Steps to Achieve Goals
In this second part of the Conquering Impossible Goals series, I want to pick up where we left off because we were talking about this process that ultra-performers follow that is something that can be systematically reproduced, copied, deployed, and implemented by you to accomplish the biggest, wildest dreams or goals that you have ever thought of.
It’s an extremely straightforward process, but it’s one that a lot of people either don’t know about or they know about it and they don’t follow it.
And we’re introducing it to you here.
In the last post, we talked about the power of the picture and when you create and lock your mind on this picture of something you want for the future.
But I introduced to you this idea that is, unfortunately, very true for all of us, which is the moment that you figure out what you want in life, the immediate ensuing thought that all of us have is “Oh, that’s crazy. I could never do that. Oh, that’s not possible for me. Oh, that’s for people like that, but that’s not me. Get your head out of the cloud. I mean, be realistic. I mean, look at you!”
Right?
I’m going to talk to you today about two very key things that you need to do that will help you overcome that so that you can conquer impossible goals.
The first thing though, I want to say and to let you know, is that if you have that thought, you’re on the right track and you’re in great company.
If you have that thought, you’re just like me and several of the billionaires, bestselling authors in the world, successful entrepreneurs, most recognized pastors, leading athletes, actors, actresses, etc.
It is commonplace telling yourself that you should automatically believe it. If it were supposed to happen, that it should just automatically feel like it’s possible.
That is a lie.
Most of the people who achieve impossible things also have self-doubt.
It’s not that they don’t have self-doubt, insecurity, disbelief, or that they don’t feel capable.
They have it just like you do and just like I do. We’re the same as them just like you and I are the same.
The difference is what happens after that, because what 99.9% of the world does, is we accept it.
We hear ourselves say it, we accept it, and so we immediately move on from that thought and either never have it again or the next time we see the picture, that same self-doubt creeps up and we lose to it again.
So how do you get yourself to believe this is important?
In the last blog post, I talked about my wanting to become a New York Times bestselling author.
The day that I set that intention, it felt so impossible. I mean, just insanely out of reach. I knew nothing about how to do it.
That’s how you know you have a great dream, by the way.
How you know you have a great goal is that it should scare the crap out of you.
If it’s meaningful to you, it should be a reach
Every goal worth attaining has a touch of fear in it.
But I’m not so much a fan of fake it until you make it. I’m not going to say just pretend. This isn’t about pretending.
I’m going to share with you two techniques. The first one I want to share with you is programming. I use the word programming very specifically.
Positive Self Affirmations
Now you might’ve heard things like self-talk affirmations. I would say this is in the vein of that, but I use the word programming very deliberately, just like I used the word picture very deliberately in the last post.
Here’s why I say programming is because you have to understand that your brain is no different from a computer.
Your brain is like a computer, a supercomputer.
And think about how computers operate. Computers don’t delineate between right and wrong, good and evil, right? They don’t have a conscience.
What computers do is whatever they are programmed to do.
That’s what computers do. That’s what technology does. It does whatever it’s programmed to do.
Even though you do have a conscience, even though you do have emotional intelligence, even though you do have the ability to logic, reason, and rationale, the same is true for you.
You do and you become whatever you believe what you hear most often. The things that we believe are more the result of repetition than anything.
For example, let’s say light bulbs. You probably believe that Thomas Edison invented the light bulb.
Why?
Because you’ve been told that repeatedly but I’m guessing that most of you have probably never actually taken the time to deliberately go back and question the assumption of did Thomas Edison really invent the light bulb? How do we know it was him?
Most of us just take it as truth because we hear it. Everybody says it. It must be true. But that is dangerous.
It’s powerful. It’s a way of operating through life without having to question every assumption.
But when it comes to conquering impossible goals, you’re not going to believe what’s true. You’re going to believe what is repeated when it comes to your mind.
You don’t believe what’s true; you believe what’s repeated. You believe what you hear most often.
So, if you tell yourself that’s not for me and it’s impossible, that is what will be true for you.
That’s the program that you’re writing for your brain to follow.
But if you say I can figure anything out, I can solve any problem, I know there’s a way, I know that other people who have done this once felt like me, I know there must be a plan and a path, I know that every single goal is simply the result of small actions broken down and repeated with consistency.
It’s not faking it till you make it; it’s not saying that I deserve to be this thing, or I was born to be this thing.
It’s about programming your brain, just like the way you would program a computer, to be proactive, deliberate, and intentional.
Don’t default to the accidental, unconscious programming, the natural programming of saying that’s not possible.
How to Overcome Self-Doubt?
Which, by the way, why does your brain do that?
Why, if your brain can be programmed either way, does it automatically default towards the negative?
Here’s the neuroscience behind it.
It’s the biology and the chemical structure of our brain. Your brain is not designed to make you successful. It’s not the primary function of the brain.
The primary function of the brain is not success. It’s survival.
The number one function of your brain is to keep you alive.
If you were stranded somewhere in a desert or on an island, the way to keep you alive is to conserve energy.
That extends the life that you have versus expanding energy and using up the life that you have.
So, your brain, left to its own devices, is automatically always going to gravitate towards conserving energy.
It’s going to create a negative picture automatically as a safety mechanism to keep you from exerting unnecessary energy to survive.
That’s true.
For most of us, our wildest dreams are not about survival. They’re about success, right?
You don’t need to become the top 1% to survive like you you’re surviving right now.
So that’s why you have to rewire.
You have to learn to rewire your brain when you’re talking about success versus survival because the original, hardwired programming of your brain is about conserving energy.
