Audit your actions towards achieving those elusive goals

If you are the resolution-making type, the new year just rolled into your resolve to reach your peak through small, consistent steps, probably achieve one percent of your goals every day. By the month of May, you’d have achieved well over 150percent of the improvements you’d set for yourself for the first quarter of 2020.

We are well into the month of May, and if you’re like most people still lucky to be alive during this uncertain time, you’re probably too caught up in doing your best to remain alive, keep others alive or help live move along, depending on what you do for a living.

While the pandemic has affected all of us, it really isn’t quite the reason why a lot of us have pending goals. While this is quite an unprecedented situation for most people, if it wasn’t the pandemic, most of us would have another excuse for not taking the actions that we commit to. We would be buying yet another self-help book, signing up to another motivational talk delivered by the guru that’s the flavour of the day or enrolling to yet another coaching program.

Unfortunately, none of these interventions work to deliver magical transformation into overnight success. The truth is that nothing works until we, as individuals make the decision to commit our time, effort and resources to doing the work required to realise our endeavours.

Real and sustainable progress in any facet of life is not about learning the very impressive tenets of success. If it were that simple, we’d see a lot more success around us than we see. Improving ourselves to greater levels of achievement is about developing the patience to focus our attention and courageously take requisite action. You see; the principles of success, however logical are only as good as their physical realisation. I can go on and on about attitude, and how operating in a positive vibration attracts positive results. However much sense that makes, all we really want is to realise our goals now.

All the hyped up principles of success are really only a bunch of motivational mambo-jumbo until we can enjoy their tangible results in our lives. That requires deliberate, and consistent action. No success is realised until our knowledge of achievement principles are acted upon to yield tangible realities.

There is no secret to achievement. Successful people are simply operate with a relentless action mindset until their positive results have no option but to become real. They are the tenacious individuals who see only their objectives. Any obstacles along the way must give way. They have honed the ability to give themselves commands and follow those commands through to their rewarding ends. We all have in us the ability to hone this level of focus. The resources we come by in the form of books, case-studies people and so on are just that; resources. They do not work. We work.

Expecting anything outside of ourselves to roll up its sleeves and do the work is tantamount to passing the buck of our failures to others. That has never translated into success for anybody. We fail to do the work required for attainment because of long-held notions that work requires us to completely overhaul our lives. That, right there is a thought that shakes us to the core of our mental foundations. Most of us do not want to make massive changes to the way we think, feel and act. We are comfortable and will do nearly anything to maintain that status quo.

The good news is that lasting personal change does not necessarily require us to turn our lives upside down. We explain our lethargy by defeatist statements hoping that they absolve us from our responsibilities to bring about the progress that we claim to want. Unfortunately, it only provides us with temporary relief from the strong inner urge to personally and professionally actualise ourselves.

The pandemic will come to an end at some point. What goals did your have before Covid-19 trapped us in our homes? What actions can you take towards your goals even as we are stuck in limbo? When did you last work on them?