“What matters is the value we’ve created in our lives, the people we’ve made happy, and how much we’ve grown as people.” – Daisaku Ikeda
7 Strategies That Can Help You Get Anything You Want
I used to fantasize about visiting India (the country which fascinated me so much since my childhood) and I used to tell to everyone when I was seven years old that I will get married to my favorite Bollywood actor when I grow up!
I was never a fan of cold and snowy weather and I used to dream of living somewhere where there will be sunny weather all the time… and where I can enjoy looking at the palm trees and swimming daily on the beach or my own private swimming pool (I adore swimming). I used to read articles from various life coaches, so inspiring and uplifting in my favorite magazine for last ten years and I would often think for a moment how life coaching is such a fascinating profession and just for a glimpse of a moment I would think of how amazing it would be to be a life coach (although in the country where I’m coming from this would not seem “possible”).
Today, I have my dream job and I live in sunny India, with my Indian husband, who actually looks a lot like my favorite actor from childhood! The first thing that I see when I go out of my home is beautiful palm trees and the swimming pool. I visited India three times so far and for last two and half years, I’m living there.
I am living my dreams today beyond my wildest expectations. I’ve realized that our dreams and goals can be accomplished if we believe in ourselves, have patience, courage, faith and work hard enough, even if they seem to be “impossible”.
Here are seven proven strategies that I am using to achieve my goals and with my life coaching clients to assist them in achieving their dreams:
1. Write It down
Dr. Gail Matthews, a professor at the Dominican University of California in her research study about setting the goals has discovered that people who write down their goals are 42% more likely to achieve them!
When you write your goals down on the paper, you will be able to get the clarity what is it that you want and make it “official”! Take some time and note down on a piece of paper or a journal your goals which you want to achieve. Keep the list accessible (you can keep it on our work table, journal, frame it, stick it onto a fridge door…) and visible so that you can read it every single day. You can go one step further and write down your dream life (or how your life will look and feel like once you achieve a particular goal).
2. Create a Vision Board
Once you wrote down our goal, and you can imagine your dream life or our goals accomplished it’s time to make it visual! Having a visual reminder of your goals and dreams can help you stay to stay motivated and focus better on turning them into reality. You can create a “classic” vision board with collage of photos and words (like love, success, peace, happiness, I CAN DO IT…) and hang it on the wall or keep it on your work desk, but if you spend a lot of time in front of your laptop, then you can create an electronic vision board (for example a desktop wallpaper with collage of words and illustrations or a secret Pinterest board).
3. Make a Committed Decision To Work on Your Goals
To make your dreams a reality it is not only enough to do creative visualization and keep on wishing that you achieve your goals. You need to “convert” your wishes into decisions.
Instead of telling to yourself (and others):
“I want to go to my dream vacation”, say instead:
“I will go to my dream vacation!”
Instead of saying:
“I want to achieve _____”
Say instead:
“I will achieve ________”
4. Brainstorm All the Possible Solutions
Once you are clear what is it that you really want to achieve and you made a decision that you will work on your desired goals, it is the time to brainstorm all the possible solutions that can help you achieve what you want. In this case applies the rule: the more, the better! Dump on the paper any possible solution that you can think of.
For example, if you want to save money to afford your dream vacation, that list can look like this:
-I can cancel subscriptions for these magazines/memberships…
-I can earn some extra income on weekends by doing ___________
-I can get a roommate and share living expenses
-I can sell my ____________ which I no longer use on ebay.com
-I can sell my ____________ on etsy.com
-I can offer freelance writing/editing/VA/copy proofing/__________ services online
-I can do manicure at home instead in saloon
–I can cook at home instead of taking away food
-I can go to office by public transport instead by car…
5. Create an Action Plan
Now, when you have all the possible solution on the paper in front of you, it’s time to decide which one will work best for you (it can be the combination of different solutions as well). Define precisely how will you achieve your goal and realistic time for doing it, write it down on the paper and declare it everyone, like for example:
“I am going to cancel my _____ magazine subscription, do manicure at home, and give French language classes on weekends, for the next one year, so that I can save (this much) money for my dream vacation”
6. Keep the Motivation Going
Once you start working on achieving your goals and dreams, sooner or later, your enthusiasm and motivation will start to drop down, especially if face challenges and obstacles along the way. Take it as a natural part of the process and give yourself a promise that in these moments, you will be strong enough to push through those challenges and come out as a winner. When you feel moments of self-doubt remind yourself what all you have achieved so far and tell yourself that you can do it. Make sure your read your dream life vision or your goal list and take a look at your vision board daily: that will help you to remind yourself how much you want to accomplish your goals and that it is all worth it.
7. Get the Help that You Need
If you are not clear what is it that you really want to accomplish and how you could make your dreams a reality in your given circumstances, cannot come up with creative solutions to achieve your goals in your given circumstances, or you feel that you lack the motivation and you will not be able to make it on your own, then get someone on board to help you. You can ask your best friend or partner to support you and encourage you, to follow up on your progress or share your dreams on your blog or with your social media community and ask for support.
It often happens that people we feel close to can be too “soft” on us or we do not see them as an authority figure in our life, so even if they follow up with us or give us an advice, we do not seem to take them very seriously, like if we would if we would get the guidance, motivation and follow up on our progress on regular basis from an expert, mentor or a coach.
Depending on what kind of goals you want to achieve you can consider hiring a life coach, business coach, dating coach, health coach, career coach… who will assist you to achieve your goals much faster, easier and to take the process more seriously (they know the art of motivating people and helping them to succeed in the area of their particular niche, and you would not want to waste the money that you invested on hiring them, so you will REALLY commit to achieving your goals and living your dreams).