The coldest hour is just before the dawn

Have you ever felt at the end of your tether and decided that you are never going to reach your goal and perhaps you should simply just give up?

Probably this has happened to you on a number of occasions.  You may have had a lot of goals when you were younger but one by one watched them fade into the night.  Don't despair if that is the case.  You are not alone.  It happens to most of us.

But also, don't believe that it is inevitable.  It is not.  It can actually only happen if you allow it to happen.  If you are determined to reach your goal no matter what, then reach it you will.  Eventually.

Sometimes the goal itself is wrong.  As I have said in many other posts we often believe we have one goal but when we dig deep we realize our true goal was something quite different.  Our true goals form deep within us, and as they pass up from those depths they can get distorted.  Sometimes they end up distorted beyond all recognition.  So it is important every so often to sit and meditate, reflecting on your goals, and try to see through any distortions to the true goal deep inside.

Once you know you are focused on the right goals, recognize that there are likely to be many obstacles on the way towards those goals.

If you think about it, you probably wouldn't want it any other way.  If there were no obstacles it wouldn't really be a goal at all, would it?  For example, for most of us eating dinner isn't a goal.  It is just something we do.  Something that is hopefully enjoyable.  But not a goal.  For most of us there are no obstacles to eating that dinner.

Those obstacles are there ready to be challenged and overcome.  The stronger your desire to reach the goal, the greater your power to overcome the obstacles.  If you really want to reach that goal, and if it is the right goal for you, then you have all the power you need within you to overcome the hurdles and even pass through apparent solid walls between you and the goal.

Sometimes we are closest to the goal when it seems further away than it has ever been.  Whenever things seem bleak and whenever it seems that no matter what you try you can never reach your goal, always remember that you are probably the closest you have ever been to reaching it.

Have you ever heard the expression "The darkest hour is just before the dawn"?  It was introduced by Thomas Fuller in 1650.

Scientifically this is not true, but the metaphor here really is true.  Perhaps we should change it to "The coldest hour is just before the dawn", as that conveys a similar meaning and is also factually correct!

It is so often the case that everything seems dark, bleak and cold immediately before a radical change when everything becomes light, colourful and warm.

Only very recently I felt I was near the end of the possibility of reaching an important goal.  I have been struggling for several years to reach it, knowing it is a long term goal that will take many years to reach.  I say "struggling", which sounds negative, but most of the time it has been a positive "struggle" not a negative one, so perhaps I am using the wrong word here.  But only a few days ago it really seemed to me that I had reached a dead end.  The road seemed darker and colder than it had ever been before.  Did I give up?  No!  I prepared for the possibility that I had been trying to reach the wrong goal and that I might have to re-define it.  But then my natural inner positivity made me also accept that perhaps the negatives I saw all around me were illusions rather than the goal being an illusion.  The moment I reached that point I took an action to move forward one more step, a step into the dark and apparently up to a sold blocking wall.  When I did this it was as if a hidden door was opened for me.  I stepped through and found myself the other side of that wall and am now well on the way to achieving this long term goal.

So when you feel all is conspiring against you and that you can never reach your goals do not give up.  Yes, re-evaluate your goals and make sure they really are the right goals - but this is something you should always be doing anyway.  Once you have reassured yourself that you are headed in the right direction, relax in the knowledge that there is an all-powerful, beneficent force out there that will provide the ways and means for you to reach your goals as long as you keep on working towards them.

You will never reach your goal

Have you ever almost reached your goal, only to have the rug pulled out from underneath your feet just when that goal was in sight?

Have you ever actually reached your goal, but before you can start to enjoy it you find something has happened to make you walk away from it?

Be honest here.  These are two very common problems faced by most people.  If this has never happened to you then all I can say is that you are very lucky and are in a very small minority.  And just because it has not happened yet, this doesn't mean it will never happen to you in the future!

As this is such a common problem I feel it is very important to address it again, even though I have referred to it in a number of different blog articles.  What can you do to stop this happening, or at least to minimize the chance of it happening?  The first step is to recognize the problem.  If you understand the causes you have a much better chance of moving in a different direction and stopping the "self sabotage" from happening in the first place.

There are three distinct reasons here, any one of which can result in the prize of your achievement being snatched away, and all of which can work together to make it virtually impossible for you to realize your dreams.  If you do not address them I would go as far as to say you will never achieve your goals.

The first I will call "Fear of Failure".  The second is "Fear of Success".  The third is "Incorrect Goal Identification".

Fear of Failure

Fear of Failure is very common.  I would go as far as to say virtually everyone suffers from Fear of Failure.

Recently I read a novel by Celeste Ng called "Little Fires Everywhere".  This is a well written novel with quite a complex plot line.  But to me the strongest element was the self-destructive instincts of a mother who was afraid her youngest daughter would not develop in the way she hoped.  You could almost say she loved her daughter too much, although I personally don't believe in the concept of "loving too much", but only of allowing that deep love to express itself in inappropriate and destructive ways.  Because she was so afraid that certain things would happen, the mother unintentionally caused those very things to happen.  If she had simply expressed her love for her youngest in the same way as she did for her other children, my reading of the novel is that her youngest daughter would have grown up as "completely normal" rather than the maladjusted child she became.

This is very typical of all of us.  We are afraid that we won't achieve what we want to achieve.  This causes us to focus on all the things that could go wrong rather than on all the things that we could do to ensure we are successful.  Often we get very close to success despite all that wrong focus.  But eventually the wrong focus comes home to roost.

We often see this in the way a lot of relationships go wrong.  One party fears the other might stop loving them and find someone else.  They have no logical reason for this fear, but gradually it grows and takes over their life.  Instead of being the beautiful positive thing it should be, the relationship becomes toxic.  The party who feels this way begins to read the wrong signs into everything.  If their other half smiles at someone they believe this means they are transferring their affections to that other person.  Every innocent action is given a completely different reason, building a picture of betrayal - a betrayal that simply doesn't exist, yet!  The more this goes on, the more toxic the relationship becomes.  The other party is almost forced into a position where they stop loving the other, or at least find that love considerably diluted.  They cannot understand what has happened, but simply know that the relationship is not working.  And so they start looking for a better relationship elsewhere - the very thing that the person responsible for this change feared would happen.

