Get your FREE copy of my new book Avoid the Poverty Trap
If you help cover some of the postage and handling, I will mail directly to your Australian letterbox, a FREE physical copy of my brand new book.
You will also get FREE silver membership to The Wealth Navigator Club.
If you don’t live in Australia, you can buy the kindle version of my book on Amazon.
If you send me a copy of your Amazon receipt, you can get FREE silver membership to The Wealth Navigator Club.
One of my mentors Paul O’Mahony, an author, trainer and lecturer once said to me: “The secret about goal setting is that when the whys are strong enough, the hows take care of themselves”.
Jim Rohn said it another way when he said “If you had enough reasons, you could do the most incredible things”.
Why do I want to do this? Is it a “Like to have” or is it a “Must have”?
Why? Because if these goals were “Like to haves”, they are viewed in your mind more as dreams or wishes. Mentally you respond to roadblocks with, “It was only ever a dream, I never expected to get this; so why bother fighting through?”
Why? Because if these goals were “Like to haves”, they are viewed in your mind more as dreams or wishes.
Mentally you respond to roadblocks with, “It was only ever a dream, I never expected to get this; so why bother fighting through?”
So, if your whys are not strong enough, your thoughts and behavior will self-sabotage yourself and prevent you from achieving your goals.
This is what I believe happens to most people.
The message here is to avoid this self-sabotage. You need to make your whys strong enough so that when you hit a roadblock (as we all do from time to time), you break through the roadblock and keep making steps towards achieving your goals.
So how do you make the whys “strong enough”?
One way is to write down 100 positive reasons why you must achieve your goals by the date you have set. For example:
“I must have $1 million in income producing assets to quit my job by 30 June 2020 SO THAT I can have the time and money to travel overseas every year”
“I must have $1 million in income producing assets to quit my job by 30 June 2020 SO THAT I can help pay off my daughter’s mortgage”
I reckon that in your list of 100 positive reasons, there are a lot of “Like to haves”. If your goals are “Like to haves”, then the moment you hit your first roadblock, you are more likely to give in and not push through.
If your goals are “Must haves”, what is your response to any roadblock you hit? Easy. You must get around this otherwise you will not achieve your goals. You will look to find a way around this roadblock.
Let me give an example. What if you had a goal of having $150,000 per year in income when your income now is $50,000 per year? You hit a roadblock and give up because you say to yourself the $150,000 was just a dream, a wish.
What if I said to you that if you did not reach that goal of having $150,000 per year of income, I would come back and take away something very precious to you? This could be your partner, your kids or your grandkids.
How would you react if you hit a roadblock? You know you need to get around this – there is no other choice.
How does this work? For most people pain is a bigger motivating factor than pleasure.
It is an inescapable fact of today’s lifestyle that we can live without pleasure. But we do not want to live with pain.
How do you focus on the pain? You do this by writing down 100 negative reasons why you must achieve your goals by the date you have set. For example:
“I must have $1 million in income producing assets to quit my job by 30 June 2020 OR ELSE I will still have to get up a 5am each morning to go to work.”
“I must have $1 million in income producing assets to quit my job by 30 June 2020 OR ELSE I will still have to do what my boss tells me.”
“I must have $1 million in income producing assets to quit my job by 30 June 2020 OR ELSE my daughter will not have enough money left after paying the mortgage to properly feed and dress my grandkids.”
“I must have $1 million in income producing assets to quit my job by 30 June 2020 OR ELSE my daughter will not have enough to buy a house in a better location for the kids to grow up.”
When you are writing your list of both positive and negative reasons, make sure you focus not just on what is in it for you, but what is in it for others. In my examples above, you will see I focus on myself in some examples and my daughter in others.
Why do that? Just like we find pain to be a bigger motivating factor than pleasure, we are also less prepared to let other people down.
Think about this for a moment.
On an airplane when they are giving the emergency talk, what do they say to do if the oxygen mask falls down? “Please place the oxygen mask on yourself before you help others”. Do you know why they say that? Because our natural tendency is to help others first.
This is the same with our goals. We are more likely to give up if we hit a roadblock if the only reason we are doing this is for ourselves. But if our goal revolves around someone or something else, we are less prepared to give up when we hit a roadblock.
This is even more true if the failure to achieve that goal results in pain to someone we love. Most people will have a more emotional connection to:
- The negative reasons than the positive reasons; and,
- Helping others before helping themselves.
It is this emotional connection that makes the whys strong enough. So to avoid self-sabotage, just remember make sure that your goals focus on:
- What is the pain / cost to me if I do not reach this goal?
- What is the pain / cost to others if I do not reach this goal?
- What is in it for me when I reach this goal?
- What is in it for others when I reach this goal?
If you do this every time you set goals – you have set your whys, and the hows will take care of themselves. This applies to all goals.
Get your FREE copy of my new book Avoid the Poverty Trap
If you help cover some of the postage and handling, I will mail directly to your Australian letterbox, a FREE physical copy of my brand new book.
You will also get FREE silver membership to The Wealth Navigator Club.
If you don’t live in Australia, you can buy the kindle version of my book on Amazon.
If you send me a copy of your Amazon receipt, you can get FREE silver membership to The Wealth Navigator Club.
Do you and your family a favour and understand your whys so you can achieve your goals.
Wayne Wanders
The Wealth Navigator
wayne@avoidthepovertytrap.com.au
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