Top 5 Reasons Your Goals Remain Out of Reach

“Get busy living, or get busy dying”—Shawshank Redemption

The above is one of my all time favorite quotes and the scary part for me is that too many people don’t know that those are the only two options. There is no standing still in this life. As a success coach, I have heard all the reasons (or should I say excuses) why people remain stuck in an unfulfilled life. In this very special report I outline the top 5 and what you can do to get out of your own way and get busy creating the life you deserve.

Issue #1: The Loser’s Limp or I “Tried” But It Didn’t Work

The question is, did you do what was required to achieve said goal? Almost everyone, after honest reflection would answer “no”. Most people go looking for a quick fix to the most pressing issue in their lives. If it’s a weight issue, they jump on the latest fad diet that promises “change nothing and lose 50# by next Friday” or “this program will make a million $ for you with no effort”. Yes, we all want the issue solved now, however it took a long time to get here and there is no quick fix. The thing is most of the products and programs available for whatever ails you can be the answer, they were for the person who developed them. The problem is the implementation, which is where we have to have discipline and support. Once you decide to commit yourself to the goal, put a mastermind group together or start working with a coach this will allow you to do rather than just try.  Here is a simple exercise for you, it illustrates the difference between “trying” and “doing”.  Take a pen, set it on the table in front of you and “try” to pick it up.  Notice I didn’t say pick up the pen, I said “try” to pick it up.  No matter what we say, it is impossible to “try” anything.  You either pick up the pen or you don’t, this is as true with picking up a pen as it is with achieving financial freedom. You either make money or you don’t. It’s impossible to try and make money, lose weight or meet the right person, one must put forth the effort.

Solution #1

Take responsibility for the actions you take (or don’t take).  If you take action and it doesn’t work out, okay you didn’t die from it, learn from it and move on.  If you did nothing, don’t blame the program, the internet, the government, the universe, or whatever… you must accept the fact that you did squat and got squat.

As you go through the day notice how many times you use the word “try”. When you begin using “try” change it to “do”. As in “I don’t know if I can get to it but I will “try” change it to “I will do it”. Try is a weak word, it’s a word that already has a built in excuse. If what is being referred to is important to you, change the sentence by eliminating the word “try” you create commitment to the action and the universe will conspire with you to make it happen.

Issue #2 Self-Fulfilling Prophecy

“Every human has four endowments- self-awareness, conscience, independent will and creative imagination. These give us the ultimate human freedom… The power to choose, to respond, to change.” –  Stephen Covey

Have you ever heard someone say “I did such and such last night and as I expected, I had a lousy time”. Well if that was what you ordered why would you expect to get anything else. It would be the same as going to a restaurant and expecting to get a filet mignon when you ordered grilled cheese sandwich.  Most people don’t realize that anything we do, have, or are—started as a thought, if that thought started out negative, it will just build until you have created the exact result you didn’t want.  However, you are getting the results that you focused on.  For example, if you are going to a party and you think, “I really don’t want to go, the people are boring, the hostess always gets drunk, the food is run-of-the-mill, and I always want to go home early, but I’ll go because my spouse asked.”  At the end of the night, you realize you had a rotten evening, sadly most people don’t realize that they have total control over their experience, they believe they are the victim of circumstances. Actually they are victims, but not of outside circumstance, they are victims of their own sabotage. What came true for the party is what comes true in life. If there is an area in your life that is different than you would like it to be I suggest you stop trying to treat the symptoms and go to the root of the issue which is quite simply how you are thinking about it. If you’re overweight or always broke, the former being a result of unhealthy thinking and the latter is a result of a poverty mentality. You need to change how you think and the situation will change with very little effort.

Solution #2

Pick an area of your life that is in need of some attention and look at how you see this problem, is it a result of outside forces or are you focusing to much energy on the exact opposite of what you would like to create. (remember, outside forces keep you a victim while taking responsibility allows you to control your destiny.) Now when you get down to it and are totally honest with yourself you will notice that your thoughts are focused in the wrong direction. The best way to correct this is to take out a 3×5 index card and write 5 affirmations on the particular subject and begin to change how you think about the issue. After you have written them out read them repeatedly and aloud at least 5 times per day, in a very short time you will begin to see your focus and situation start to shift. The following are some examples of affirmations and how to word them.

I accept myself here and now.
I am strong and deserving in my relationships
I now feel deep inner peace and serenity
I am the perfect weight for my body type
Money flows into my life with ease

Affirmations may seem simple, maybe too simple but they will help you train your mind on your terms this time, allowing you all the abundance you deserve.

