I am good at setting goals and deciding what I want. But I never seem to take action. I’ve been considering changing jobs from a career as a banker to become a motivational speaker for youth and young graduates. The demand of the job is much and I find it hard to make significant progress. I have organized one training and talked once as an invited speaker at a university but that was since last year. Got any advice for me?

My Reply

Action is everything. If you aren’t taking it, look at the reasons why you are holding back. Is it fear? Do you have other priorities that come before this? Does it seem like your goal is “too big” to accomplish, so why bother? What do you tell yourself? When trying to accomplish a big goal:

1. Decide what the outcome should be. What does your final destination look like? How often will you speak to students? What kinds of training do you provide?
2. Set milestones. Don’t worry about making a living at this just yet. Instead, focus on booking one engagement or doing one training. Just one. Then, plan out your steps for achieving this goal.
3. Conquer your fears. If this is your life’s purpose, realize you must conquer your own fears if you want to make a difference in other people’s lives. Write down all the fears that are holding you back – do you feel failure, imperfection, success or that others will judge you? Any time we step outside our comfort zone and try something new, we will have fears. That’s natural. But you can’t let those fears hold you back. By acknowledging your fears, you can remove the power you have attached to them.
4. Turn fears into positive affirmations. How can you take your fears and negative self-talk and turn it into something positive. Create positive affirmations you can tell yourself whenever you feel afraid. How can you respond to your own internal dialog so that you feel proud, enthusiastic or successful about what you are trying to accomplish?
5. Hold yourself accountable. If you really want to do something, find a way to hold yourself accountable. Tell others your dreams. Find a support group. Figure out how you can partner with others to make this happen. Decide you will do something crazy if you don’t achieve your next milestone (shave your head, donate a large amount of money to a charity you dislike, etc). Check out stickk.com to help you be accountable.
6. Lighten up. This should be fun. Whenever something feels too big or too difficult, we have a tendency to take it way too serious. Relax and laugh at yourself. All these thoughts and emotions are things you are creating in your own mind.

I have a strange problem. I am a musician who formally studied classical guitar and piano. When I am alone, I play well but when I play in front of people, I feel intimidated and don’t play my best. I have tried affirmations and ways to relax, be self confident, and so on, but nothing seems to work. Composing is my strong area not public performance. I do realize that it is my responsibility as a musician to overcome this problem and give a good performance to my audience. Do you know of any solutions to overcome this?

My Answer

Lots of people fear public speaking or performing, so you aren’t alone in your fear. However, as you have realized, this fear can hold you back from achieving your goals. Here are a few tips:

1. Mindset is everything. Performing in public is a skill that can be learned. Lots of people have overcome this fear and learned to feel comfortable – or even enjoy – performing in front of a crowd. You can too. It just takes practice.
2. Don’t strive for perfection. You don’t have to be perfect. Your audience won’t crucify you if you make a mistake. Realize that their purpose is to enjoy themselves and have a good time, not criticize the entertainer. If you play original works, they probably won’t even realize you hit a wrong note or messed up your tempo.
3. Take small steps. Start out with small groups of people first. As you become more comfortable and confident, play for larger crowds.
4. Focus on your life purpose. If spreading your music is your life purpose, accept that you must overcome your fears to make this happen. Then, do whatever it takes to achieve this.
5. Learn to laugh at yourself. Everyone makes mistakes. You can either beat yourself up about it or accept you aren’t perfect and laugh it off. Even if you have a terrible performance, you can always use it as a funny story to tell people when you are famous. “When I was just starting out, I was deathly afraid of performing in public. In fact, one time…” Own your mistakes so they don’t own you.

The only way I know to overcome a fear of public speaking is to make yourself do it over and over. As you practice, you will figure out what works for you and become more comfortable in front of people. Yes, at first, you will have anxiety towards this, but summon your courage to conquer this fear – and do it. The more you do it, the easier it will be.

The truth is that you will never succeed at achieving your goals unless you become clear about what you want, become motivated enough to change your life, and create a solid plan of action to achieve your goals. Without these three things, your goals will remain elusive dreams and wishes. Here are 4 steps to achieving your goals.

