You CAN Always Get What You Want

I was talking to a good friend of mine, who was a nationally known sportsman, reaching the pinnacle of his sport, then going on to other successes in other fields.  He told me that when he was young, he always knew he was going to be an All Black. He had the talent, that’s for sure, but what he also had was the belief. Belief in himself, in his dream and in his goals.

I’ve spent quite a bit of time around eminently successful people and the one thing they all have in common is that same overwhelming sense of belief. They know what they want and they also know with unswerving belief that they can do it.  Of course, this is not to say they don’t have setbacks. It’s not always smooth sailing, but their fundamental belief in the goal and themselves pulls them through the rough spots.  Keeping their eye on the prize, sometimes to the exclusion of all else, is what ensures their success.

Naturally, we can’t all be All Blacks or even Wallabies, but we can all achieve our goals as long as certain conditions are met.  They must be realistic, we must really want them, they must be beneficial and the most important condition of all, we must have a goal in the first place.

So many of us are vague about what we want and what we expect from our lives. We spend a lot of time wishing things were better, but not a lot of time actually making them so.  We think we do, but often we’re really just floundering around lurching from one catastrophe to the next or coasting along not really expending any effort and sort of doing OK but there’s something slightly unfulfilling about just getting by.  Setting goals is one of the very best things we can do for ourselves. Deciding what we really want and working towards it has to be infinitely better than drifting aimlessly hoping to avert disaster.

Our minds have a remarkably powerful facility that many of us under-utilise.  If we tell it where we want to go, it will map ways for us to get there. If we keep the object of our desire in the forefront of our mind, if we see an image of it every day, even subliminally, our mind does the hard work for us. But we need to be careful with all that power, because it can work just as well in the negative as in the positive.  If I keep thinking, “I’m working too hard. I need a break,” my mind will find a way to fulfil my goal. Unfortunately, that could mean I get sick or get sacked or all the work that seems to just flow in suddenly dries up.  If instead I think, “It’s time I was rewarded for all this hard work,” my outcome is far more likely to be positive, because my mind will be mapping ways to reward me.

It’s not enough to set one goal and go for it. Your life should be full of goals, some for tomorrow, some for next month and some for five years from now. Once we look like we’re going to reach one of our goals, re-evaluate and move the goal post if necessary. Why not shoot for the moon?

Earl Nightingale said, “We become what we think about most”. If we’re always thinking that life is tough, it will become so. If we think that we’re not quite good enough, guess what?! It’s a self-fulfilling prophecy.  It’s just as easy to hold a positive thought as a negative one, so perhaps it’s time for you to get positive about where you are and where you’re going and set a few goals.