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Unleashing Your Potential: The Definitive Guide to Goal Achievement
What if I told you that a simple habit could double or triple your income, dramatically improve your relationships, and transform your life in just a few months? Brian Tracy discovered this secret at age 21 when, as a high school dropout washing dishes in a small hotel, he wrote down an outrageous goal to earn $1,000 monthly. Within 30 days, his life completely changed. This powerful practice-goal setting-has since helped millions worldwide move from frustration to fulfillment, including celebrities like Oprah Winfrey and Will Smith who credit written goals as foundational to their success. With over 100 million copies sold in 70+ languages, Tracy's methodology has become the gold standard for personal achievement, praised by psychologists and business leaders alike for its remarkable effectiveness in transforming ordinary lives into extraordinary ones.
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The Power of Taking Complete Responsibility
The journey toward achieving any meaningful goal begins with a fundamental shift in mindset: accepting complete responsibility for your life. This pivotal moment marks the transition from childhood to adulthood and represents what Tracy calls "the great discovery." For him, this realization came at age 21 while sitting alone in a small apartment during a cold winter. He suddenly understood that no one was coming to rescue him-everything that would happen in his life was entirely up to him.
This moment of accepting complete responsibility is simultaneously frightening and exhilarating, like standing at the edge before a first parachute jump. The fear comes from recognizing there's no one else to blame, while the exhilaration stems from realizing you hold complete control over your destiny. Unfortunately, many people remain trapped in blame and resentment about past experiences, unable to move forward even decades later.
The greatest enemies of success and happiness are negative emotions-fear, self-pity, envy, jealousy, feelings of inferiority, and anger. These emotions drain your energy and have caused more harm throughout history than all plagues combined. Freeing yourself from these emotions should be among your most important goals. Fortunately, these negative emotions stem from four identifiable factors: justification, rationalization, hypersensitivity to others' opinions, and blaming.
The simple but powerful affirmation "I am responsible!" instantly neutralizes negative emotions. You cannot say these words and still feel angry. By accepting complete responsibility, you free yourself emotionally and mentally to channel your energy toward achieving your goals. Without this acceptance, no progress is possible; with it, there are no limits to what you can accomplish.
To maintain positivity, refuse to criticize, complain, or condemn others. These behaviors only trigger your own negative feelings while having no effect on the other person. As Gary Zukav notes, "Positive emotions empower; negative emotions disempower." By controlling your emotions, you become master of your fate.
View yourself as the president of your own personal services corporation, completely in charge of your life and career. You're earning exactly what you've decided to earn. If you're unhappy with your income, decide to earn more-set goals, make plans, and take action to earn what you want. Your choices of boss, mate, and friends will significantly impact your success and happiness.
The foundation of goal setting is recognizing your unlimited potential to achieve anything if you want it badly enough and work hard enough, while accepting complete responsibility for your life without blaming or making excuses.
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Values: The Foundation of Meaningful Goals
Leaders and successful people know exactly who they are, what they believe in, and what they stand for, while most people remain confused about their goals, values, and ideals. Life is lived from the inside out-your values form the core of your personality and determine everything you do externally. The clearer your internal values, the more effective your external actions will be.
Your personality is like a target with five concentric rings: values at the core, followed by beliefs, expectations, attitude, and actions. Your values determine your beliefs about yourself and the world. Positive values lead to positive beliefs, which create positive expectations. These expectations shape your attitude, which ultimately determines your actions. What you achieve in life is determined more by what's happening inside you than any external factor.
Your outer life reflects your inner thinking. When your actions align with your values, you experience happiness and prosperity. Aristotle said the ultimate aim of human life is to achieve happiness, which happens when you live in complete alignment with what you consider good, right and true. Your goals must be congruent with your values. Any contradiction between your inner values and outer actions causes stress, negativity, and unhappiness.
Many people achieve goals only to find no satisfaction in their accomplishments because these achievements don't align with their inner values. As Stephen Covey warned, make sure your ladder of success is leaning against the right building. Values clarification requires continually examining what truly matters to you and organizing your life around these principles.
Self-trust forms the foundation of greatness. It comes from listening to your intuition, your "still, small voice" within. Living aligned with your true values leads to self-confidence, self-respect, and personal pride. When experiencing stress, ask yourself how you might be compromising your innermost values in that situation.