Issue #3 No “Fire”

“The stronger the passion for your goal, the less effort needed to achieve it”

When I say there’s no “fire,” there’s no real motivation for you to succeed.  Sure, it would be nice to make more money, to buy a bigger house, nicer car, or pay off my debts.  The fire is what gets you going and keeps you going When your mind tells you, “this is no fun, let’s go for the immediate gratification” (i.e, go watch TV, go to a bar or surf the internet). To me it is all too obvious that most people have no fire, no passion in their lives. They have nothing to get really excited about, their job is a means to an end and when they aren’t working they are watching reality tv. Think about this for a moment, if you traveled back in time and met yourself at the age of 9 or 10 and explained to yourself where your life was at this point, what do you think you would think of your self? If you would be proud to have that conversation stop here, if not we’ve got some work to do. Think about the things you loved doing as a kid, perhaps it was to build, help hurt animals or explore the uncharted. The activities that got you into trouble, because you lost track of time and ended being late for dinner, those are the things I’m talking about. Do you have something that you enjoy that much in your life today? Too many times I hear clients say “I’m passionate about such and such, but I can’t do that because those closest to me won’t understand and/or support me”. To which I answer “if it’s important to you and you not only feel the passion but show it, the support and reward will come with ease”. We only get one shot at this experience we call life and to go through it with out passion is to short change our selves on how wonderful life can be. It’s also not fair to keep our deepest passions hidden from the world, we were put here to have the greatest experience possible. So fan and fuel that little flicker of passion until it’s a full blown inferno, it makes life worth living and goals so much easier to accomplish.

Solution #3

Take the time to identify what your “fire” is, it’s yours and there are no right or wrong answers.  Once you identify it, make it HUGE so you can no longer ignore it.  Make it so failure is not an option, so you are constantly thinking of ways to achieve this goal.  Make it so your thoughts and actions all pointed to the finish line. The best strategy for making your passion incredibly strong is through the use of visualization, which is merely a mental picture which contains all the site, sound, smell, feel and even the taste of your goal as completed. So take the time to create the picture and revisit it as often as necessary. This simple and fun activity will give your something concrete to focus on and the universe direction on what it is that you chose to create.

Issue #4 Time Wasters

I always hear this one: I just don’t have the time, I have all these responsibilities, I don’t have a minute to spare.  Is this really true?  There are 168 hours in a week.  Take out your job and sleeping and you’re left with approximately 60 hours a week.  Even if you subtract time with your loved ones and time for your hobbies, I bet you still find time to waste (i.e, watching TV, talking on the phone or surfing the net—to name a few). If you go back to reason #3 “the fire” will help you make the most out of the time you have to devote to your goal, if you stoke that fire until its a raging inferno it will be impossible for you not to have the time. You will find you have more energy becoming more productive and having the time you need to succeed. You will also find that once you take the first steps toward the realization on your desires the time will become easier and more plentiful. Start by spending 15 minutes per day and complete one task toward your goal because once the momentum starts, if this in fact is your passion, you will be hard pressed to stop it.

Solution #4

Get yourself a small notebook to carry around with you.  For the next week, record all of your activities outside of sleeping and working.  I’ll bet you can find at least 10 hours per week that you waste. If you only spent half of that time just a mere 45 per day in pursuit of your dreams, you would see incredible results in a very short time.

The #5 One Simple Word– FEAR:

FEAR can be a very strong word and an even stronger emotion, one that can stop us in our tracks. FEAR in relation to our goals is defined as follows: False Evidence Appearing Real. Now stop and think of how that relates to your goal or better yet keeps you from said goal. All the reasons why you are not working on them, some examples I have extracted from coaching are as follows; what will my spouse, mother, father etc. think if I decide to do this. What if I fail, those people don’t have the money or the belief in me to invest in my idea. We have created all these ideas to convince ourselves that it’s ok to remain where we are, to accept the status quo. However, if we honestly look at these fears we really have no real evidence, no “smoking gun” to prove that they are fact. Fear is our minds way of tricking or convincing us that our heart’s desires are foolish or impossible to attain. All of our fears are created in our mind first and as we focus on them the universe through the “law of attraction” brings them to fruition. The question is how do we overcome the fear that comes with our goals.

Solution #5

The way to get around the fear is two-fold, the first part is to create the “vision” of our goal with all five senses. Create a picture of your goal, in your mind’s eye in which you can taste, smell, feel, see and hear your goal as if it were already accomplished. The second part is what I believe to be the most important piece to in the goal realization puzzle. You must create a network of people who will encourage, support and stimulate you to stay on the path to your goal and the two best ways I know of are to either join or start a mastermind group and to get yourself a coach. These two strategies will propel you much more quickly toward your goal than you can do on your own.

I hope the strategies for overcoming your stuckness that I have presented here today assist you on your path to abundance. I would like to leave you with a final thought to ponder.

If you were to start fully living your life, what is the first change you would start to make?

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