Clarify What You Want

It is virtually impossible to hit a moving target, so your first step is to decide what, exactly, you want to achieve. What do you want? Be as specific as possible about what your desired end result looks like.

If you want to start a business, what does your business sell? How many employees do you have? What do you do on a day-to-day basis? How much money do you bring in?

If you want a particular lifestyle, what does it look like? Describe your house, your car, your career, or whatever you want. What does your daily schedule look like? What do you do for fun?

Until you can visualize yourself having attained that goal, it’s just a dream or a wish. Day dream. Put together a vision board with all the images you want to manifest in your life. Become extremely clear about what, exactly, you want.

Commit Resources

Achieving your goals takes planning and committed effort. Think of it like building a house. At first, all you have is a rough idea of what you want. Then, you work with an architect or builder to develop a complete house plan and move closer to your goal. The same is true of creating a different lifestyle or successful business.

But creating the life you’ve dreamed of doesn’t come without dedication. If you want to create a successful business, you must put in the hours it will take to build momentum. If you want to write a novel, that may mean less recreational time. Spending more time with your children may mean adjusting your work schedule.

Whatever you decide you want must become a priority in your life so that you do make time for it.

Take Consistent Daily Action

If you want to achieve your goals faster, you must commit time each day to work towards them. It takes 3-4 weeks to form a new habit, so if you take action each day, after a month of consistent focus, you will have created a new habit.

The best way to achieve your goals is to make them daily habits. You may find that at first, you struggle with changing your daily behaviors, but as you do the behavior over time, it gets easier and easier until it becomes automatic. If you want to write a novel, commit to writing a certain amount of words per day. If you want to grow your business, commit to making a specific number of sales each week. Then hold yourself accountable.

Don’t let your goals get pushed aside while you focus on your daily tasks and distractions. Obstacles will arise. It’s up to you to stay on course each day.

Be Passionate

Whenever you feel like giving up or not doing your daily action towards achieving your goal, go back to your vision of why you wanted to achieve that goal in the first place. Inject some passion into your life. That intense desire will keep you motivated and help you overcome your mind’s rationalizations and doubts.

If you aren’t passionate about your goals, chances are, you don’t really want them. Perhaps you feel you should achieve something, or your friends and family want you to achieve it – but it really isn’t a priority deep down.

For instance, I struggled for a few years with thinking I should buy a house. My friends were buying houses while I still lived in an apartment. Yes, I wanted to move, but I didn’t feel ready to settle down and commit to a long term mortgage. Now, I’m glad I didn’t buy a house because I’m looking to start traveling next summer. Traveling feels right. Buying a house didn’t.

So consider – is your goal something you really want? If so, commit to taking one small action each day, and over time, you will find you’ve made considerable progress.

You can manifest your desires in your life. The secret is to figure out exactly what you want, then pursue it passionately. Don’t just dream about it – do it! Make it happen!

Breaking your bad habits and forming healthy ones isn’t that difficult if you commit to changing your lifestyle. All you have to do is shift your focus from believing that change will be difficult to believing it will be easy. When you believe something is easy, you don’t struggle against it. Your thoughts and emotions are in alignment with your goals, so you are happy to take the appropriate action.

When you believe something to be difficult, just the opposite happens. Your mind comes up with all sorts of excuses to sabotage your efforts. If you’ve ever tried to lose weight or quit smoking, you know how easy it is to come up with all sorts of reasons why you should order a pizza instead of cooking a healthy meal or how you need just one more cigarette to stop your nicotine craving or cope with stress.

Your experiences will align with your beliefs.

Break Bad Habits

How do you usually go about trying to change your behavior? Perhaps one morning you wake up and decide that today is the day you will start losing weight. No more junk food for you, even when things get difficult. Whenever you want to reach for that cookie or bag of chips, you will find something else to focus on. Sure, it may be tough at first, but you’ll try.

Now, how long do you think you will last with this mindset?

Chances are, not too long. You can see you’ve already decided that losing weight will be difficult and have negative thought patterns in place. Words like “when things get difficult” or “it may be tough at first” or “you’ll try” show that you are already setting your self up just in case you fail. You really aren’t 100% committed.

Losing weight doesn’t have to be difficult – but if you convince yourself that it will be a challenge, and that you will have to forego the foods you love for a few months, you will find your thought patterns are stronger than your desire to change.