Your true values are demonstrated in your actions, especially under pressure. When forced to choose between behaviors, you'll always act according to what's most important to you in that moment. Values are organized hierarchically-some intense and important, others weaker and less important. Organizing your values by priority helps determine who you really are and what you truly want.
Your past choices under pressure reveal your predominant values. Consider what gives you the greatest feeling of importance, what raises your self-esteem, and what accomplishments have given you the most pride and satisfaction. These indicators reveal your true values.
Discover your "heart's desire"-what you most deeply want to be, have, or do in life. Consider how you want to be remembered and described when you're not present. What would you like people to say at your funeral? What reputation do you want to have? What would you need to start doing today to create that reputation?
Integrity is the value that guarantees all other values. Your level of integrity determines whether you follow through on your commitments. The more you live consistently with the best you know, the greater your integrity and the happier and more powerful you'll feel. Truly great people have high levels of integrity, living by their values even when no one is watching.
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Breaking Through Self-Limiting Beliefs
The Law of Belief states that whatever you believe with conviction becomes your reality. You view the world through a lens of beliefs, attitudes, and preconceptions. As Proverbs says, "as a man thinketh in his heart, so is he"-you act based on your innermost beliefs about yourself. All personal growth comes from changing your beliefs about yourself and your possibilities.
The discovery of the self-concept was the greatest breakthrough in human potential. Everything you do is controlled by your self-concept-the master program of your mental computer. All your achievements result from this basic operating system. Even if your self-concept contains erroneous beliefs, you'll treat them as facts and act accordingly. Your beliefs are largely subjective-shaped by childhood, education, experiences, and countless other factors.
Self-limiting beliefs are the worst, making perceived limitations into real ones. Overcoming these self-imposed limitations is often the biggest obstacle to reaching your potential. Einstein was sent home from school with a "learning disability." Schweitzer's parents were told to apprentice him to a shoemaker. Edison was expelled at age seven as unteachable. Many Fortune 500 executives were diagnosed as "not particularly bright." Yet all achieved greatness by ignoring these limiting judgments.
Louise Hay says most problems stem from feeling "I'm not good enough." Alfred Adler noted feelings of inferiority are common in Western culture. Many falsely believe they're limited in intelligence or talent, but you have more potential than you could use in a lifetime. No one is better or smarter than you-just different in various areas.
According to Dr. Howard Gardner, you possess at least ten different intelligences where you might be a genius. Schools only measure verbal and mathematical intelligence, but you could excel in visual-spatial, entrepreneurial, physical, musical, interpersonal, intrapersonal, intuitive, artistic, or abstract intelligence. "God don't make no junk"-you're capable of exceptional performance in at least one area. Your job is finding which one.
All beliefs are learned and can be unlearned if unhelpful. You were born without beliefs about yourself, religion, politics, or anything else. Many things you "know" about yourself simply aren't true-they're self-limiting beliefs. Ask yourself, "What if they weren't true at all?" What if you had extraordinary ability in selling, entrepreneurship, public speaking, or making money?
If you could choose any belief, select this: "I am destined to be a big success in life." With this belief, you'll interpret everything as part of a plan for your success-exactly how top performers think in every field. Successful people find good in every situation. They view setbacks as valuable lessons on their inevitable path to success.
The Law of Reversibility states you're more likely to act yourself into feeling than feel yourself into acting. Though you may lack confidence initially, by acting as if you were already successful-dressing, grooming, and working like top people-you'll begin feeling successful. Use successful people as role models, follow their advice, and soon you'll get their results.
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Creating Your Ideal Future Vision
Leaders think about the future while non-leaders focus on the present or past. This "future orientation" is a key quality of leadership-the ability to think several years ahead while making present decisions. By practicing idealization and creating a five-year fantasy with no limitations, you can neutralize self-limitation and envision your perfect future in every area of life.
Harvard's Dr. Edward Banfield found that "long-time perspective"-the ability to think several years ahead while making present decisions-is the most important determinant of financial and personal success. In personal strategic planning, begin with a long-term view of your life through idealization. Create a five-year fantasy for yourself, imagining what your life would look like if it were perfect in every respect.
By combining idealization and future orientation, you neutralize self-limitation. Imagine having no limitations whatsoever-all the time, talents, abilities, friends, contacts and relationships you could ever need to achieve anything important to you. Charles Garfield found that "peak performers" who suddenly exploded into success after years of average results all engaged in "blue-sky thinking." They imagined all things possible, projected years forward to a perfect life, then looked back to ask: "What would have had to happen for me to have created this perfect future?"
