Do you have a goal that you would like to fulfill, but somehow fall short of achieving it every time you pursue it?
When I wrote my very well received post If You Do This, Ordinary Actions Will Result In Extraordinary Success, I was recently asked by @skytrex to write about finding your personal WHY. My personal WHY, to become financially independent, came naturally to me a few years ago. In the time since I wrote that post, I have thought about his question and have thought up a few ways you can dig a deep fiery passion out of yourself.
Have you hardly ever completed or even stayed working towards any large goals?
If you blame your goal for being too difficult or the universe for being against you, you are wrong.
The truth is that you, my friend, lack the strong, burning desire to achieve what you want. You aren’t driven enough to pursue and accomplish your goal. Had you been driven enough, you wouldn’t complain about why you don’t have what you want, but would instead be finding ways to move closer towards your goal.
For instance, I know of a woman who aspires to be a motivational speaker and earn around $10,000 a month. She had set this goal for some time now but had fallen short of achieving it every time.
However, when she put her son into a private Academy, she found ways to pay his tuition fee even though it was way out of her range. She was able to do that because she had a true burning desire to have her son study in a good school. Had she nurtured the same passion and burning desire for her previous goal, she would have achieved it in the given time or maybe even less.
The Power of Your Burning Desire
When Arnold Schwarzenegger was asked by an interview the secret behind him becoming a successful Hollywood actor and a professional bodybuilder, he credited it all to his ‘drive.’
He had the burning desire to live in America and become a bodybuilder and for that, he left no stone unturned. He worked out for 6 hours consecutively a day and burned his sweat and blood. Had he lacked that burning desire, he would have only dreamt of becoming the person he is now.
When you nurture an unwavering desire for something, you do not feel temporarily inspired to fulfill a goal. Instead, your desire is what helps you get through every ounce of perspiration you need to sweat to overcome all the monstrous obstacles that come glaring your way. Even if hell breaks loose and you have nowhere to go, your burning desire helps you find a secret tunnel and reach your destination.
Your drive to fulfill a goal does not let you rest at any cost and keeps you on your toes till you have what you truly, genuinely and passionately want.
This is precisely what enabled Edwin C. Barnes to achieve his goal of working as a business associate with Thomas Edison. Barnes was homeless when he approached Edison and Edison might have laughed at Barnes’ desire to work with him, but he nonetheless took him in because he saw in Barnes’ eyes a twinkle that spoke volumes of his burning desire.
It was that desire that did not let Barnes rest and made him take on the challenge of promoting and selling Edison’s dictating machine- an item all of Edison’s promoters and business associated had given up on. Barnes was committed to achieve his goal so he did sell the machine and that was what opened the gateway of success for him.
How to Have a Burning Desire to Achieve Your Goals
If you too want to have that burning desire for your goals so you do not rest till you achieve them, here is what you need to do.
Be Clear on Your Goal First
First and foremost, you need to have complete clarity on your goal. What is it that you genuinely want? Do you want to have financial abundance or do you want to live a simple, happy life? Do you want to carry on with your 9 to 5 marketing job or do you wish to have a business of your own so you do not need to report to anyone and can be your own boss? Unless you are clear on your goal, you cannot pursue it sincerely and consistently.
To have clarity about your goals, you really need to spend time with yourself and get insight into what you truly want. An excellent way to do that is to meditate on your thoughts.
Okay, when I say meditate, I don’t mean you need to light up incense, sit in a lotus pose and chant Omm for hours. You just need to sit in a peaceful room and really think about what you genuinely want from within.
Ask yourself questions like:
- What is it that I desperately yearn from within?
- What would I do if I did not have all the societal pressures on me?
- What is that gives me true happiness?
- What can possibly add meaning and substance into my life?
- In which direction do I want to steer my life into?
Ask yourself such questions one after another and take your time with each one of them. Dig as deep as you can into their answers and take as much time as you want on this step because once you figure out a truly meaningful goal for yourself, you will find it easier to stay motivated for it and achieve it.
