Getting What You Want
It’s the first week into the New Year. If you’ve set yourself goals and resolutions for the New Year, ask yourself this question for each of them “Do I really want this or am I just wishing for it to happen?”
There’s a big difference between wishing for something and wanting something. Check it out for yourself - think of something you wish for and something you really want.
For most people, wishing is rather “wishy washy” - they hope it will get it, but don’t really believe it will happen. In fact, what they wish for feels out of reach.
On the other hand, when they think of something they want, they experience a sense of urgency, and feel more actively involved in getting the outcome (as opposed to the wishy wishy “maybe if I’m lucky” mindset).
Wanting is a good start to achieving your goals, but it’s not enough to get you what you want. You’ve got to gather information and think through how you can get what you want. This essentially involves planning how to achieve your goals.
Planning is great but there is a further step that must not be missed if you want to achieve your outcomes. And that is that to “take action”, or in less cliched terms, you’ve got to do something about it. This includes a series of things you do over a period of time. You may not know all the steps you need to take when you start, that’s OK. It’s important to take one step at a time with your end outcome in mind. If you don’t have all the information or skills you need, get help. In this day and age, resources are plentiful. You just need to find them - be it people, information or skills.
It’s only after taking the various steps and being flexible as you go along will you eventually get what you want.
Where do most people fail? They don’t move from the wanting phase to the gathering information and planning phase. Or they bogged into the detail of over planning and fail to transition to executing their plans.
If you know what you really want, plan how to get there, take the necessarily steps (and be flexible enough to incorporate new information, overcome set backs, learn new strategies, etc), you’ll be well on your way to achieving your goals.
June 23rd, 2008 at 12:10 am
I couldnt agree with you more!
” The only thing that stands between a person and what they want in life is the will to try it and the faith to believe.”
My acting coach once shared the above quote with me and its stuck with me ever since.
A lot of people tend to underestimate their abilities and tend to be afraid to go after their goals in life.
June 23rd, 2008 at 12:15 am
Or they set a goal but dont seem to excute any action into attaining the goal.
So yes, Action is KEY!