It’s doing what is safe, what is comfortable, what is known, what is convenient, taking the path of least resistance because that conserves energy versus breaking outside of your comfort zone and doing risky things.
Your brain is going to lead you away from it.
Your programming is the second part of conquering impossible goals.
You have the picture. And then it’s the programming.
Your brain is happy to do whatever you tell it to do.
If you want your brain to find an excuse, it will find an excuse.
If you want your brain to find a solution, it will find a solution.
This is why sometimes when you fall asleep at night, thinking about a problem and you wake up in the middle of the night because your brain has figured out the answer. It’s because you set it in the direction of finding a solution.
But if you want to find a reason why you can’t, or if you want to find conviction that you’re not capable, your brain will find that for you too.
But it’s your choice.
And it’s all about your programming. Some of that programming comes from your self-talk, what you tell yourself about yourself.
Here’s the second technique that I wanted to share with you today.
It also comes from your community, your environment, the people you are around.
I’m sure you have heard this before.
You become like the people you are around.
Why is that true?
Because your brain doesn’t believe what’s true. Your brain believes what is repeated.
What you tell yourself, and also the things that other people say, there’s a good chance that you hang around people who believe what you believe, right?
If you’re religious, you probably hang around people who believe your same religion.
It doesn’t mean you’re against other people that aren’t of your religion. It just means that you probably go to worship at a place where other people worship in the same way that you do, right?
And that’s fine. I’m not trying to challenge any of your religious assumptions or anything.
I’m just saying that we believe the same things that the people around us believe which can be good.
But what you want is for that to be intentional, not accidental.
You want it to be intentional, not accidental.
If you’re intentionally choosing a group of people to be around because that’s a choice that you’re making, then that is great.
But if you are accidentally allowing yourself to be in an environment that is convenient, you have no idea what other people believe.
As an example, I grew up in a little town called Frederick, Colorado. We didn’t have a stoplight when I was growing up. It was so small. It was a farm town in the middle of nowhere. I didn’t even know what else was out there because all I knew was what I heard from the people who were around there who had always been there, in most cases.
Who are you hanging around with and what are they telling you to be true about you? What are they telling you to be true about the world? What are they telling you about what’s true about what’s possible?
That’s where it gets really crazy.
You are definitely around people who help determine the limits of what’s possible.
It’s true for all of us.
The people that you hang around are the people who help you establish the limits of what’s possible.
If you are around big thinkers, it’s because they’ve done big things and they believe big things are possible.
But if you’re around people who don’t think much is possible, it’s probably because they haven’t done big things. They don’t know any different.
And there’s a good chance that they probably were never around people who did big things.
And that’s probably because their parents or their community were never around people who did big things.
What you know and believe to be true about what’s possible is completely dependent upon who you hang out with.
You become like those people.
And that means, for you to achieve success, whatever that looks like for you–financial, physical, relational, spiritual, etc., you will have to do the things that those people do.
You will have to think the way that those people think. And you’ll have to hang around the people that those people hang around with because it shapes your programming.
Your programming is the number two thing that drives and determines whether or not you will conquer impossible goals.
The reason why most people don’t conquer impossible goals is not that they’re not capable of it.
It’s because they’re either not aware of these truths or because they’re not practicing them.
It is that simple.
By the way, this is one of the reasons why we’re putting on this Conquering Impossible Goals event. It’s a full two-day event that I will personally be facilitating through this entire full-fledged process.
And guess who will be there? Other people like you, other big thinkers, other people looking to break free, other people looking to go to the next level. Our team will be there. These are people who know the process. They know how it works. They have an expanded horizon. They’ve seen it applied and implemented for other people. So that’s one reason to come. If you’re interested, you can go to roryvaden.com/cig to register and find further details.
You got to get yourself around some people with bigger belief limits than the ones that you’re probably hanging out with.
It doesn’t mean you have to get a new spouse. It doesn’t mean you have to never talk to your friends and family.
It means that you have to meet some people who know how to think bigger and who do think bigger.
And not only do they think bigger, but they also achieve bigger.
They’re able to do it because they have proven results.
They’ve said impossible things and then they’ve achieved them.
They raised the bar.
That’s a big part of what our community is all about. Which is one of the reasons why we love our community and our events.
Your programming is the second part of this journey.
Now, if you paint the picture which we talked about in the last training, and if you work on establishing the programming, you’re going to start making progress.
You’re going to be moving in the right direction but you’re going to run into another big roadblock.
There’s going to be a barrier again.
I know this because this happened to me when I decided to be a black belt, valedictorian, get a full-ride scholarship, get my MBA on the same day I got my undergrad degree, pursue the World Championship of Public Speaking title, become an eight-figure entrepreneur, launch New York Times, a bestselling book, have a Ted talk, sell, etc., anything that I have been able to do, which I believe personally is a lot by the grace of God a huge amount, is because of mentors and friends.
I very firmly believe in this systematic process.
I’ve done this several times. I’ve coached other people through it several times.
I’ve studied lots of people who have gone through it and I’m telling you there’s going to be another big barrier that you’re going to hit.
And it’s all about education.
It’s all about this knowledge breakdown is that you’re going to set the picture.
If you can get yourself to clear on what you want, and then you can start working on your programming.
The next thing that’s going to show up is very practical in nature. It’s not knowing what to do.
And in the next training, I’m going to talk about exactly what to do.
This is Part 2 of the Conquering Impossible Goals Series – Click to see Part 1: Does Visualization Really Help in Achieving Goals?, here for Part 3: How Does Personal Development Help With Achieving Goals, click here for Part 4: Why 18% of People Can’t Keep a New Year’s Resolution for Even 1 Day