Change Your Thought Patterns

That doesn’t mean you can’t change, though. For instance, last year I lost 25lbs in 3 months following Tim Ferriss’ Slow Carb Diet. I decided I needed to change and that I had to take action towards achieving that goal.

First, I had to change my way of thinking about losing weight. I was unhappy with the way I looked and felt unattractive. I was at the heaviest I had ever been and horrified I had let myself get so heavy. So I decided I had to change – it was no longer an option.

Next, I started researching various diet and fitness plans. I happened to stumble upon that low carb diet and was surprised at how simple it was. You eat a certain way for 6 days and then can eat whatever you want on the 7th. Suddenly, losing weight was no longer difficult – it was pretty easy, actually.

Finally, I started looking for motivation. During those few months of weight loss, I actively searched the Internet for motivational and inspirational quotes and stories that resonated with me. I needed to hear others achieving success or struggling with what I was currently struggling with. I re-read the comments on Tim’s blog over and over (there are 2600 comments as I write this now) and kept up with other people’s progress.

Because I was able to change my thinking about weight loss, I quickly lost the 25 lbs I wanted to and have kept it off for over a year. I feel so much lighter and far happier. I also weigh myself regularly and watch my weight so that it doesn’t blossom out of proportion again. I have an upper weight limit that if I hit, I put myself back on the diet until I lose those few extra pounds – and I consider this a non-negotiable.

Whatever your goals, you can achieve them by changing your thought patterns. Be patient and stick with it. Yes, it will probably take some time to see results, but you will eventually see them.

Author: Jack Canfield and Mark Victor Hansen
Publisher: Berkley Trade
Year Published: 1995
Rating:
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In The Aladdin Factor, Jack Canfield and Mark Victor Hansen of Chicken Soup for the Soul fame lay out a framework for asking for and receiving what you want. You may know Jack Canfield as one of the teachers of The Secret or the Law of Attraction. Unlike with The Secret, The Aladdin Factor isn’t concerned with the metaphysical (for instance, all you have to do is ask the Universe for what you want and wait for it to happen.) Rather, it takes the much more direct approach: become clear about what you want then ask people who have the means to help you to guide you towards your goals.

The book starts with a list of five reasons why people don’t get what they want.

1. Ignorance – Often, people don’t get what they want because they don’t know what to ask for. Perhaps this is due to lack of clarity about what they want, or perhaps they don’t know what’s possible or what resources are available.
2. Limiting beliefs – Our beliefs are a product of the experiences we’ve had with parents, teachers, peers, colleagues, social circles, and the media. In many cases, we hold inaccurate beliefs about what is actually possible based on our previous experiences.
3. Fear – We often let fear hold us back from asking for what we want. Types of fears include fear of rejection, being humiliated, feeling powerless, abandonment, looking like a fool, and so forth.
4. Low self-esteem – Sometimes, we feel unworthy of receiving what we are asking for.
5. Pride – We tend to not want to admit that we need help and support because asking makes us feel inadequate.

The authors offer several exercises to help you become clear about what you want and then have the courage to ask for help. The core foundations include: knowing what you really want, believing you are worthy of receiving what you want, being optimistic and passionate about your desires, taking action in the face of fear, and being persistent.

If you’ve been struggling with achieving your goals, The Aladdin Factor will give you the tools to successfully approach others for help, guidance, and mentorship. As the authors say, “What’s the worst that can happen?” If they say “no,” you are no worse off than when you started. But if they say “yes,” you’re one step closer to achieving your goals.

Rather than persevering and finishing things, I tended to direct my attention elsewhere and started something new, leaving me with numerous unfinished projects and little to show for my efforts. It was my own form of self-sabotage – I always felt like I was spinning my wheels but never getting anywhere.

One of my main goals for this year was to focus on improving my self confidence, and it’s made a huge difference in where I am now compared with even six months ago.

Here are some of the ways I’ve built up my own self-confidence.