When practicing idealization and future orientation, make no compromises with your dreams. Don't settle for smaller goals or half successes. Dream big and project forward as though you're one of the most powerful people in the universe. Create your perfect future first, then come back to consider what's currently possible within your situation.
Imagine having no limits when envisioning your perfect future. As Peter Drucker said, "We greatly overestimate what we can accomplish in one year. But we greatly underestimate what we can accomplish in five years." Don't underestimate your potential by limiting your vision of what's possible.
Envision your ideal family life and relationships five years from now. Consider who you'd be with, where you'd live, what home you'd have, and the quality of relationships with important people. When fantasizing about your perfect future, the only question to ask is "How?"-not whether something is possible. High achievers focus on finding ways to turn visions into realities.
Envision yourself as a perfect physical specimen five years from now. Consider how you'd look and feel, your ideal weight, exercise routines, and overall health. What changes would you need to start making today in diet, exercise, and health habits to achieve superb physical health in the future?
Picture yourself as an important and influential community figure making a significant contribution. What would you be doing? Which organizations would you work with? What causes would you support and how would you become more involved in those areas?
The primary difference between high and low achievers is "action orientation." High achievers are always moving and busy, taking immediate action on ideas. Low achievers have good intentions but always have excuses for not acting today. Consider what additional knowledge and skills you'd need to become recognized as excellent in your field, and ask yourself how you'll attain them.
Decide how you'd like to live your ideal lifestyle day-to-day. Design your perfect calendar for the entire year-what you'd do on weekends and vacations, how much time you'd take off, where you'd go, and how you'd organize your year if you had complete control over your time.
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The Science of Setting Powerful Goals
Self-discipline is perhaps most crucial when setting goals and working toward them daily. Realizing what you truly want stops you from chasing trivial pursuits and focuses your energy on what really matters. Humans achieve goals automatically once they become clear about what they want and discipline themselves to move toward it. Yet most people don't set goals simply because they don't know how.
There are seven essential principles for effective goal setting: First, goals must be clear, specific, detailed, and written down-never vague like "being happy." Second, goals must be measurable and objective, capable of evaluation by others. Third, goals must be time-bounded with deadlines and schedules. Fourth, goals must challenge you to stretch beyond past accomplishments. Fifth, goals must align with your values and not contradict each other. Sixth, goals must be balanced across all life areas-career, finances, family, health, spiritual life, and community. Seventh, you must have a major definite purpose-one goal that, if accomplished, improves your life more than any other.
To set and achieve any goal effectively, follow these twelve essential steps:
1. Begin with an intense, burning desire for your particular goal-something you personally want, not something others want for you.
2. Deeply believe you deserve the goal and can attain it. Belief activates your mental and physical powers. Start with believable, achievable goals to build confidence.
3. Write your goal down. Unwritten goals aren't real goals. Write and rewrite your goals daily to program them into your subconscious.
4. Analyze where you are now regarding your goal. Honest assessment helps you set realistic, achievable goals rather than self-defeating ones.
5. List all the ways you'll benefit from achieving your goal. The more reasons you have, the more intense your desire becomes.
6. Establish a "best guess" deadline for achieving your goal. For major goals, break deadlines into subdeadlines to track progress more effectively.
7. Determine what's blocking you from reaching your goal. The 80/20 Rule suggests 80 percent of obstacles are internal rather than external.
8. Identify what new knowledge and skills you'll need to achieve your goal. Every new goal should include a learning objective.
9. Identify whose cooperation and assistance you'll need-family, boss, coworkers, customers, suppliers, bankers. Consider how you can earn others' cooperation.
10. Create an organized list of tasks to get from where you are to where you want to go. Combine all previous elements into an action plan organized by time, sequence, and importance.
11. Visualize your goal daily as if already attained. See it vividly and imagine the pride, satisfaction, and happiness you'd experience upon achievement.
12. Resolve in advance that you'll never give up. This mental preparation helps you bounce rather than break when inevitable setbacks occur.
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Finding Your Major Definite Purpose
A major definite purpose gives you focus for every waking moment, turning you into what Peter Drucker called "a monomaniac with a mission." The more you think about your major purpose, the more you activate the Law of Attraction, drawing people, opportunities, ideas, and resources toward you. By the Law of Correspondence, your outer world will reflect your inner goals like a mirror image, while your subconscious mind works to bring your clearly defined goals into reality.