The same thing can, and often does, happen with other life goals, not simply relationships.

You want to become wealthier.  At first you are excited by this goal, imagining you now have all the things you could have if you WERE wealthier.  Having imagined having them, you then imagine them being taken away or never having managed to get them in the first place.  This makes you feel rotten.  But you now believe this is the most likely outcome.  You think of all the things that can go wrong and stop you achieving your wealth goal.  Your focus changes from what you can do to get wealthier, to what can stop you getting wealthier.  All the negatives seem to add up to something much more powerful than the positives.  Eventually, the Universe gets the message - you are focussed on not getting wealthy, so that is what it is going to ensure happens to you.

Be aware that this not only CAN happen, but very often does.  Defeat it by focussing again on the goal and the pleasure it will bring, and don't allow all those negative voices to take your power away from you.

Fear of Success

Fear of Success is really a kind of evolved Fear of Failure.  You recognize that when you achieve what you want to achieve you can easily lose it.  So you then focus on how that would make you feel.  Your impression is that if you achieve it and then lose it you will be a lot unhappier than if you never achieved it in the first place.  I think you can immediately see where this is leading.  The closer you get to success, the stronger you feel this worry about how achieving and then losing is worse than not achieving at all.  So your subconscious decides the best thing is to ensure you never achieve success in the first place.  Once your subconscious makes this decision you may as well give up trying.  You cannot defeat your subconscious - it is far more powerful than your conscious mind.

The answer, of course is to ensure you do not send this kind of message to your subconscious in the first place.

The reality is that we win and lose things all the time in the game of life.  Take pleasure from your wins, and don't focus on the losses.  Don't allow the very real fear that something in the future will change and take away what you have initially achieved, to stop you from achieving in the first place.

Incorrect Goal Identification

Again this is something I have covered many times in different blog articles.  But it is extremely important.  If you don't give a great deal of thought to the goals you are working towards I can almost guarantee they will be the wrong goals.  The desire for success comes from deep within.  As it rises to the surface it becomes modified.  And when it reaches your conscious mind it is usually something completely different from the original intended goal.  

When you then start going after what you think is your goal, your subconscious sees it is not the original goal.  So it doesn't try to help you achieve it.  Even worse, in many cases the modified goal will be counter-productive and will move you away from what the true goal should have been.  If so, not only will your subconscious not help you achieve it, but it will actively work to stop you achieving it.  In the unlikely event that you achieve the goal, you will never be really happy with it, as it is not the goal you really wanted to achieve even though you never knew this.

Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to dive deep within yourself and find out what that original true goal is.  You do this by noting down what you think are your goals and then sit still and meditate on it.  As you do so you will be going deep within yourself where you are more likely to find the true goal itself.  When you come out of that meditation, note down your feelings and thoughts arising from the meditation.  You will probably need to do this many times before you truly identify your real goals, but every hour you spend doing this is an hour very well spent.  Identify your true goals and you will be setting yourself up for really achieving them.

Exciting Goals

Have you identified your true goals?  Your real goals?  The goals that excite you because you know your life and the lives of those you touch can be very different when you achieve them?

I wrote a few months ago about identifying goals.  This is such an important topic I make no apology for addressing it again now.

Unfortunately many of us seem to have lost the excitement we once had when we formulated our goals.  Many more never had that excitement right from the start.  And without excitement it is very unlikely you will achieve your goals.  Why?  Because day to day life will "get in your way".  There are too many distractions competing for your attention.  Without excitement driving you forward you will be sidetracked by those distractions.  In fact, hijacked by them.

If you don't believe this, look back to the last day you didn't have to go to work or study.  If you don't work or study, look back to yesterday.  If you do, then perhaps look back to last Sunday or Saturday.  What did you achieve?  Did you achieve anything at all?  If you did, congratulations - you are in a pretty small minority.  But if you achieved something, how much closer did it take you towards any of your goals?  Be really honest here.

I tried this exercise just before writing this blog, so let me give you my results.  I didn't actually achieve anything significant at all.  I have a good excuse for this.  I have been working hard, so my last weekend (actually, a long weekend as there were a couple of public holidays too) was simply a chance to relax, do nothing, and feel good about it.  A chance to rest before going back to the grind of day to day work.

There is nothing wrong in this per se.  In fact for many of us it can be an essential exercise.  And if you go back to work refreshed and energized then you have achieved something.  But if you are in a similar position to me and find that your last rest day was simply that, a day of rest, then how about going back a week before?  What did you achieve then on a rest day?  And how about the week before that?  Surely you made great progress towards one of your major, exciting goals then?  No?

Unfortunately this is a common story for most of us.  We spend all day working hard, in order to have enough money to pay for the house in which we spend so little time because we are away working hard.  To pay for the car that we mostly use to get to our place of work rather than to take us to somewhere we can enjoy life.  So, what are we actually working for?  What do we really want to achieve in life, and is what we are doing right now getting us any closer to it?

For most of us these are very uncomfortable questions.  So uncomfortable we may try to brush them aside as being silly or irrelevant.  But they are not silly, and they are not irrelevant.  They are very uncomforable, but they are also very important.

Take some time right now to look again at your goals.  If they don't excite you they are the wrong goals.  And if you are aiming for the wrong goals you will either never achieve them anyway because they do not excite you, or you will achieve them and then wonder why you bothered in the first place.

Are your goals exciting?  If so, great!  Keep pushing forwards and achieve those goals.  If not, be ruthless and change them!  Replace them with goals that truly excite you and then make sure that every day you take at least one step to get you closer to those exciting goals.

Why Have an Accountability Partner?

