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“You will never change your life until you change something you do daily.”
- John C. Maxwell, Today Matters: 12 Daily Practices to Guarantee Tomorrow’s Success
In his book, Maxwell argues that today is the most important day of your life and that change will only occur if you make today matter more than any other day. Maxwell is a well-known author and public speaker who’s primary focus lies on leadership. If you’re interested in other books he’s written you have about 60 others to choose from.
I agree with Maxwell in that making today count is your first step to making every day count, and eventually achieving your long-term goals faster than you could have imagined. Most people have goals and truly want to make positive changes in their lives, but the process of dramatic change is very daunting, which is why few people ever achieve enormous success. Maxwell also touches on this point, explaining that “Successful people conquer their feelings and form the habit of doing things unsuccessful people do not like to do.” Essentially, if you’re willing to change, you CAN change. You simply have to make the decision and stick to it. Here’s the breakdown to setting goals, achieving them, and creating success in your own life, one step at a time.
The 7 Steps to Transform Your Life
1. Define Success for Yourself – If you ask me, I stole my definition of success from Maxwell. In his book, Your Road Map For Success: You CAN Get There From Here,” Maxwell defines success as a journey, specifically, “knowing your purpose in life, growing to reach your maximum potential, and sowing seeds that benefit others.” Ultimately, you have to define what success is to you, but make it very specific. In this way, you’ll be very sure as to when you’ve reached that point, and you it will help you know how to get there.
2. Set Bold & Achievable Goals – One of the fastest ways to completely transform who you are is to set outlandishly ridiculous, yet very achievable goals for yourself. This could range from deciding to write your first book, to moving to a foreign country, to saving up enough money to buy a million dollar house in cash. Whatever your dreams are, they won’t become goals until you set a deadline and get started.
3. Breakdown Your Goals into Baby Steps & Checklists – This is the core. You’ve probably heard the Chinese proverb, “The journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.” A thousand-mile journey on foot is a VERY bold goal. Obviously, that won’t be achieved overnight, so you would need to breakdown your journey into as many small baby steps as possible to make it happen. Get out a post-it note, Excel spreadsheet, or a marker and poster board. Write down every step you can think of to get your from point A to point B. Now, get ready to apply these to real life.
4. Create a Schedule You Can Stick To – Here’s the tricky part. Now, you need to figure out a way to incorporate the checklist into your daily life. As Maxwell stated, you have to change something EVERY day in order to change your entire life. So, look at your calendar and start moving things around. Find realistic ways to stick every step of your journey onto that schedule. Literally, got day-by-day and find time to work on your goal EVERY day, if possible. The more you think about your goal and the more often you work on it, the faster you will begin to see progress, even if it seems really slow.
5. Follow-Through with Help From Others – This may be the hardest part. Setting challenging goals is easy. Just say, “I want to fly to the moon.” Creating a schedule is a little harder. Just incorporate joining the Air Force, working for NASA, and training to be an astronaut on your already busy calendar. Following-through is where things get complicated. Schedules, distractions, new opportunities, you name it. Avoid the tangents and stay focused! You WILL need help from others to keep yourself on track. The easiest way to do that is to make your goal public. Tell everyone about it! You’ll end up with lot’s of people asking you how your progress is going, and you’ll surely want to impress them.
6. Revel in Your Triumphs & Learn From Your Tragedies – At many points along the way to your goal you will find mini-victories, times you want to celebrate what you’ve accomplished up to that point. You should. Go out and live it up! If you don’t stop to enjoy your progress it will be insanely hard to continue. At the same time, when things don’t pan out like you planned, I mean when life REALLY sucks, you need to step back and figure out what went wrong so you can fix it. Don’t give up! You are certain to face difficult times and your greatest strength needs to be in the ability to overcome hurdles you never saw coming.
7. Do it All Over Again – After all is said and done. After the late night parties, or depressing drunken stupors, are all over, you MUST set another bold goal. It doesn’t stop with one. Even if you did fly to the moon and made millions in the process, now fly to Mars. Fly to Jupiter. Get out there and continue to amaze yourself! Even if you did not succeed in your first attempts, there are many opportunities out there. This is your chance to create a life story you will want to tell your children, grandchildren, and even complete strangers because you are so proud of your accomplishments.
Get Started NOW! The only way to ensure tomorrow’s success begins with your efforts today. This may sound obvious, but if you haven’t achieved what you’ve wanted, this is your opportunity to begin something great. You have the ability to achieve your dreams. You are the one who has to make it happen. You need to get started today. So get out there and make it happen! Good luck on your goals and stay positive!
Don’t forget to check out my new revolutionary eBook for conquering life after college!
The Clueless Graduate,
Jeff Sanders
Follow @cluelessgrad
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