Build an Army of Your WHYS
Next, you need to build a strong army of your whys so you stay true to your goal till you accomplish it.
Basically, it means you need to figure out all the reasons why you MUST follow through with your respective goal and cannot live without it. It is these reasons that will help you develop your drive towards your goal and make you pursue it with all your might.
Once again, you need to ponder on why is it you yearn to achieve a certain goal.
Close your eyes and think of your goal. Now imagine yourself achieving it and basking in that glory. If you wish to win gold at swimming in Olympics, imagine that you have achieved that feat.
If you wish to become debt-free and become financially abundant, imagine that you have cleared all your debt and have the abundance you need to live a comfortable life. Keep envisioning that scenario for 15 to 30 minutes and then think of how your life will change once you achieve your goal.
Next, think of your current life and how it is right now without that goal.
What is it that you are missing out on and how does that make you feel about yourself and your life? It is best to write down all this stuff so you keep track of your thoughts and can read all of this when your motivation levels drop low.
Provide Positive Mental Food to Yourself
To keep your burning desire ignited at all times, make sure to feed your mind good stuff. Read inspirational books (or my posts) and listen to lectures by people who achieved their goals and are now in a position you aspire to be in. This refuels your motivation and does not let your desire die easily.
Moreover, surround yourself with positive people who have set meaningful goals for themselves and strive to fulfill them. When you are surrounded by positive influences, their grit and optimism rubs off on you and helps you stay true to your goal.
When you do feel driven towards a certain goal, waste no more time to pursue it and create an action plan to achieve it.
Start working on that plan and keep track of your performance and eventually you will be at the point you have been dreaming of.
I feel flattered about the fact you actually wrote the post! --> 100% upvote!
This post is the best!
I'm still a relatively young person and thus struggling with this very question (afther graduation and some work experience)... These pro-tips will come in handy for sure, to search for my own personal "why"!
Btw. have you seen some of the Simon Sinek motivational videos?
I've never heard of that person, I am guessing he does good work?
Yes! just watch any (or preferably many) of the following vids:
https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=Simon+Sinek
Thanks @getonthetrain. I know one of my goals is to really make a dent here and help build other people up who are starting out as Minnows when Iam able to do so( as I build up more influence here).
That's a great goal! I wish you all the best at it.
Nice post. Its very interesting story. Thanks for sharing
Where to start... first thing i'm going to say is that i love this post!
Tottaly agree with you... when summer started i had some problem with a girl and i got really depressed, instead of me staying in that depressed state i started thinking what i should do to improve myself, what should i do so the next one doesn't do the same thing to me, what should i do to be proud of myself... I got a goal, drop from 231lbs to 187lbs in 3 months, that goal was imprinted on my mind, everytime i was doubting myself i imagined a guy throwing a light match into a oil well and the whole place igniting, that oil well was me, i was motivated to never stop, i had that burning desire! Skip 3 months into the future and i got to my goal weight!
The second thing i aimed for is to be finnancial independent, get a nice cash flow, i'm doing everything in my power to achieve that, learned a little economy in december while i was studying for my exams, learned about cryptos, started investing into the crypto market, and started steemit to have some side revenue and dividends.
I need to start doing that envisioning myself achieving those goals thing, it really helps!
After i get financial independent i really don't know what i will do, i want to travel, but i also want to build my own company like elon musk did, but i guess he had lots of money when he started... I'll probably end up doing both of them
If you think out of the box, you can often find a way to get two goals at once. How could you build a business and travel at the same time?
Well, i could make traveling my business but i wouldn't be happy with it, what i wanted to do is make a company to "help the world" become a better place scientifically...
Really need to think about this one, how could i do both at the same time...