I have previously written about accountability partners, but as that was over three years ago, and as this is such a key concept in any personal development strategy I make no apology for doing so again.

If you have a full-time job let me ask you something.  Why do you bother going to work each and every work day?  Why don't you just stay at home on days you don't feel like going to work?  I hope your answer was that you are morally bound to do so, that if someone is paying you to do something then it is a moral imperative to do it!  But there is also probably another answer - you have to keep going because you are accountable to your boss.  If you just decide you won't turn up because the weather is nice and you want to sunbathe in your garden, then probably your boss will question you about this (at the very least!).

If you run your own business then maybe you feel there is nobody to whom you are accountable?  This is not really the case, though, is it!  Your accountant works for you rather than vice versa, but I imagine when you meet with your accountant and discuss what has happened over the year you feel accountable.  You are also accountable to your suppliers.  If you just decide not to turn up and your business goes downhill, you still have to pay your bills, so you are certainly accountable to them.  It is true, though, that this kind of accountability is not quite the same.  You probably don't get words of encouragement for doing the right thing or suggestions that you may be going in the wrong directions - although if you have a good accountant then perhaps you do get this.

If you are studying, then you are accountable to your teachers or lecturers.  They expect you to arrive in time for your lessons and to be fully prepared to learn.  They expect you to do work in between the lessons, and make you accountable for this, perhaps by handing in an essay.  If you have "off" days when you really don't feel like going in, you probably still go anyway - because you are accountable.  Sometimes you may feel you simply aren't making progress and that you might as well give up - but even then you still put in the effort because you are accountable, and the feeling that what you are trying to do is impossible passes.

The truth is, if we have someone to whom we are accountable this almost certainly makes us do what needs to be done.  It makes the employed person get up early every day no matter whether he or she feels like doing so.  Perhaps most days this is simply a habit you don't think twice about, but on those days when you don't want to get on with it then this accountability makes sure you do!

Hopefully you now recognise just how important accountability is.  That it keeps you going, keeps you on target, makes you achieve what you need to achieve even at those times when you really don't feel you can.

Now let me ask you.  Who is your accountability partner for the goals you wish to achieve?  Do you have one?  If not, why not?

Some people at this point tell me they don't have a partner because they don't need one.  Usually they are deceiving themselves.  We all have days when it just seems too much of a challenge.  We have days when we find we are going backwards rather than forwards.  Those are the days we really need an accountability partner to keep us going.

Others tell me that although they would like to have an accountability partner they cannot find the right one.  Certainly it is true that it shouldn't just be anyone.  It has to be someone who will be positive, and certainly not the kind of person who says "I told you so!" when you pull up at the first hurdle.  You should be surrounding yourself with people who are positive and will support you in going for your dreams.  You need those people around you anyway, not just to have accountability partners, but this is certainly the first place you should look.  But if you haven't yet made much headway in creating that "mastermind group" of like-minded people, there are certainly other ways of finding an accountability partner.  For example, go to a forum that is related in some way to whatever goals you have set yourself and ask someone to do an "accountability exchange".  They will be your accountability partner for your dreams in exchange for you doing the same for theirs.  You should find this a very positive experience.  Many people who do this find they become inspired by the goals of their accountability partner and the way their partner works through the barriers stopping him or her from reaching them.

Give it a go!  Get yourself an accountability partner and see what a difference that makes to your ability to make your dreams become your reality!

Take Action

How easy is it to achieve your goals?

If you believe what some people say, it is very easy.  All you have to do is to decide what you want to achieve, use daily "affirmations", perhaps put it on a "vision board", and it is a done deal.  Right?

Wrong!

If you have read many of my blogs you may be excused for thinking I am one of those people trying to tell you that is all you need do.  But I am not.  Deciding on your goals first and making sure they are your "real" goals is, of course, absolutely essential.  Once you have set your goals, you should certainly use affirmations, and a vision board (or ideally a "Mind Movie").  But that is NOT all there is to it.  And that is where so many people who try to use the Law of Attraction fail.  They miss out the final step.

And what IS that final step?  It is to take action!

This is, of course, absolutely key!

You may at this point think I am crazy!  Of course you know you need to take action!  Yes, you know it, but do you DO it!

Take a look at what has happened to you in the last few years.  Are there any goals you set yourself which you did not achieve.  Be really honest here.  If so, and again be really honest, why did you not achieve them?  Was it because they were simply not achievable, or was there any element of you not taking the right action?  If you ARE honest, I am sure you will admit that there have been times when you have decided what you wanted to achieve, got yourself "pumped up" to achieve it, but then not taken the first necessary steps to achieve it.  Or you took those first steps, but then didn't continue in the same direction.

Taking action is essential.  But the first actions need not be big steps.  In fact, it is much better if they are not.  Certainly have big dreams.  Have big ultimate goals.  But don't expect suddenly to achieve those goals without having put in any work to reach them.  Instead, make it a lot easier on yourself.  Set yourself initially very small steps towards small goals.  Goals that take you in the right direction towards your ultimate goals.

When you do this you will find things are much easier.  You are not creating so much work for yourself that you freeze like a rabbit in car headlights.  That little goal you have set yourself can be reached easily without too much effort.

When you reach it, two things will happen.  Firstly, you will genuinely have achieved something.  It may not be a lot, but you have still achieved it.  You are closer to your ultimate goal.  Secondly, you will have started creating a habit - the habit of setting goals and achieving them.  And this is perhaps the most important thing you can do.

Up to now your subconscious may have been used to you saying you are going to achieve something but never achieving it.  Each time you set yourself a goal your subconscious shrugs its shoulders and says "not again!"  But with this first small success you are starting to change things.

Keep it up.  Make another small step.  Then another.  And then another.  Keep doing this.  Just small steps.  Nothing too big.  Keep doing this and you will now have the habit of achieving.  Now when you say you are going to achieve something, your subconscious will no longer shrug its shoulders and make disparaging comments.  It will take notice.  And when your subconscious starts to take notice, believe me things will begin to change, eventually quite dramatically.