1. Make the decision to change – The first step to building self-confidence is to decide you will change. This probably sounds obvious but with me, I hit a point where I know I’m not happy with where I am and make a decision that it’s unacceptable to continue with my current course of action. Once I’ve made that decision, I tend to stick with it.
2. Take care of yourself - It’s amazing how just grooming yourself, getting a makeover or a nice haircut will do for your self-esteem. You’ll look and feel better. I almost always start my change process with some type of physical change in appearance. For instance, earlier this year, I decided I wanted to lose 20 pounds. I had been at the heaviest weight in my life and decided enough was enough. I did some research and followed Tim Ferriss’ weight loss suggestions, and within less than three months, I had achieved my goal.
3. Exercise – Taking 20-30 minutes each day to exercise does wonders for how you feel. I exercise at home, primarily with a jump rope routine and lifting dumbbells, so I don’t need to go to the gym. I’ve made it a habit to watch a movie or tv show each night, and during that time, I do my workout routine.
4. Eat healthy – When I decided to lose weight, I knew I couldn’t keep eating the junk food diet I’d previously been on. I started adding more proteins, veggies, and beans to my diet while cutting out a lot of the carbs and sugary foods. I soon had far more energy than previously.
5. Stop comparing yourself to others – It’s really easy to look at what others have and wish you lived where they do, drove a more expensive car, had cooler gadgets, a larger bank account, and so on. Yet this kind of envious thinking only makes you feel worse about yourself, and worse, inspires you to live above your means. Most of us aren’t immune to wanting more – hence the current economic crisis – but I’ve learned that having cool stuff doesn’t necessarily make people happier. Happiness comes from within, not from all the stuff you collect.
6. Be grateful for what you have – If you have enough to eat, a roof over your head, and supportive friends and family members, you’ve got plenty to be grateful for. How often do we take things for granted rather than appreciate what we have?
7. Be positive – It’s easy to fall into a cycle of sarcasm and complaining, but much more fulfilling if you take a positive attitude towards life. Look for what’s right rather than what’s wrong. That isn’t to say ignore the bad stuff, but instead of complaining and feeling helpless, look for things within your control.
8. Be true to your principles – Self-confidence and authenticity go hand-in-hand. Knowing who you are and what you stand for – and then acting in accordance with those principles – builds a sense of self-respect.
9. Accept compliments – Whenever someone says something nice to you, respond with a simple “thank you.” Don’t put yourself down, mentioning “it’s nothing special” or “it wasn’t a big deal” or that really you thought you “don’t deserve it.” By accepting compliments, you honor the opinions of others and show you appreciate their kindness.
10. Make eye contact – Eye contact is incredibly powerful. When you don’t make eye contact, it can indicate that you’re shy, bored with the conversation, or perhaps that you’re hiding something. When you focus on making eye contact, it requires you to pay attention to other people rather than zoning off into your own world.
11. Speak slowly and listen in conversations – Self-confident people slow down their speech patterns and take the time to listen to others in verbal communications. I used to speak incredibly fast, and it took a few months of work with a voice coach to see just how ineffective this was. People quickly tune out when they can’t get a word in the conversation or they feel you are lecturing them. Instead, focus your conversation on others and really listen to what they have to say.
12. Focus on your strengths but know your weaknesses – In the book Now, Discover Your Strengths, Marcus Buckingham describes how it’s better to focus on your strengths than improve your weaknesses. Yes, you should know what your weaknesses are, but you’ll be happier doing the things you love and are good at rather than struggling to improve your weaknesses all the time.
13. Build competence – By focusing on your strengths and building competence in the areas that align with your talents and skills, you’ll automatically improve your self-confidence.
14. Set and achieve small goals – While setting big goals is great, often those big goals can become frustrating and overwhelming. Look for little things you can do – like that to-do list item you’ve been putting off, or start small, changing one habit for the next 30 days and stick with it. Self-confidence improves with each success.
15. Do your most important thing for the day first – In Brian Tracy’s book, Eat That Frog!: 21 Great Ways to Stop Procrastinating and Get More Done in Less Time, he encourages you to figure out what your most important task for the day should be and then to do it before you do anything else. That way, you start your day off with a win and will feel incredibly productive; even if that’s the only thing you get done that day.
16. Find ways to motivate yourself – When you are facing a challenging task, or even something you don’t want to do, finding motivation to get it done can be difficult. Everyone has different ways to motivate themselves. Some people like to reward themselves after success while others need some type of deadline or commitment to push forward. StickK.com is a site that allows you sign a legally binding contract that requires you to donate a specific amount of money to charity if you fail. To really motivate you, you can pick an “anti-charity,” an organization you strongly oppose, to receive your charitable donations. Listening to motivational speakers can also give you a pick-me-up for daily motivation.
17. Live in the present moment – It’s so easy to get caught up in what we should have done last week or what we must do tomorrow, that we let today pass us by. Living in the present moment means being completely immersed and experiencing whatever you are doing right now.
18. Meditate – Just sitting, focusing on your breath, and becoming aware of your thoughts is a big step towards living in the present moment. When you meditate, you become aware of the constant self-talk, much of it negative, that streams through your head on a daily basis. Once you become aware of your own constant chatter, you can take steps to quiet your thoughts and experience the world without your ongoing commentary.
19. Acknowledge daily successes – I’ve been journaling my daily successes each night, as it’s easy to forget about them when you still have so much work to do on your goals. Success builds self-confidence, so it helps when can see that each day, you’re making progress and achieving small goals.