Your brain's reticular cortex functions like a switchboard, routing incoming sensory information to relevant parts of your awareness. When you decide you want something specific, like a red sports car, and write it down as a goal, your reticular cortex places it on your mental radar. Suddenly, you notice red sports cars everywhere-not because there are more, but because your brain is now programmed to notice what was always there but previously filtered out.
Similarly, deciding to become financially independent makes you notice opportunities and possibilities related to earning and investing money. Without clear instructions to your reticular cortex, you'll go through life "driving in a fog," unaware of the opportunities around you. Your attention determines your life's direction.
Your major definite purpose is the one goal most important to you that will help achieve other goals. It must be something you personally desire intensely, clear and specific enough to write down clearly, measurable and quantifiable, believable and achievable, have a reasonable probability of success, and harmonize with your other goals and values.
Goals must be realistic to be motivating. A broke, recently fired woman who set a goal to become a millionaire in one year demonstrates how unrealistic goals can demotivate rather than inspire. When goals are so far beyond current circumstances, they lack motivating power because deep down, you don't believe they're possible.
To determine your major definite purpose, ask: "What one great thing would you dare to dream if you knew you could not fail?" Whatever you can write down as an answer, you can probably achieve. The only real limits are how badly you want it and how long you're willing to work toward it.
A chemistry professor who won the Nobel Prize shared that in his twenties, he decided his major definite purpose was to make a significant contribution to chemistry. After focusing on this goal for over twenty-five years, he succeeded. He was clear from the beginning and never doubted he would eventually win the Nobel Prize. When it happened, he was happy but not surprised.
While many desire to become millionaires, the real question is whether you're willing to do everything necessary and invest the years required to achieve that financial goal. If you are truly committed, virtually nothing can stop you.
Write down ten goals you want to accomplish in the foreseeable future, using present tense as if already achieved. Then identify which goal, if accomplished immediately, would have the greatest positive impact on your life. This is likely your major definite purpose-the one goal that can most impact your life and help achieve most of your other goals simultaneously.
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Mastering Your Financial Future
Taking control of your financial life is a major responsibility that requires setting short, medium, and long-term financial goals with disciplined follow-through. Financial success follows specific rules and principles that must be studied and mastered. Those who claim not to care about money are often the most financially troubled and preoccupied with it.
Avoid self-delusion about money. People who've failed financially often rationalize by claiming they "don't really care about money" and are concerned with "higher things." As Harv Ecker of "Millionaire Mind" seminars responds when hearing this: "Oh, you're broke, are you?" Most people who claim not to care about money are actually broke and preoccupied with it, having given up on achieving financial independence.
To take complete control of your financial life, set short, medium, and long-term financial goals, make detailed plans for their achievement, and discipline yourself to follow through regardless of difficulties. Using the twelve-step goal achievement process will develop a new mindset about money and your financial future.
The foundation of financial achievement is desire. Ask yourself what you really want and how badly you want it. Practice idealization-imagine having no limits on what you could achieve financially. Set short-term goals to control spending and eliminate debt, medium-term goals to save 10-20% of income and purchase assets, and long-term goals to build an estate and achieve financial independence.
Your beliefs become your realities. Financial goals must be believable (aligned with current reality but stretching your comfort zone), achievable (matching your talents and abilities), realistic (consistent with your situation and external realities), and aligned with your true values (in harmony with what's important to you).
Writing activates your emotions, intelligence, and physical body through visual, auditory, and kinesthetic senses. Be specific about exact income targets for the coming years. Calculate your "number"-the amount needed for retirement-by determining monthly expenses without income, multiplying by 12 for annual needs, then multiplying by 20 years to get your long-term financial goal.
Conduct a complete financial analysis of your current situation. Calculate your net worth by listing all assets at current cash value, then subtracting all liabilities. This becomes your starting point, even if negative. Being clear and honest about your current financial situation makes it easier to change it.
Reasons are the fuel for achievement. The more reasons you have for achieving financial goals, the more motivated, persistent and willing to take risks you'll be. List all the wonderful things financial success would enable for you and your family. Especially focus on how you'd feel emotionally-happy, confident, proud, peaceful-as combining goals with emotions multiplies their motivating power.
Based on your financial analysis, set realistic dates for each financial goal, including becoming debt-free, saving various percentages of income, and achieving financial independence. A decision without a deadline is largely a waste of time.