Promise yourself that from now on when you want to achieve something you will take the necessary action so you really can achieve it - and see what a huge difference this makes!

Someone Is Holding You Back

If I were to tell you the biggest reason of all that you are not achieving what you want to achieve is because there is someone out there stopping you, who might that person be?

Think about it for a moment.  Is it perhaps your partner?  Maybe it is your boss - especially if what you want to achieve is an increase in your regular income!  Or could it be someone else?  Think about it for a moment.  Then list the people who come to your mind, and who you think may be holding you back.

Unless you are a very unusual person, or have not thought deeply about this, there should be several people on your list.  If there are not, take another moment out and think hard.  Add some names to that list.

The reality is most of us can identify some people out there who are holding us back.  The first step in dealing with this issue is to find out who they are.  Then you should look at the ways in which they are holding you back and what you might do to reduce or even prevent this.

If you have put your partner or spouse on the list, which will be the case for many people, you certainly have a challenge ahead of you, although it may not be as big a challenge as you think.  It is quite normal for your partner or spouse to expect you to be doing something different if you have changed what you want to achieve since you first met them - and as all of us are evolving all the time, you should expect what you want to achieve to have changed.  When you have an intimate relationship it is important to share your deep desires with your partner.  Not just your intimate desires, but also everything that makes you who you are now, which is at least a little different from who you were last month, last year, or ten years ago.  Share it and talk it through.  Be sensitive to the fact that just as it is natural for you to have changed, so it is also for your partner.  In any relationship there must be some give and take.  If there is something you are really passionate about achieving it is vital you share this with your partner and get them on board.  But don't be selfish about it.  Recognize the need for give and take.  And also use the opportunity to find out, if you don't already know, how your partner has evolved and what he or she is now passionate about that perhaps was not the case when you first got together.  It could be the case that you have both evolved so far in completely different directions that you really no longer belong together.  I really hope not.  But it is possible.  Certainly, though, do not assume that to be the case just because you have indeed both evolved in different directions.  What is important is to re-establish proper communication - because if this has happened and neither of you has spotted it then certainly there is a problem with communication and you should both look to creating more opportunities to share your innermost thoughts and feelings with each other.

If you have put friends on the list, and again this will be the case for many people if they are honest about it, the solution for each of those friends is really very similar to the one I have just shared regarding your partner.  The difference is that where you have gone in different directions, then now may be the time for you both to recognize this and go your different ways.  What is very important is that you not keep close to you anyone who keeps being negative about your goals.  They are YOUR goals, not anybody else's, so don't let anybody else draw you away from them.  You may not have to dump such a person completely as a friend, but try not to spend too much time with them if they persist in being negative.  You can choose your friends, so choose them wisely.

If you have put your boss on the list, then you may need to think again.  It is, of course, possible that your boss is negative in the same way as some of those friends you have either dropped as friends or at least are now keeping at a greater distance.  If so, then the solution is similar to the above solution, with the difference that you need to be sensitive to the power relationship.  For as long as you are relying on the income your job gives you it is not too sensible to tell your boss to leave you alone!  But if the reason you have put your boss on your list is because you believe he or she is holding you back from earning more money, then I want you to think about this more carefully.  You are responsible for the income you receive, not your boss.  Ultimately you get paid for the value you create.  If you are not being paid enough, then maybe you are not creating enough value.  If you are creating far more value than you believe you are being paid for, then you are probably working for the wrong people.  Don't just throw it all away, though.  Explore ways to get them to recognize your worth.  But ultimately, look for a good back door so you can leave when you are ready and receive a better income.  Also, recognize that you can (and indeed should) have multiple streams of income.  Your full-time job probably creates by far the biggest stream of income, but it should not be the only stream.  Work on creating those multiple streams of income so that you become less and less reliant on your job.

Now let me tell you who is the person who is most stopping you achieving what you want to achieve.  You!

Yes, that's right!  It is you!

So many people who claim to have a big "dream" simply haven't thought it through properly.  The first thing you must always do is to make sure your dream is what, deep down inside, you really want to achieve.  If it is not, or even worse if it is actually more or less the opposite of your true inner desires, it will be very difficult for you to achieve it.  In the latter case it will, in fact, be almost impossible.  You may think it ridiculous that you could have a dream that is the opposite of what you really want, but actually this is very common.  Our minds are very good at hiding desires they think are not the right thing.

Once you know for certain that you are pursuing the right dreams, the next thing you must do is stop your mind from giving you all the reasons why you cannot achieve it.  Your mind will almost certainly find lots of reasons for this, and they may sound very logical.  But the truth is that you can always be as big as your dreams, no matter how big those dreams may be.  Don't let your mind tell you otherwise.

The whole concept of the way our minds stop us from achieving our dreams is a massive topic.  There are many books and courses devoted to just this one topic.  The first step is to recognize that this is happening.  You won't correct it overnight, but recognizing the problem is the first step on the long journey to solving it.  Once you have done that, use the techniques I have given you here but also be open to reading some of those books and following some of those courses.  There is no quick fix here, but just an ongoing journey which, if you travel in the right direction, will step by step bring you closer and closer to achieving whatever it is you really want to achieve.

The Meaning of Life

What is it that you want to achieve in your life?

This is probably one of the most important questions you can ever ask yourself.  It goes to the very root of another question so many of us ask, perhaps without expecting an answer - what is the meaning of life?

With such an important question you should not simply accept the first answer that comes to mind.  Not even if you believe you already know what you want to achieve.  Spend some time thinking deeply about this achievement.  How will you feel as you begin to achieve it?  What will change in your life and in the lives of those around you as this begins to happen?

Make sure as you do this that everything feels really positive.  If it doesn't, then there is something wrong.  You may think that this is what you want to achieve, but the reality is that there is something quite different that you really want, which is expressing itself in a different way for some reason - as it arises from the depths of your mind and spirit it appears to change, until when it comes to the surface it looks completely different.  So if you do not feel really positive about this achievement you must dig much deeper to find out what your true desire is.