The message you've passed on here has moved me @getonthetrain... It's like you were addressing me here in the post. I've had troubles keeping on track with the burning desire that initially gets started by my need to want something so bad. It only takes a matter of days or weeks for the burning desire to die out. And it's just after reading this post that I've realised I was not coming to terms with the ways of having a burning desire you've stated in this post. These 3 ways; being clear on your goal, building an army of whys and providing mental food to yourself.. are what hold the foundation of the desires we have. Personally I always make clear goals but then I always do have a single why and I don't add more on it. This is exactly what has been killing my drive. Multiple whys I believe are the ones that will push you back to the path you've undertaken when you get misled, I failed to keep my burning drive because I didn't have much to remind me why I took a specific path in achieving something. The mental food keeps distructions that don't fall in the path you've taken out of your way. I believe they keep the mind occupied with things that influence the desire to continue burning.
This message is going to have a huge impact on me and much more users that have always fell short of having the burning desire to achieve something. Thankyou for clarrifying this for us @getonthetrain.
Well, you don't need multiple WHYs - just one really strong one. Get that WHY so strong and burning hot that it will never go out no matter how much water is poured on it.
Oh yeah.. Thanks for powering me up
Honestly, I live with that burning desire inside of me everyday. My only challenge is to manage my time. I do really need to improve, strive and make great progress but my time doesn't allow me. I do have thousands programs in a day's and at the end of it all I feel like I had achieved nothing or just a little.
May be in the future, you should write more about time cause I believe it's now the only thing that is hindering me from reaching success.
I wake up with strong plans for the day, but in 24 hours I find my self with nothing realised yet I had slept the whole night thinking about it.
Thanks again @getonthetrain. You really encourages me on my tough journey toward success.
I agree, time is the one limiting factor. I will think about a post about time management for you, Jona.
Personally, I've never really understood the need to focus on one thing. My trick is to look into the future, pick a few possible outcomes. Work towards them and adapt along the way. I actually find that if I try too much to focus on one thing, I figure out how to exhaust myself with it.
With financial things I've always thought that spending isn't necessary. When I buy something, I always think: "Do I need this? Why am I buying this?". Sometimes it is enough that "I just feel like it now", most of the time "oh well, lets see if I still feel like it in a few weeks".
My ultimate goal is financial freedom - how I achieve that is up to me. In that regards, it gives me many different things to focus on.
So I say have your one large goal and focus your path to help you achieve it. That might mean many shorter, smaller goals will be reached along the way.
Great share @getonthetrain Your post literally boosted my positive energy Perhaps when we find ourselves wanting everything, it is because we are dangerously close to wanting nothing :D thanks for the share :D
You're welcome.
But how do you pick just one?!
It doesn't have to be just one, but it can't be a million things either. Choose the strongest one, or the top 3 and go get'em!
As always a great read. I take a lot of inspiration from your posts. I even forward them to some of my friends who lack self motivation. It helps me motivate them for a day or 2 at least. LOL
Haha, maybe they will find out, one day, what it is they truly desire.
Hello @getonthetrain after reading your article i was encouraged and motivated .
Thank you.
God bless you.
Thanks, Samson
@getonthetrain This is the kind of post that motivates me to want to get more out of what I really would like. See Your Future, Be Your Future.....
I think our mindset can be the one single most important thing if we want to achieve any of our goals.
Of course, finding the why as you say is useful for maintaining a productive dynamic and keeping our discipline in check. Constantly remembering what do we want to achieve push us to keep going on the difficult days, because with long term goals there will always be some days that are totally crap, and overcoming them is one of the most difficult things we could face in life.
But there is always a way to beat any difficulty there is. I think right now, in the world, there is more opportunities than ever to get ahead in life. All of it thanks to technology and the world of abundance it creates.
Oh, yes, our mindset controls everything in our life. Very important to get your mindset right first. I've written about that previously but wanted to answer the question about finding you WHY after you have the healthy mindset.
Excellent advice. I shall come back and review this more thoroughly. One thing I could definitely use more of in my life and goals is clarity.
Needed to read this today! Thanks for sharing :)
You're welcome, Fran
Amazing, i like yours post
very good information, useful to me and maybe for other steemit shabat, thank you may be a useful person for others
Great and informative post thanks for sharing.keep it up.