After gathering all necessary information, develop a detailed action plan. List every step needed to achieve your financial goals, organizing them by sequence and priority. Use the 80/20 Rule to focus on the most important activities first. With a clear plan, you increase your likelihood of success by 1,000 percent. Break large financial goals into small, manageable pieces, making them realistic and achievable. Remember that taking the first step makes everything else possible.
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Becoming an Expert in Your Field
Your income is determined by what you do, how well you do it, and the difficulty of replacing you. The most successful people have committed to excellence in their fields, willing to pay any price and make any sacrifice necessary to become the best. This commitment separates them from average performers, allowing them to earn multiple times what their peers make.
In sales, 20% of salespeople make 80% of the money, while the remaining 80% must divide the leftover 20%. Making the decision to join the top performers can change your life, even if you've previously struggled with poor self-image and low confidence.
Everyone who excels today once performed poorly. Those at the front of life's line started at the back. Whatever others have accomplished, within reason, you can achieve as well. No one is inherently better or smarter than you-they're simply better in different areas. All business skills are learnable, and those succeeding have simply mastered these skills before you have.
You can learn anything needed to achieve any goal you set. There are no real limits except those you place on yourself. Becoming excellent requires significant time and effort, but it's possible if you want it badly enough. As Les Brown says, "To achieve something you've never achieved before, you must become someone you've never been before." Success requires personal transformation before external rewards.
Your knowledge and skills are becoming obsolete faster than ever before. Your earning ability is either appreciating or depreciating depending on whether you're upgrading it or letting it become obsolete-a choice you make daily. When you commit to aggressively improving, you'll quickly move ahead of competitors who are merely doing the minimum required to keep their jobs.
Every job consists of about five to seven key result areas. In sales, these include prospecting, establishing rapport, identifying needs, presenting solutions, answering objections, closing sales, and getting resales and referrals. Grade yourself from one to ten in each area, with seven being minimum to reach the top 20% of your field. Ask your boss or customers to grade you too-their assessment often differs from yours. Once identified, work on your weakest skill until it equals or surpasses the others. Your weakest key skill sets the height of your income and determines your career progress.
Ask yourself: "What one skill, if developed excellently, would have the greatest positive impact on my career?" Make this your focal point for development. If unsure, ask your boss, coworkers, or spouse. Set this improvement as your major definite purpose, write it down, set a deadline, make a plan, and work on it daily. Once mastered, identify the next most important skill. The highest paid people in every field score eight, nine, or ten across all their key result areas.
You might be just one skill away from doubling your productivity, performance, and income. You may only need to improve in one area to utilize all your other skills at a higher level. Remember that all business skills are learnable-they're not genetically determined. With practice and repetition, you can learn any business skill needed to realize your full potential.
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Mastering the Art of Time Management
Time management is crucial for achieving goals and reaching your potential. A sense of control, which stems from effective time management, is fundamental to happiness and confidence. Through practice, anyone can develop these skills, regardless of their current habits.
Your life is shaped by your choices. To improve it, align your decisions with your authentic self and aspirations. Start by clearly defining your goals and priorities. Focus precisely on what matters most at any given moment, whether it's business, family, or health.
As philosopher Peter Ouspensky noted, knowing your aim determines the right actions. Activities can be classified as "A" (goal-advancing) or "B" (non-contributing). Gallup research shows that intelligence is demonstrated through goal-consistent actions, not just IQ or academic achievements.
Begin with clear objectives for each life area. The foundation of time management is a prioritized list, requiring self-discipline and advance planning. Create lists for long-term, medium-term, and short-term goals, organizing tasks monthly, weekly, and daily. Plan your week on Sunday and each day the night before, allowing your subconscious to work on solutions overnight.
Differentiate between urgent tasks (requiring immediate attention) and important ones (contributing to long-term success). Most people react to urgency, but consequences determine true task value. Focus on activities with the most significant impact on your life and work.
The 80/20 Rule reveals that 20 percent of your activities yield 80 percent of your results. From ten tasks, two typically outweigh the other eight in value. Practice "creative procrastination" by deliberately postponing less crucial tasks while prioritizing vital ones.
Use the ABCDE Method for priority setting:
• A: Very important with serious consequences
• B: Should be done with mild consequences
• C: Nice but inconsequential
• D: Can be delegated
• E: Can be eliminated
Never tackle lower-priority tasks while more important ones remain undone.
