How do successful people achieve their goals?

Brian Tracy, a self-made millionaire and author of “Goals,” claims that successful people are extremely goal-oriented. They know what they want and are focused on achieving it every day. Dr. Philip E. Humbert says that we all have goals, but the important distinction between successful and unsuccessful people, however, is that achievers are very intentional and focused on their goals. The results of the Harvard study conducted between 1979 and 1989 revealed that the 3 percent of graduates who had clear, written goals when they left Harvard earned, on average, ten times more than the other 97 percent of graduates overall. The only difference between the groups was the clarity of the goals they had for themselves when they started. According to Dr. Humbert, high achievers always know exactly what they want, because they’ve written it down. They often write a short description of their goals every morning, as a personal reminder of their priorities and goals. He claims that the act of writing down your goals greatly increases your chances of success.

The more you think about what you want and how to achieve it, the more quickly you will start moving towards your goals and your goals will start moving towards you. According to Brian Tracy, your thoughts are causes and conditions are effects. You invariably attract into your life people, circumstances, opportunities, and even sales that are in harmony with your dominant thoughts. Tracy says that successful salespeople think about what they want and how to get it most of the time. They visualize in advance the kind of success they want to enjoy by imagining their goals as already accomplished. Before each new experience, they visualize previous successful experiences that are similar to the next event.

Unsuccessful people, on the other hand, remember their previous experiences of failure. They think about the last time they failed and imagine failing again. As a result, their subconscious minds have been programmed to fail. Although they try to think positively about their goals, they still have the same old negative victim images in their subconscious, leading to failure experiences over and over again. According to Joseph Murphy, our subconscious mind does not differentiate between positive and negative statements. Therefore, your income reflects your dominant thoughts. By visualizing your goals, you will send a message to your subconscious mind. Your subconscious mind creates your life through the messages you send to it. Murphy states that when a human mind clearly and continuously visualizes an end result, with deep emotion and focused intent, the formatted energy generated is converted to its mass equivalent, ie. the desired result.

Tracy advises in her book “Goals” to take a piece of paper and write down the goals you want to achieve within the next twelve months. Ask yourself a question like this: “If she could only accomplish one goal on the list, which one would have the most positive impact on her life?” Then circle this goal, turn the page, set a deadline for this goal, and write down everything you need to do to reach the goal, and do something from this list every day.

When I first used this technique myself, I looked at my goal that seemed totally unreal and unattainable. I even wrote this negative statement next to my goal. However, I decided to rephrase this by asking “How would it be possible to achieve this goal in one year?” I reviewed all my assets, made a monthly plan, which was not very encouraging either. I continued my work by dividing this plan into small tasks to accomplish weekly and daily, and in this way, the plan suddenly became totally realistic and achievable. All that was required was to take small steps day after day, hour after hour. And this was psychologically very relevant, because I no longer had to get over a mountain, just a few small pebbles instead.

Tracy says that selecting a goal, making a plan, and working on it every day will change your life in ways you can’t imagine. He says that people become great if they determine their main purpose in life and work on it every day. Thus, we can start by taking small steps towards the goal and if we start moving, things become easier and more opportunities appear before us. For example, Jack Canfield has said that the main reason he sold over 150 million books is that he did five things every day to promote his book. At first we may feel that the challenge is too great and the obstacles are impossible to overcome, but if we select a definite goal, make a detailed plan and work on it every day, it becomes easy and achievable. Tracy says that people become great if they determine their main purpose in life and work on it every day. All it requires is that it should be solution oriented, rather than problem oriented. The more you focus on solutions, the more easily you will overcome problems. This is one of the secrets of great success in life. –