What you should find, once you have properly identified what it is you want to achieve in life, is that it is something that can grow and develop.  It is something that you can begin to achieve, if only in a very small way, very soon after you have identified what it is and have started working towards it.  That is why I have tried to avoid using the word "goal", which you maybe expected to see earlier in this article.  It is more a way of life, of moving along a particular path, than something that you get and then find there is nothing left to do.  It really does become "the meaning of life" for you.

If you have identified this path, this growth, this ongoing achievement correctly you should also be able to identify some "milestones" along the way.  Milestones that show you have made progress but are not at the finishing line.  By definition, none of those milestones can be the finishing line, none of them can say "zero miles to go", as what you are aiming for is a continuous growth, not something at which you can finally arrive.

You should try to identify both distant and very close milestones.  This is important.  Have a distant target in mind, and try to make sure that what you are working on now brings you closer to that distant target rather than further away.  But also have some close targets so you can feel fulfilled in the "now" rather than only in the distant future.

So, what IS the meaning of life?  This is a question that has perturbed many very intelligent men and women over many centuries.  When you have completed the exercise I have suggested in this short article, the answers arrived at by eminent philosophers will probably now seem mundane and unimportant to you.  You KNOW the one answer unique to you.  You know the meaning of your life and know that now your life can be fuller and better every day that passes.

Good Excuses

Is there something you really, really want to achieve?  Something that would make a real difference to you?  And perhaps something that would make a real difference to the world around you?

Think about that for a while.  Be certain this really is your desire.  Be certain it is fully aligned with your inner desires.

Ok, now let me ask you a question.  Why haven't you achieved it yet?

This is the point all the negatives come gushing out.  Let them all come.  Don't bother to write them down.  Just allow them all to come to the surface of your mind.

I will be very surprised if your reaction at this point is "I don't really know why I haven't achieved it.  There is no good reason.  I will get on and do it now!".  I will be delighted if that is your reaction, but will be very surprised!

But the reality is that perhaps SHOULD be your reaction.

Most, if not all, the reasons that came flowing out were probably about external obstacles.  Something "out there" that means you cannot achieve what you want to achieve.

Let me tell you right now, none of those reasons have any real meaning.  That is why I said don't bother to write them down.  You had to think of a good reason, an excuse why you have not done this, and you wanted to make sure that was not something under your control.  If it was under your control, that would mean you were to blame, and unconsciously you wanted to find reasons that were NOT under your control so you could NOT be to blame.

Finding excuses is something we are all very good at doing.  We are masterful at it!  Those excuses are rock solid, so it is absolutely obvious that it cannot be our fault.  The reason they are so rock solid is not because they are real but because your "inner computer" knew you needed them to appear to be real.  And your "inner computer" is extremely good at what it does.  It can really do anything you like - all you have to do is to tell it properly what you want it to do.

For all your life you have been programming your "inner computer" to provide you with good excuses.  Excuses why something has gone wrong before it has even gone wrong.  Excuses why you can never be the person you want to be.  Excuses why you can never achieve what you want to achieve.  And that is the only reason you are NOT the person you want to be.  The only reason you have NOT achieved what you want to achieve.

The secret to achievement is to turn off your inner excuse machine.  You don't need those excuses any more, as now you are going to achieve.

You have all the power you need within you to achieve what you want to achieve.  So turn off the excuse machine and start accessing that inner power.

You have a lifetime of bad programming to undo, so don't worry if you don't get instant results.  But know that the power to achieve is within you, that you just need to switch off the excuse machine which is now redundant and allow that inner power to take you where you really want to be.  Do it today!  Do it right now!

Change your reality

Can you change reality?  Is it possible to move from this dimension into an alternative reality?  And no, this is not Rod Serling speaking, and you are not reading a story from The Twilight Zone!

However you look at it, we are all changing reality all the time, and we are all moving into alternative realities all the time.

Each action you take changes reality.

Some changes are very obvious and come directly as a result of the action.

If you take the hand of a person you love, look into their eyes, and tell them how much you love them, you are certainly directly changing the reality of your relationship with that person if you have never said this to them before.  You cannot be certain about what the change will be, but you have created a reality in which it is more likely that you and that person will be together more - perhaps even as a married couple.

If you are a sales person and you take the action of picking up the phone one more time, or knocking on one more door, you are directly changing the reality of your future.  That one extra call may be the call that gains you one more sale and directly puts more money in your pocket.  Maybe it won't, but you are increasing the likelihood of increased wealth.

Other changes are not so obvious and may be more indirect.

Perhaps the person to whom you open your heart is not in love with you, so that particular relationship may not go in the direction you hoped.  But even though you do not end up as a couple, there will probably nevertheless be more tenderness between you.  Maybe you will simply become better friends.  And maybe that person's attitude to life will change.  They appreciate being loved.  And perhaps they share that love (not necessarily in a romantic sense) with those around them.  Each of those people who now feel more loved then share that love with those around them too.  This can literally result in love being spread right around the globe and the entire world being changed.

Perhaps the person you call, or who answers the door, or who receives your letter or e-mail does not want to buy from you.  But the action of making one more call, knocking one more door, or whatever, makes it easier for you to make the next call, and the next, and the next.  And one of those future calls is the one that gives you a big sale and a very happy customer.

In one sales manual I read about a door-to-door salesman who said "thank you" to everyone who shut the door in his face.  One time, the person who was shutting the door heard the "thank you", opened the door again, and asked the salesman why he had said "thank you".  "I didn't buy anything from you, so what are you thanking me for?" was his question.  The salesman smiled back and said "I know my statistics.  I know how many doors I must knock before I get a sale.  You haven't bought anything from me, but you have brought me one door closer to the person who will.  And I thank you for that!"  Corny?  Perhaps - but also very true.

