The little-known truth about yearly goals and achievements

A surprise quiz for you. As you settle in 2015, you want to breathe your ambition, courage and excellence into every endeavour you have lined up for the year. If you have none lined up, get on it right away. This quiz will help you along:

1. For how long do you sleep? This is not the point at which you start explaining the late nights you had that resulted in you calling in sick and showing up in the office at 11am supposedly having gone to see a doctor. It is a simple question and you don’t have to answer it out loud. Hey, I can hear your sigh of relief.

2. How much of that simply inviting, juicy, succulent, chocolatey, frothy, fatty and utterly irresistible treat do you indulge in more than you know is good for you and more frequently than you care to count? Is this question not too clear either?

Come on, you and I both know how many pounds you have piled on since the Christmas bells went on. This is not a cheque you are writing, so please do not end your response with the word “only”. The fact is; one serving, two and by the third one, your resolve is down the drain.

3. Do you spend time with individuals who share your aspirations for a greater you or those who enjoy the fun and exciting activities you do no matter how unproductive they may be for you?

Go on; name them as you read this question over and over again. You know exactly who I am referring to but that is not important.

Are the people you invest a lot of time in going after the same treasure you are keen on? Are they walking down the same path with you? Do they think in alignment with your aspirations?

Are they the people who can and do hold you accountable to be your best self? If not, you want to re-evaluate these associations.

4. How much time, effort and resources do you plough back into the goose that lays the golden eggs? That is YOU, not the bird.

If the last class you attended is the one that earned you an academic qualification and you would rather acquire a new tech gadget or pair of shoes than invest in your continuous development, you are many decades behind your competitors.

You need to embrace yourself as an ever-evolving being in a dynamic world. Continuous self-improvement is not a debatable matter if you are to acquire the edge to compete and lead.

5. What would you do if you had all the time, resources, talent and ability you need to get to your peak? If you had to think about this even for an instance, this is for you.

There are correct responses to this quiz. These responses are the system that guarantees success for you.

The common challenge is that no one knows for sure what that is and yet the correct responses come to each of us at different times. The correct responses depending on what is worthy of you will come if you actively seek them.

Don’t open your eyes a little wider; they are not going to be visual responses. They will be responses that you discover for yourself along your journey.

You must be still to discover them. They lie within your intuition. That inner voice that leads you before you can lead anyone else. The test of leadership is unlike school. The quizzes you must take are about real life situations that are as unique as thumbprints.

As you settle into the new year, take a good, long look at what you put into every day you spend to achive your goals that remain a mirage yearly. Ask: “Do my habitual actions increase or decrease my prospects of attracting the end results I want?”

If your answer is “decrease”, you want to make a change, which requires some tough and even painful decisions.

This is the crossroads at which most people run into real or perceived obstacles. However difficult this may seem, not deciding means buying a permanent residence in the city between a rock and a hard place.

The city from where you have front-row seats to watch other less-deserving persons play the privileged lead role in the movie that you know should be your life. You are then relegated to merely wishing and hoping that your circumstances would be different.

Soon the sun begins to set on your dreams and you write yourself off as incapable, cursed, unfortunate and whatever other self-defeating sentiment.

The little-known truth is that your circumstances do not matter. Invest time, effort and resources to understand how different, uniquely gifted and capable you are to decisively make this and the rest of your years filled with the greatness and significance.

Adapted from The Diamond Leadership Programme, a product of The Institute of Ultimate Potential.) - Seraphine is an expert in attitude and human potential. E-mail: [email protected]