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What is more rewarding than being someone with great ambition and big dreams, is being someone who walks whole-heartedly in the direction of their dreams, often not knowing whether the outcome is going to work in one’s favor or not, but keep pushing anyway. In my years of seeking the essence of life and joy I have found that happiness does not rely merely on achieving a goal, but on actively pursuing it. And by actively pursuing it, I mean being active in the pursuit of one’s dreams. Moving towards fulfilling one’s goals. Trying to make things happen. Improving oneself. Mastering one’s craft. Creating all the time. It is being constantly in movement. Passiveness and inactivity are any dream’s killer. Passiveness and inactivity are in fact happiness killers. How do I dare claim with such certainty that happiness relies less on achieving a goal than it does on actually doing everything in your power to make it happen? It’s simple; I’ve experienced it time and time again and so have you. I’ll give you an example. When I started living a healthy lifestyle, my goal was to look like a girl I thought had the most beautiful body on planet earth: she was relatively skinny, with an hour-glass shape; she wasn’t very muscular at all. A few years into training, my skills improved and with it, my end goal. So as I was approaching the fulfillment of my initial goal of being skinny with a coke-bottle shape, I decided I wanted my body to be more defined and as my body got more defined, I grew stronger, so I decided I wanted to be more ripped and grow even stronger. As you can see, we, as humans always want more out of life, so if you wait to achieve a goal to be happy, you will probably never be because there will never be a final end goal. Have you ever wanted an expensive bag so bad you worked hard and saved for months to be able to purchase it and once you got it you were happy for like five minutes and that was it? But working to get it was the exciting part. That’s what kept your energy levels high. The results from your work are never the source of happiness. It is always the creative process, the learning, the improvement of yourself and your skills while you try to make it happen that gives the most life, that provides the most satisfaction.
It can get hard to stay focused and disciplined on diligently working toward fulfilling a goal, when we have other life obligations, or when “Life gets in the way”, I’ve experienced it myself and I’m pretty sure so have you. I think the best example to illustrate this is almost everyone’s new year’s resolutions to be healthier and start exercising that vanish about a month into the new year. If the achievement of a goal matters to you and would make you happier or proud of yourself, you shouldn’t leave it to chance, you can’t allow life or your mood swings to get in the way of realizing it. You have to discipline your mind to stick to the plan no matter what happens. How do you that? I have used a few tricks over the years, that have not only turned me from an eternal pessimist into a positive and an optimistic person, but have also transformed me from a passive being into someone who explodes with energy, someone who is more focused, more determined, more hard-working and more disciplined than ever and I’d like to share them with you.
1. Find The Right Role Models
I didn’t have in my environment people who had achieved the things that I wanted to achieve or that had the mindset to be an overachiever. So I had to turn to people who had accomplished great things in life, to feed my soul with their way of thinking and approaching life and work. My role models went from great business men and women, to philanthropists, authors, spiritual leaders, inspirational speakers, and athletes. People that were very successful and excellent at what they did. People that had the discipline I so severely lacked, people that had the work ethic I wish I possessed, people that were equipped with the type of focus and dedication I didn’t even know was humanly possible. I had to feed off of that energy. Every single day of my life. And it felt great. Although I wasn’t quite there yet, knowing that I could reach that level of excellence one day was encouraging. I was going to take it one step at a time and one day, I’d make it to the stage of the overachievers. My role models were Oprah Winfrey, Maya Angelou, Tony Robbins, Iyanla Vanzant, Bishop TD Jakes, Richard Branson, and more.
2. Stay Inspired – Read, Watch & Listen To Successful People
Read books and quotes, watch inspirational videos, listen to motivational podcasts. You have to be very careful what you allow in your mind as everything we see, and hear and listen to has a great impact on us, on our behavior. If you only allow in your my mind and in your environment thoughts or people that are positive, inspiring, motivating, uplifting, hard-working, disciplined, focused, dedicated, determined, you will build a character that reflects such strength, positivity, hard-work, determination and discipline.
3. Stay Focused – The Vision Board
I was introduced to this practice by Oprah Winfrey and, ladies and gentlemen, it works.
The vision board consists in sticking on a board images or words that reflect all the things you want to accomplish, obtain or become. You then hang the board in a place where you will see it often so that every single day, multiple times a day, you do short visualization exercices. The first time I did a vision board was five years ago. I was living in France at the time and stuck images of all the things I wanted to fulfill. And every single one of my goals were accomplished within a year.
4. Stay LASER-Focused – The Book Of Intentions
Visualization taken to a whole other level. Write on a notebook every single day what you want to accomplish, become or obtain, as if you had already fulfilled, became or possessed your goals. Example: I am….; I have…..
I promise you this practice will help you be so clear about what you want and so focused on working toward realizing your goals. I have personally started this practice a couple months ago and I can’t believe how much more concentrated and disciplined I have grown and how incredibly happy and accomplished I feel. Before starting the book of intentions, I remember feeling completely overwhelmed by all the things I wanted to do in life that I felt were essential to my happiness and well-being. I couldn’t manage to work hard on multiple goals at the same time. If I was great at being healthy, I lacked consistency and greatness at my other goals. Simultaneously, I was stressed by little things of my everyday life that took too much of my attention and energy. I also was unable to define precisely many of the things I wanted to achieve; I had the overall feeling of wellbeing when I would think about realizing my goals but wasn’t able to put them into clear and concise sentences. It wasn’t very clear in my mind and I couldn’t find the time to press pause and actually clarify it either. One day I just had enough. I remember feeling like I was done being average and if I wanted to excel in every single department of my life, I was going to have to find a way to be more organized. It started by penning every single thing I wanted to do. Everything. Without taking into account the feeling of fear that some of the projects elicited in me. Whatever made my heart beat a little faster and gave me butterflies in my stomach, I vowed to do. Then I created an Excel sheet and managed to fit everything within my weekly schedules. And everyday since then, I write my intentions, my goals in a notebook. I can’t even begin to tell you what it feels like to get to the end of the week, looking at my list and seeing every single item ticked off. I feel fuller than ever. I highly recommend your give it a try.
5. Stay Positive – The Gratitude Journal
When I discovered the concept of personal development, I stumbled upon an interview where Oprah expressed how life-changing holding a gratitude journal had been for her. And obviously anything Oprah does, I’ll give it a try. Now I must be honest, I was a little skeptical at first about the gratitude journal but I didn’t have much to do at the time so I thought it wouldn’t cost me anything to at least try.
The gratitude journal consists in writing every morning three to five things you are grateful for and at night, specifically three to five things you re grateful for that happened throughout the day. I swear to you I used to be the most pessimistic human being on earth. This practice alone has drastically shifted my perception of life. I grew so used to making mental notes of the positive things that happened in my life that I wouldn’t even hold on to the negative ones. And when this practice becomes anchored in your routine, you attack your days constantly keeping in mind that at night, you are going to have to write five things to be grateful for in your journal, so you actually look for all the positive things throughout your days. And when some days you really feel down, and you think you won’t have anything to write in your journal at night, you actually do something positive that will turn your whole day around. That’s how powerful this practice is. I stopped holding a gratitude journal when I was living in Barcelona because Girl, I was busy living my best life there and had no time for anything else than falling in love with Life and living every single moment of this adventure to the fullest!
PS: Living in Barcelona was on my vision board a couple months before I actually moved there. 😉
You literally create the life you want to live. Whatever you think, you become. So choose your thoughts wisely and go out and conquer your dreams. The world is yours!