Unfortunately, most of us are pretty bad at asking empowering questions. Instead, we ask ourselves things like:

• Why can’t I ever do this right?
• Why didn’t I leave earlier so I wouldn’t be late?
• Why did I sleep in rather than going to the gym this morning?
• Why did I eat that?

All these questions are accusing in nature. They immediately make us feel defensive – we need to justify why we ate that luscious dessert or didn’t exercise today (we will tomorrow!) These types of questions also focus on the problem rather than the solution and lead to more cyclical thinking. We never break out of the negative thinking – we just think more negative thoughts and downward spiral.

Instead, we should focus on empowering questions like:

• What’s most important?
• What am I really proud of today?
• What action can I take right now to move forward?
• What foods would I like to eat more of?
• How can I make my exercise sessions more fun/interesting/challenging?
• How can I fit this last thing into my schedule?

Empowering questions usually start with “what” or “how” while disempowering questions start with “why”. That’s not an all encompassing rule – you can always ask something like “what the heck is wrong with you?” – but it holds true in many cases.

To ask empowering questions, we must focus on what we can control. There are many things in life that are out of our control such as traffic, weather, budgets, competitors, natural disasters, or what people think about us.

There are also many things we can influence, but we don’t have control over. For instance, we can influence what others think of us. If we are negative, defensive, or hostile, people will tend to think badly about us. If we are upbeat, enthusiastic, and positive, people will think well of us. But, there may be that one person who just does not like us no matter what we do.

What we can control are our own actions and attitudes. We can choose to complete a project on time, set aside time to spend with family, spend money on certain things, take action, not take action, think positively, think negatively, etc.

If something bad happens to us – like we miss our train, our car won’t start, or even something as mundane as we spill our morning coffee – it’s up to us to choose how we will respond to it and how that one event will affect the rest of our day.

Today, spend some time reflecting on the questions you ask yourself – are they holding you back or empowering you to live a fulfilling life? If you are asking negative questions, how can you reframe them so they are more positive and empowering?

Darren Rowse recently hosted a group writing project on his ProBlogger blog. I was one of 893 participants who wrote a Top 5 List – mine was on the Top 5 Ways To Stop Being a Perfectionist.

There were so many great entries, so I want to share some link love by posting my top 5 favorite posts on success and well being.

5. Top 5 Tips for Achieving Success
4. 5 Back-to-Basics Strategies For Renewing Your Energy
3. Top Five Ways To Creatively Acheive Your Goal
2. the top 5 reasons to change your life right now
1. Top 5 healthy relaxation techniques

If you’re looking to build traffic to your blog, participating in one of these types of group writing projects is a great way. I’ll also admit that Mike Bergin’s Top Five Ways Blog Carnivals Make Blogging Better has convinced me to try out Blog Carnivals. One of my goals for the next few weeks will be to participate in one.

Perfectionism prevents us from getting things done – and enjoying ourselves as we complete our tasks. Here are my top five ways to break the cycle of worrying and start enjoying life.