You have the choice.  You can choose to declare your love or not declare it.  You can choose to make that call or not make it.  The choice you make determines future reality.  It determines the alternative reality into which you will move.

In my last blog I encouraged you to write down what you wanted to achieve in life, and then to be aware of this so that each choice you make can bring you closer to that future reality.  You are in control of your own future reality and you determine the alternative realities into which you move every second of every day.  Recognize that control and make those choices wisely!

What I most want to achieve in life

What is it that you most want to achieve in life?

Don't limit yourself when thinking of your answer to this.  There ARE no limits here.  I am not saying you have to try to achieve it.  I just want you to think about what you would really love to achieve.

Don't let your censor limit you either.  You know who I mean.  That voice inside you telling you it is wrong, that people like you don't do things like that.  Maybe a continuation inside you of what your parents said, what your teacher said, what your spouse might say, what your best friend might say.  Tell that voice to go away!  You are digging deep inside to find out what you REALLY want to achieve, regardless of what others may think.

Have you come up with anything yet?  If not, keep looking.  If you have, still keep looking - there must be a lot more than just the one thing you want to achieve!

Start putting down each of those goals on a blank sheet of paper.  Not as a future goal, but as a statement that this is you, that you have achieved it.  Then focus on each, one by one.  Ask yourself the following questions:

Why do I want to achieve this?

What difference will it make in my life?  How good will that feel?

What difference will it make in the lives of those around me?  Do I get a good feeling from that too?

As you go through this exercise, recognize when your internal censor reacts to any of the goals.  This time allow that censor to have its say.  But then analyse what it is saying.  Is this really true?  Try to follow the logic.  Often you will find there is no logic at all.  Make sure you recognize that, so the power of the censor is diminished.

In some cases you may find you actually completely agree with the censor.  If so, think back to the answers to the questions you asked yourself.  Was it really a good feeling?  As long as it was, then your censor is probably wrong.  Spend some time working on this.  Trust your gut feeling though, not the logic that the censor may use.

If the end result of this analysis is that the censor is right, I want you to dig deeper.  Somewhere deep inside you is another desire which is right for you, but which has expressed itself incorrectly and in a way that doesn't fit with who you are.  Find that inner desire deep within.  When you find it, cross off the original goal and replace it with this new, correct one.

What you now have is a list that defines the future "you".  A future you should now start moving towards.  You don't have to think of it as fully achievable - although certainly do NOT allow that voice inside you to say it is not achievable.  But it defines the direction in which you should be moving.  Every step that takes you closer is the right step, and every step that takes you further away is the wrong step.

Yes, you can use the list for affirmations and work on manifesting from it.  But also it is a very practical list that will stop you meandering through your life and instead knowing that each day is productive and moving you closer to what you really want to achieve.

Manifesting

What is "Manifesting" all about?

I am sure, as you are interested in becoming successful, you have come across the term "manifesting", or "manifestation".  But what exactly does it mean?

The Oxford Dictionary principal definition of "Manifestation" is "an event that embodies something abstract".  In other words, you take something that is not concrete, not "real" in the way most people understand this term, and transform it into reality.

The way it is meant in the "personal development and success" world is very similar to this.  You have a desire (which is not concrete, but abstract) and turn it into reality.

In the medical world, "manifestation" means the way in which an ailment expresses itself through detectable symptoms.  In other words, there is something there which is not visible in itself, but you then become aware of it because it creates something which shows it is there.

Again, this is close to what I believe about "manifestation" when considering success strategies.  My wish or desire for something is not visible in itself, but it then creates a result which is very clearly visible.

Notice that in both definitions there must first really be something there, something undetectable but still very definitely there, before the results can manifest.  This is certainly the case when considering "manifesting" or "manifestation" as part of a strategy to achieve a certain goal.  You cannot simply think it would be nice for something to happen and then assume you have done all that is necessary to manifest it!  The seed must be there in the first place if you want the plant to grow.

Actually, it is a jolly good thing this isn't the way "manifesting" works.  Imagine the chaos!  You have a brief thought that "it would be nice if ..." .  Fill in the gap with anything you like.  Whatever it is, it may be something you really want, something that is right for you, or it may not.

With most things in life we begin by deciding what we might like to happen.  We then think about it and decide whether this really is what we want.  If so, we start to make plans to make it happen.  And then we start taking actions by following that plan so it DOES happen.  At every stage of the way we have the option to change our mind.  Even once we have started taking actions we can usually reverse and start again in a different direction if we begin to feel this is not right for us after all.  Included in all this is our moral and ethical analysis.  Perhaps when we first think of something we would like to happen we don't consider the effect it might have on those around us.  I would like to think that I DO consider this first, or at least very early on in the process, but many people only consider this later on - perhaps when they start taking actions and realize that there are negative implications they had not considered earlier.  Some people may decide to proceed regardless.  Hopefully you are not one of those people!  When you recognize that, for example, the goal you wanted to achieve means people around you will suffer I hope you will reflect carefully and either find a different way which will not cause this suffering, or will change your goal entirely.

So it is important that there is time for a "reality" check, time for proper reflection on all the implications, before whatever it is we want materializes.  And this is exactly the way manifesting works.

First you have to examine your dream carefully.  You must make sure it properly reflects your inner values and that it is something you really want.  During this process you will consider not only what it will mean for you but also what it will mean for others.  You must spend as much time as necessary embedding your desire for this dream properly.  If you have done this properly you will feel an intense emotion when you focus on the dream.  That powerful emotion is the "something abstract" that manifestation is going to turn into a real event or series of events.

Having taken the trouble to ensure you are going after the right dream, you must begin to take the actions that will turn that dream into reality.  These actions will begin with preparing something physical that will constantly remind you of the dream and why it is so important to you.  You will begin turning the "something abstract" into something more physical by giving it a name and writing that down.  A name that truly encapsulates whatever it is you want.  You will write it down in a way that shows it already has moved from the abstract to a real event.  Express it positively in the present moment.  State your dream as a goal already achieved.  This process is what is often called creating a "vision board"  Now all that has to happen is for what you and everyone around you see as "reality" to catch up with true reality.

