It’s easy to get bogged down with all the available self-help information. You might be surprised at how much you can benefit from asking yourself just a couple of questions! Your answers will help you determine if you’re on track to reaching your goals and enable you to make an action plan that will get you there in record time.
Ask yourself these two questions:
1. “If an invisible person followed you around all day, what would they see?” Would they see you wasting a lot of time? Would they see you working at your goals? Would they see someone that is just going through the motions?
- Our lives are largely the result of the actions that we take each day. Are you taking actions that move you forward to the future you desire or are you engaged in time-wasting, worthless activity?
- What would that invisible person logically conclude about you, your life, and your future?
2. “If you lived that average day, every day, for the next 5 years, what is the logical outcome?” So if you kept living your average day over and over, where is your life likely to end up? Now compare that logical conclusion with the life you’d like to have. How close are they?
- Are you likely to end up where you want to be financially? Are you currently taking consistent action to have the financial life you desire?
- Are you likely to have the body that you want? Are you eating nutritiously and exercising regularly? Or are you waiting to start tomorrow, or Monday, or the first of the month, or the first of the year? Getting the body you want will take a certain number of days, so you might as well start today.
- Are you likely to be enjoying the type of relationships you desire? If you want to meet your dream wife, how many new women have you spoken to in the last week? How many have you asked out?
- Are you likely to be advancing in the career you seek? For example, based on your performance over the last year, do you think it’s probable that you’ll get that plant manager position anytime soon? Are you any closer to having that small business running profitably?
Now you can make some reasonable plans and create some good habits. What do you need to do on a consistent basis to achieve the life you hope for? If you want to lose 10 inches off your waist and weigh 75 lbs less, then your daily actions need to reflect that.
People largely fail to end up where they wish to be for two reasons:
1. They have no idea where they’re going. You can’t get there if you don’t know the destination. If you don’t have a plan, you must live by default, sitting around until something goes wrong and then spending your energy fixing the issue. Alternatively, if you spend your energy driving towards something, you’ll eventually get there.
2. They don’t do the things each day that will create the life they want. In spite of what many gurus seem to claim, you can’t wish your way to success. Success is the result of making positive decisions and taking actions that reflect those decisions.
Ask yourself the two questions above. You might be shocked when you really look at your average day and realize where you’re likely to end up as a result of doing those same things every day. It doesn’t take a lot to be very successful, but it does take consistency.
For instance, imagine if you did 1 push-up every day this week and added 1 push-up a week. In 5 years you would be doing 250 push-ups a day and you would never struggle for a minute.
In the same way, establishing daily habits that move you forward toward achieving your goals will result in your success. So which habit will you start today?