1) Set realistic expectations – Have you ever started a project only to realize a little while into it that you’ve bitten off more than you could chew? Before starting your next project, ask yourself whether your goal or expectation is reasonable. Could someone else in your shoes hope to accomplish it? If not, break it down into something more manageable. You can always increase the scope of the project later when you have more time and resources to devote. For now, focus on the next mission critical step and devote your attention solely to this phase until it’s completed. Then, you can tackle phase 2.

2) Give yourself credit for what you have accomplished – When you set goals, it’s easy to focus on the fact that you have not yet achieved them. Instead, focus on all the mini-accomplishments and milestones you have accomplished on your path to achieving your goals. Success is a journey, not a destination.

3) Accept that mistakes are part of the journey – No matter what you set out to achieve, you’ll find that there were always things you could have done better. Instead of dwelling on could-have-beens and should-have-beens, learn from them and move on. Mistakes are opportunities for personal growth.

4) If you’re stuck, seek help – No one but you expects you to know all the answers. The best athletes have coaches and the best business minds have mastermind groups precisely for this reason. Sometimes you’re too close to the problem and need an outsider’s perspective to help you take a step back.

5) Focus on the present – Too often, we spend our time worrying about past things we can’t change or future things that will never happen. Instead, focus on the present moment. How can you make what you need to do enjoyable now? What would make you feel good in this moment? Perhaps it’s visualizing how you’ll feel when the project is done or knowing how your work will have helped someone else.

As a friend of mine likes to say, “Good is great but done is better.” The trick is to get out of your head and take action towards completing your task or goal. Action leads to feedback and new perspectives. And you’ll often find that it wasn’t as bad as you thought and that 99% of what you worried might happen didn’t.

What are your best ways to silence your inner critic? Feel free to add your suggestions in the comments below.

I’ve recently joined one of the newest membership sites out there, Think Rich Membership Club. Honestly, I don’t know how exclusive they are, but since the trial 14 day membership was only $3.95 (and you can cancel at any time – no commitments), I figured I’d give them a try. And, if you sign up by April 30 and want to stay in, you only pay $47.77/month rather than $97.77 they claim the price will be once they officially launch in May.

The site was started by a husband and wife team, Ray DuGray & Maria Ngo, The Entrepreneur Doctors who work out of Las Vegas. They are founders of the extensive Niche Information Center site that provides free articles for newsletter publishers on a wealth of topics.

I’ve been impressed with the stuff they currently have on their site. There are about 40 interviews with “featured experts” like Dave Lakhani, Mark Victor Hansen, Tom Antion, Steve Pavlina, and Ted Ciuba. Each interview is about 60 minutes. The only downside to these is that most aren’t downloadable (you can download the interviews with Mark Victor Hansen, Les Brown, Ted Ciuba, and Charlie T Jones in a different “download library”). You must listen to each through their online mp3 player. It’s not a big deal, but I guess that’s motivation to remain subscribed.

There’s also a section that has affirmations on Think and Grow Rich. There isn’t much happening on the discussion forums, but I suspect once this gets up and running, they will be quite valuable.

While there is a lot of information on the site, I found it to be a bit cumbersome, buggy and difficult to use.

• There are a lot of links that don’t work yet and a number of sections under construction.
• Right now, there aren’t any downloadable ebooks, and I couldn’t find any videos – all the video links took me back to the homepage or to the audio links section.
• They also have 90+ experts listed on the site, but when you click on several of them, you’re taken to the generic audio page where their audio is nowhere to be found.
• Parts of the side menu also repeat, so it’s very confusing.
• A number of the side navigation links take you to pages that claim you don’t have access and to join the membership site. Since I only saw one level to the membership subscription, I have to assume that I should have access to these pages…
• There are a lot of ads on the site, which makes it confusing what’s part of the site and what’s not.

My advice is that if you do decide to join, forget about the site navigation and look for the “site map” link (it’s about a quarter down the page under the side navigation header called “info center”). This page contains a list of all working links on the site and is a lot less frustrating than trying to figure out where stuff is located.

I’m hoping they’ll clean up the site by the time they launch in May because the layout is really annoying. You have to spend time finding all the info they promise in their sales letter. That said, they do have a lot of good information on the site if you’re willing to dig (again, go straight to the site map page!). The 40 interviews are well worth the $3.95 trial cost.