The answer is not really. Because this belief will hinder any conscious effort to work on building wealth
The solution is find a belief that support your goals to build wealth
For example, I will come up with statements like
“I would rather invest than remain poor”.
“I choose to be rich because I can help many people and take charge of my future wealth”
You can see that by choosing a positive and empowering belief …you’ll be able to remove the psychological block to building wealth
In summary, you can achieve all your goals without fail when you believe that you deserve to achieve them.
The two things you must do when you feel. there is a block from within is:
Confront the doubts and fear holding you back from achieving your goals.
And also look for and eliminate the negative beliefs that may hinder you from achieving them