Do not, though, think that because you have done all this you no longer have to take any other actions.  It is most certainly true, as Sophocles said (in 409 BCE) that "heaven ne’er helps the men who will not act", or in the words of Euripedes (428 BCE) "for to the worker God himself lends aid".  Do not just sit back and wait for it to happen, but take whatever actions you would take to move towards your dream even if you did not believe in "manifestation".  Often, the way manifestation will work is by presenting you with great opportunities.  But if you are not doing anything to move towards you dream you will not notice those opportunities and will not take the actions nedded in order to benefit from them.

In this short article I have only touched on the surface of "manifesting", but you should find there is enough here for you to start building on this foundation.  Don't stop there though - study all you can on this very important subject and take advantage of all the opportunities that come your way to improve your manifesting techniques.

What are Your Limiting Beliefs?

Notice I didn't ask whether or not you have any limiting beliefs, just what they are.  If you believe you do not have any, you are deceiving yourself.  We all have limiting beliefs.  Every one of us.

Limiting beliefs are not "limited" to the poor and those of us who are not well known.  The French King Charles VI, for example, had a belief that limited him from being touched by others - his belief was that he was made of glass and that if anyone touched him, he would shatter!  Most of us will not have limiting beliefs quite that strange, and most of us will not act quite as erratically as King Charles - who even gave his country away to the King of England!  But we do all have limiting beliefs, and some of those beliefs will be highly debilitating.

A limiting belief is any belief which stops you achieving something you would like to achieve.  This is often, but not always, because you do not believe it is possible for you to achieve it right now.  Sometimes it is a belief that what you want is in some way sinful.  It may be a belief that even though you really want to achieve it, you will be unhappy if you do.  Perhaps because deep inside you are not sure it is right for you.

As you will see, there can be many different kinds of limiting belief.  The best way to deal with some of those beliefs is to take some time to review very carefully what you really do want to achieve.  As I have said many times before, look deep inside and make sure your desire is fully aligned with your inner values.  If it is not, then you will always be struggling against yourself when you try to reach that goal.  Something has to change before you can move forward.  Either your inner values must change or your goal must change.  For more help on aligning your goals with your inner values read my article on Alignment here.

Probably one of the most common limiting beliefs is that your goal is impossible to achieve.  Impossible for you.  Impossible at this time.  Perhaps even impossible for anyone, ever.

Nothing is impossible.  What seems to make it impossible is your limiting belief, or even a whole series of limiting beliefs which are all conspiring against you.  Absolutely anything is possible if you truly believe you can achieve it.  In fact, I would go even further.  My belief is that as long as you are determined to deal with your limiting beliefs you have ALREADY achieved your goal.  Read that again!  You have ALREADY achieved it.  That achievement is in the future, but the future is real, so you have really achieved your goal.  All you have to do now is to allow that future achievement to unfold in the present.

One way to unearth your limiting beliefs is to look out for a person inside you called Mr, Miss, or Mrs Yabut.  Yes, you have multiple personalities, and one of those personalities has the name "Yabut".  This is the person who, when you think about one of your goals, says "yah, but ..."!  What comes after "yah, but ..." is the key.  It is the objection you need to answer.

If you have ever had any sales training you have probably been taught to unearth and then answer objections.  If you don't have this skill it is very difficult to sell anything.  In fact many sales trainers will tell you that an objection is a buying signal.  Your prospective buyer is telling you that he or she wants to buy from you but first you need to help them remove this obstacle.  Give them the help they need to remove that obstacle and you have the sale.  In other words, find the "Yabut", answer it, and then you can assume the sale is made.

It is exactly the same when you are "selling" to yourself.  Find the "Yabut", answer it, and then move on with the certainty that you will now achieve your goal.

Just to give you some encouragement, here are some "Yabuts" that others have answered and moved on to achieve their goals.

Shania Twain was born into poverty.  In her childhood, she and her brother and sisters often went hungry.  From the age of 8 she had to work to help earn enough money for her family to survive.  Shania is now one of the most successful country singers of all time, with a net worth estimated at the time of writing as around $350 million.

Howard Schultz was also born into poverty, and nobody in his family had ever been to college.  Perhaps you have never heard of Howard Schultz.  But I am sure you have heard of Starbucks.  It was Howard Schultz who catapulted Starbucks from a single coffee shop into a worldwide chain that, when I last checked, had nearly 24,000 branches.

Another great man born into poverty was Andrew Carnegie, the steel magnate and philanthropist who gave away around $350 Million to charity in the last 18 years of his life.  In today's terms that is over $78 Billion.

Have you heard of Steve Jobs?  I am sure you have - the co-founder of Apple Computers.  Steve had a lot of problems at school.  His parents were not well-off, and when he realized how much college was costing them and how little they could afford it, he dropped out of college to save them the money.  So here you have it - a family background of financial difficulty, and an educational dropout.  Despite this background, and despite many other challenges after he co-founded Apple Computers, Steve Jobs realized his dream and completely revolutionised the computer industry.  In 2010 he was worth over $8 Billion!

J K Rowling struggled as a single mother after a failed marriage, living on state benefits. Her first draft of "Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone" was rejected by publishers 12 times, before the 8 year old daughter of the chairman of the Bloomsbury publishing house read the first chapter and demanded to see the next chapter!  Bloomsbury took her on, but also told her she should get a "proper" job, as she had little chance of making any money as an author of children's books.  As I am sure you know, J K Rowling has made a fortune from the Harry Potter series and is now a billionaire.  She has also set up a charitable trust with an annual budget of over £5 Million to combat poverty and social inequality, which are two of her major passions.

There are plenty of other examples of individuals who are now very famous for what they have achieved but who overcame enormous obstacles to get there.  How about Michael Jordan, the basketball star?  He didn't even manage to get into his high school basketball team, and today he reminds us that the only reason he is successful is because he has failed so many times, having lost over 300 games!

