Focus on What You Can Control

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One of the biggest problems/challenges to achieve any goal is to be focused and remain focused.

We always hear "see the big picture, see yourself as being successful". That is true. We need to see the big picture, but the secret is in finding the balance. We need to learn how to turn a dream into a goal and actually achieve it.

If we don't learn what to focus on, it can be easy for our goals to remain nothing but a dream.

What Exactly is "Successful"?

It's easy to say "see yourself as successful". But what exactly is "successful"? What is "success"?

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It is a known fact that we need to be specific when setting our goals in order to know when/if we have achieved our goal.

Let's say you have a financial goal and you follow the S.M.A.R.T. principles of goal-setting (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant and Time specific).

Let's just imagine your goal is to have $100 000.00 cash in a bank account to which you can have access at any time. You set a deadline by determining a specific date, let's say three years from now and you are happy that it is achievable and relevant to your other goals and your morals and values in life.

Now, all you have to do is create an action plan and see yourself as successful.

So, can you see yourself with that $100 000.00 in the bank? Would you be able to maintain that vision and level of optimism over the next year, two years and eventually three years (or maybe longer if you had some obstacles along the way)? Would you remain focused on that goal - that vision - while grinding away at each action step? Or will this goal eventually just turn back into a dream again?

We might be diligent and follow our action plan with a passion. But then life happens, and we don't complete our first action step on time. Actions steps two and three goes better, but then there is another setback at number four where we completely miss it. But hey, we can still see ourselves as successful. We can see ourselves with that $100 000.00 in the bank.

Well, good for you, but I think this is where I'll start losing it. What I can see in my imagination is one thing, but reality is showing me something completely different. This is where the going gets tough.

What To Focus On.

Would you consider yourself to be successful when you have the $100 000.00 in the bank? I bet you would. But in order to reach that level of success, we need to find a way to feel successful long before we actually achieved our goal.

So, how do we do that?

Each action step needs to become a smaller goal in itself. And that is what we need to focus on. If we can continuously create a habit of achieving smaller goals (action steps), we will automatically develop a feeling of being successful.

Another point I strongly believe in, is to focus on things we can control when setting these smaller goals (action steps).

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Focus on things you can do, things you have control over. Then, determine what the result is that you would like to see from that. In this way, you will quickly see when things are not giving you the results as needed. You can then change your strategy or determine whether your deadline gives you a realistic time-line or not.

Let's look at various possibilities for the first action step:

1. Have my fist $10 000.00 available within three months, or
2. Sell 10 extra items per month of product X over the next three months and set aside the profit on these items to get to my first $10 000.00, or
3. Launch a new e-mail marketing campaign for product X, using my proven strategy. This should have a potential profit of an additional $10 000.00 if I run this over the next three months, or
4. I will develop the weekly habit of saving $850.00 per week over the next 12 weeks.

Which of the above goals would you have the most control over and create the best opportunity for creating a success habit?

1. Your main goal might be specific, but this is very vague. How do you know if it's achievable? What will you do to achieve this? Finally, it won't do much to tell me whether my main goal (to have $1 00 000.00) is actually realistic and achievable within the given time-slot.
2. You cannot guarantee that you will sell 10 items of product X each month. You might set that as a target, but what if you sell only 6? If I don't sell 10, did I fail?
3. Now it's becoming clear. I know exactly what I will do. It is a proven strategy and I know the potential of it. If I don't achieve the wanted result, it should be easier to determine what I need to change to achieve the desired result before going to my next action step (small goal).
4. This is as straight-forward as you can get. You have obviously checked your budget and know if it will be a stretch or how easy it will be. You will soon know if you stretched yourself beyond your limits and just adopt your strategy to make it more realistic and achievable. It will also be a good indication of how realistic and achievable your main goal is.

Summary

The more focused you can become on your short term goals (action steps), the more you will complete them successfully until your your main goal is achieved. Just keep it simple. This will remove the need to "visualize" yourself as successful for any long-term goal, as you will consistently be experiencing success.