How will you achieve this year’s goals? How will you make this year your best year yet?
Setting goals is a process of laying the plans that carry you outside of your comfort zone, to a new level for you. That’s the point of goals. To take you where you’ve never been before, to show you what you’ve never seen before, to make you better than you were before.
But if you’ve never been there, how will you get there?
Follow A Path
No matter what you desire in this world, someone has had it all before you.
Anakin had Obi Wan Kenobi. Luke had Yoda. Katniss had Haymitch.
No matter where you are in your journey, there is always someone who has walked those roads first. With the abundance of information out there, it has never been easier to find those who have walked the roads ahead of you.
How do you achieve something you haven’t had before? Find someone who has it. And learn from their ways.
A quick search on the internet will reveal an enormous list of resources, some credible, most just noise. That quick search will have revealed a maze with countless starting points, just as many dead ends, but just as importantly, countless paths through to the other side as well.
And that brings us to the second critical element to achieving more. Sticking with the path you choose.
But, Only One Path
As you search for those who have walked the streets ahead of you, you’ll be confronted with many “guides” that can promise to take you to the promised land. All of these guides have a selfish interest in helping you succeed.
Once you find a guide that resonates with you. One who’s path leads you to where you want to go. Stick with that guide. Through the trials by fire. The struggles, the heartaches, the close calls and near misses that meet you along the way.
It’s during those hard times that the sirens call from a new guru or guide becomes especially dangerous. The lure of an easier path is seductive, especially to one going through pain and suffering. Young Anakin left his path during one such challenging period. And the result of following too many different paths led him straight to the dark side.
Once you have your path, stick with it. Through thick and thin. Lest you find yourself lost, following too many guides leading you in different directions. Wandering tired, alone, nowhere that you want to be.
The First Step
Here is where reality sets in.
Obi Wan Kenobi isn’t flying to your doorstep to take you on a grand adventure. The Capitol isn’t summoning you to fight for honor and glory.
Unlike the stories told around campfires, there is nobody about to drag you out of your comfort zone and towards the person you were born to be.
If you aspire to greatness. If you want more than you have. If you were born to be more than you are now, you must declare it.
Someone will reach the goals you set. Someone will become the person you aspire to be.
Why not declare that someone should be you? Volunteer to pay the price of success. And with both feet, take the plunge into the world that awaits your greatness.
How To Apply This To Your Story
Many people at the start of the year have improved fitness goals, so we’ll use that example. But, keep in mind, the steps can work for any goal you set.
Find a gym, a coach, a routine that works for you. There isn’t a one-size fits all approach. For our example we’ll use a “train at home” style workout, P90X.
Follow the P90X path. Sometimes it will burn. Sometimes you’ll want to quit. But stick with it. Don’t swap it out on week 2 for a different 5x7 app. Or a new gym membership. Once you find something that works, stay the course.
Getting mixed up in 4 different workout regimes, with the same number crash diets is a sure way to overwhelm yourself. And following multiple different paths to the same health goal will ultimately lead you stumbling into your future self 6 months from now in the exact same body you have now.
Once you know the path that will work for you and your lifestyle, begin. Success starts with action. If you want to hit that health goal, start where you are, doing what you can, now. If you do that, and stay the course for at least the next 90 days, then I guarantee in 3 months you’ll look and feel like a whole new you.
It’s the path to success. Will you walk it?