Dear Mr. Self Development,

How do you achieve your long-term goals?

Molly

When asked how to get to Mt. Olympus, I believe it was Gandhi who said, take steps in the direction of Mt. Olympus everyday, and you will get there.

It’s just a matter of time.

Time is an amazing thing, with time you can climb mountains, or swim across rivers, you can become a doctor, lawyer, professional athlete, a teacher, an accountant, a great parent, a loving husband, a spiritual leader, create abs of steel, develop the greatest relationships, or any other thing you would like to do.

Time is better than money, you can take your time and turn it in to anything you want; you can turn it into a job that pays you $6.75 an hour or $1000.00 an hour, you can turn your time into rock hard abs or a beer belly, you can turn it into success or failure, it’s your choice.  As the saying goes, we are all created equal in one respect; we all have 24 hours, seven days a week in which we can mold our lives.  How we decide to spend those 24 hours will determine our greatness, but the choice is ours.

We must plan our lives around our goals and not our goals around our busy life. Without giving our goals our highest priority they will never get accomplished.

You give priority to your goals by dedicating time daily to work on them.  Your time commitment is the proof that you want to see the goal realized.  Just talking about big goals and big ideas won’t get you very far; you must commit the time.

If you are unwilling to commit the time, you must ask your self why (maybe your goals are not in alignment with your true purpose, or your values, maybe your motives for accomplishing these goals are wrong, etc.).  You must deal the heart of this issue before attempting to achieve goals that are not right for you.

If you want success you have to put in the time today.  Remember, as I always say, tomorrow never comes.  The only way to become an author is to start writing now.  Don’t waste a ton of time figuring out how you’re going to get published until you have something worth saying on paper, because unless you’ve written a few successful books in the past, the publisher is going to want to see something.

Once someone told me that they wanted to be an author, but didn’t know how they should proceed.  I said do you have any paper, they said yes, I said do you own a pen, they said yes, I said then start writing.  You need not overcomplicate the situation.  If you want to be a lawyer, there’s no need for you to do a lot of wishing and dreaming and hoping, find out what the requirements are to get into law school and then do it; before time passes you by.

This “time principle” applies to every aspect of life, if you want to be a great parent, start reading books on parenting today. You can dedicate 20 minutes a day to reading about parenting and revolutionalize your life and the life of your children in a short time.

Focus

It all hinges on how you decide to focus your time.  If your goal is to be an author then you must focus your time on writing.  You may say, I would love to, but I have a job, and kids and a wife, and responsibilities, etc., but the reality is you can always make time.  You can get up earlier, stop watching television, and plan your day in advance to avoid circumstances that waste your time; you have to make time.  While you’re saying it can’t be done, someone is doing it!

Everyone has the ability to focus their time.  Just focusing on a task for one hour a day is over 350 hours of focused effort toward your goal, 2 hours a day is over 700 hours of focused effort, and so on.  Lots of wonderful things can be done in this time, and you can choose what they are.

The time is going to pass anyway, so it might as well pass with you moving in the direction you want to go in.  Don’t get stuck thinking I have so many things to do, in order to achieve my goal, just start climbing your mountain, one step at a time.

Remember, time waits on no man, so get busy today and start achieving your dreams in the now, you will be glad you did, and you will enjoy the journey.

Action items: List one to four goals that you would like to accomplish in the next year (e.g. Become a better spouse, a toastmaster, lower your cholesterol, etc.).  Beside the items you listed, write what you need to do daily/weekly/monthly to accomplish that goal.  Then get started doing it right now.

Thank you for reading mrselfdevelopment.com where every article expands your mind, increases your faith, and changes your life.

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