Or how about overcoming obstacles that occur while you are already living your dream and that threaten to take that dream away from you.  Perhaps one of the best examples of someone who overcame in those circumstances is Ludwig Van Beethoven.  In his late 20's he started to develop hearing problems, compounded by severe tinnitus (a condition in which you continuously hear sounds that are not actually there).  This is a difficulty in many careers, but would seem an insurmountable problem for a professional musician!  Imagine having your concentration on creating a symphony interrupted by continuous noise!  And then being unable to play and hear the passages you want to include in your masterpiece!  These are the obstacles Beethoven faced.  They were pretty solid and apparently insurmountable obstacles, but they did not create for Beethoven the limiting beliefs they would have created in almost any other musician.  He was very frustrated by them, but that did not stop him - he simply carried on regardless!  When he wrote his magnificent 9th Symphony, which contains the "Ode to Joy" that is now the official anthem of the European Union, Beethoven was completely deaf.

Find your limiting beliefs.  Recognize that nothing can limit you unless you allow it to do so.  Then go on to achieve your goals, whatever they may be!  But don't stop there - also recognize that no matter how many limiting beliefs you have unearthed and destroyed, there will always be more under the surface.  Keep on rooting them out and keep on achieving goal after goal!

What do you want?

What do you want in this life?  What do you want to become?  What do you want to achieve?  What do you want to acquire?  Where are you headed, and should you be headed there?

These are very important questions.  If you don't know what you want, if you get it then it will be by accident.  More likely, you will simply not get it.  If you DO know what you  want, what you REALLY want, then you have every chance of getting it.  You can start working towards it.  No matter how distant it might seem right now, every step you take can be a step closer to achieving it.  Also, if you know what you really want you can send signals to the universe that you want it, and the universe will start working with you so you can get it.

The most important step you can take in your personal development is to find out what it is you really want.  The most important step, but often the biggest and most difficult step.

Most of us think we know what we want.  We think that because we think it must be silly not to know.  Everyone knows don't they?  Actually, no.  I would say far fewer than 50% of the population really know what they want.  In fact, based on in depth interviews I would probably say only a very small percentage really know the answer to this.  That is why so few people achieve it.

Even if you think you feel quite strongly about what you want to achieve, you may be wrong.  Have you ever sat in silence and questioned yourself about your goals, about what you really want?  I strongly suggest you do that, and do it soon, even if you think you know.  If you are wrong, then every day you delay is another day of moving in the wrong direction.

Why might you think you know what you want, and yet be completely wrong?  This is far more common than you may think.  We are all impressionable beings, especially when we are young.  Perhaps your parents wanted you to achieve something and you imbibed this and then took it for your own idea.  This could be a career decision for example.  I wonder how many doctors or lawyers there are who wish they had become train drivers!  Perhaps your spouse wants you to become someone that isn't really you.  Or your friends have convinced you that you want to have something that you don't necessarily really want to have.  Maybe your employer has made you think you want to be a really good ... (fill in the gap here, depending on your job).

It is very important to cut through all this "noise" and get to the real truth.  The question "why" is a very good way to do this.

Just as an example, let's say you have decided you want to become a millionaire.  Begin by asking yourself why you want to become a millionaire.  Don't be satisfied by just the first answer, but keep digging.  For example, you may say "because I want to buy a big house".  Ask yourself why you want a big house.  How will you feel when you own it?  What will you do with it?  When you answer those questions, ask yourself "why" again.  Keep asking it.  Keep digging deeper and deeper to find out exactly why you have this desire.

You might be surprised with some of the answers you get.  Sometimes the answers will reveal that you were wishing for the wrong thing.  Maybe not completely wrong, but still not quite right.  Perhaps the reason you wanted to become a millionaire is that you want to live in a nice house by the sea.  But do you need to be a millionaire to achieve that?  Do you even need to be at all wealthy to achieve it?  I am not saying that a desire to be very wealthy is wrong, but just that you should know, in depth, exactly why you want this.  By doing this you will be able to think laterally and achieve some of those things without needing to wait to become wealthy.

I like to think of this process as peeling to the core of our being.  In our outer layer we have the things that everyone around us can see.  Peel that back and there are the things that our friends and family see.  Peel that back again and there are the things that only our closest friends and family can see - perhaps just our spouse or life partner.  Peel that layer back and you will find things that not even your closest friends and family know about - just the things we alone know.  Then peel that layer back and find the things even you didn't know about yourself.  That is when the real work is done.

Bear in mind as you do this that you are not looking to be purely selfish about things.  You are not saying "I am going to be what I want to be, do what I want to do, acquire what I want to acquire, and never mind anyone else!".  You are just trying to get to the bottom of what it is you really want.  Having done that, you may decide that one of the things you really want is to please your spouse.  So whatever that thing is your spouse wants you to achieve you will work on achieving.  Not necessarily because you want that per se but because you do really want to please your spouse.  It would be a good idea, though, at that point to include your spouse in the exercise.  Get your spouse to ask the same questions about what they want.  If they realize the dream they had for you is not a shared dream but that you are ready and willing to make it so, that should strengthen your relationship with them.  But at the same time they may now change their own ideas about what they want for you.  You will be sharing your dreams together instead of trying to make each other live a dream that may not be the right thing for either of you.

Don't expect, though, that all of your initial beliefs about what you want will be wrong.  Some most certainly will be.  But others may not.  The exercise is equally valuable for those things that you do really want.  By asking "why" and keeping on asking it as you go deeper and deeper you will awaken inner powers that will align with the universe and help you achieve those things.  This is an exercise that is vital if you really want to be all that you can be and achieve all that you can achieve.

Don't try to become what others want you to be.  Don't change just to make others like you.  Change because you want to change.  Find out what you really want to be and then become that.  Do that, and the right people will love you for it.  Those who don't are people who should not be in your circle anyway.