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The Power of Daily Goal Review
Reviewing your goals daily is a powerful method that has taken more people from rags to riches than any other single method. While many people talk about positive thinking, what's truly needed is "positive knowing"-an absolute certainty and unshakable conviction that you'll achieve your goals. The key is to program your subconscious mind with this conviction of success, as whatever is impressed deeply into your subconscious will eventually be expressed in your external world.
While everyone will eventually double their income if they live long enough (through cost of living increases of 3-4% annually), the real question is how fast you can do it. Many techniques can help you achieve your personal and financial goals faster, but the method shared here is simple, fast, effective, and guaranteed to work-if you practice it consistently.
Positive thinking alone isn't enough and can degenerate into merely positive wishing and hoping. To be effective in goal attainment, positive thinking must translate into "positive knowing"-an absolute certainty in the depths of your being that you're going to achieve your goal. You must proceed completely without doubt, with such resolution and determination that nothing can stop you.
Everything you do to program your subconscious mind with an unshakable conviction of success will help you achieve your goals faster. Whatever is deeply impressed into your subconscious mind will eventually be expressed in your external world. Your aim in mental programming is to impress your goals so deeply into your subconscious mind that they "lock in" and take on a power of their own.
While writing down goals once or twice a year can make an incredible difference in your life, writing them down more frequently is even more powerful. Some authors suggest reviewing goals monthly or weekly, but the most powerful approach is writing and rewriting your goals every single day.
Keep a spiral notebook with you at all times. Each day, write down a list of your ten to fifteen most important goals without referring to your previous list. The first day will require thought and reflection. The second day will be easier, though your goals will change in both description and priority. Some goals may disappear and reappear later. After about thirty days, you'll find yourself writing the same goals with increasingly clear definitions.
After about thirty days of daily goal-writing, something remarkable happens-your life takes off! You'll feel like a passenger in a jet hurtling down the runway. Your work and personal life will improve dramatically. Your mind will sparkle with ideas and insights. You'll attract people and resources to help achieve your goals. Progress will accelerate, sometimes frighteningly so. Everything will begin to change positively.
Follow the Three P Formula: write goals in the positive, present, and personal tenses. For example, write "I earn $50,000 per year" instead of "I will earn $50,000 in the next twelve months." Begin each goal with "I" followed by an action verb to activate your subconscious mind like a production order from head office. Add deadlines to each goal for extra power. This daily writing exercise also tests how badly you want to achieve these goals-if you forget to write one down repeatedly, you either don't want it badly enough or don't believe it's achievable.
When beginning this practice, you may have no idea how your goals will be accomplished. This doesn't matter. What's important is writing and rewriting them daily with complete faith, knowing each repetition impresses them deeper into your subconscious mind. Eventually, you'll develop absolute conviction that your goals are achievable. Once your subconscious accepts these goals as commands, it makes your words and actions align with them and attracts helpful people and circumstances into your life.
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The Courage to Persist Until Success
Every great success represents a triumph of persistence. Your ability to decide what you want and persist through obstacles is the critical determinant of success. Courage, perhaps the greatest challenge, means conquering fear and developing confidence. As Winston Churchill wrote, "Courage is rightly considered the foremost of the virtues, for upon it all others depend."
Fear has always been mankind's greatest enemy. As Franklin Roosevelt noted, it's the fear itself rather than what we fear that causes anxiety. Fear typically stems from childhood conditioning, manifesting as fear of failure ("I can't") and fear of rejection ("I have to"). These fears paralyze us, making us hypersensitive to others' opinions and prone to procrastination.
All intelligent people fear something-it's normal to be concerned about survival. As Mark Twain said, "Courage is resistance to fear, mastery of fear-not absence of fear." When you confront fears, they diminish while your self-confidence grows. When you avoid them, they expand until controlling your life.
Self-discipline is the crucial quality for success-doing what you should do, when you should do it, regardless of feelings. Character means following through after initial enthusiasm fades. Persistence is self-discipline in action and the true measure of character. Each time you persist through adversity, you strengthen your character and build self-esteem.
History celebrates the triumph of persistence. Winston Churchill exemplified this during World War II, inspiring Britain to fight on when defeat seemed inevitable. As Calvin Coolidge wrote, "Nothing in the world can take the place of persistence. Talent will not; genius will not; education alone will not. Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent."
Your greatest successes typically come just beyond the point where everything inside says to quit. H. Ross Perot observed that most people give up on the one-yard line, just before achieving success. The most important quality for lifelong success is taking action on your plans and goals. The more you try, the sooner you'll triumph.
