Manifesting Goals: Taking Action
Manifesting Goals: Taking Action
It’s not about where you’re at. It’s about what you’re doing about where you’re at.
I believe in taking action and building momentum towards your goal. This shouldn’t be confused with taking big steps; you can move forward with baby steps. However, it’s always a good idea to give everything you’ve got.
For example, if my intention is to be the biggest music artist in the world, I don’t have to try to sell out arenas right away. I could start by creating a song. That’s a small step in the right direction.
At the same time, I could pour every little part of me into the song. I could ensure the lyrics are the best they can be and I can perform the vocals to the best of my abilities. This might mean that I have to spend extra time on it, or learn new skills, but that’s all an investment into my future – my dreams.
Many of us have a series of excuses ready to explain why something can’t be done. Often, you’ll hear people relay their doubts or explain how they lack time, expertise, resources, money, etc. But when we want a goal badly enough, we make sacrifices in other areas to make it possible. I’ve come to realize that it’s not necessary to have lots of free time to achieve a dream. The same goes for money and other resources. What you do need is a vision, a belief in it, and serious dedication. You’ll find a way if you keep taking action.
We might not want to sacrifice our luxuries or undergo the pain of hard work to get our desired outcome. We don’t want to step outside of our comfort zone. We accept mediocrity while we simultaneously complain about it. But then that outcome will remain out of reach. ‘I’m not ready,’ we say. But when will you be ready? Sir Richard Branson was diagnosed as dyslexic at school. He dropped out at the age of 16 to start a magazine. He was hardly ‘ready’ in most people’s eyes. But he was driven.
He didn’t know anything about planes, but he started Virgin Atlantic anyway. Along with an incredible net worth, Richard Branson’s Virgin Group includes more than 400 companies. He’s as driven today as he was when he was 16. He isn’t lucky; his history reveals bad trades throughout. He’s just someone who believes in his vision and he acts on it.
Once, I needed money to clear a debt. I set my vibration high and ensured I was feeling good. But I didn’t take action. I just expected money to come to me.
During this time, I won a free watch in an online competition. I didn’t usually enter competitions because I’d never won anything in the past, but I was feeling optimistic and so I entered. I was grateful that I won the watch, but it wasn’t what I needed at this time. I needed money.
As time dragged on, the money I needed didn’t appear and I began to get disheartened. I was certain it was going to come, so why didn’t it? Well, you see: I hadn’t noticed the opportunity the Universe had given me to take action. I’d won a prize and I didn’t consider that it could help me on my way. Yes – I could have sold it! As soon as I realized my mistake, I did sell it, and made the money I needed to pay off my debt.
Sometimes, steps towards your goals come disguised as opportunities to take action. If you don’t take action, you’ll miss out on the reward. Expecting change to happen when you don’t change anything yourself is like making a chocolate raspberry cake in the exact same way, every single day, and expecting it to turn into a chocolate strawberry cake. If you don’t add strawberries to the cake instead of raspberries, then it won’t change! It sounds a bit silly and obvious, right? But so many people go through their lives expecting change when they’re doing the same things every day. They feed all this positive energy via their thoughts, words and emotions, but take no action, which is vibratory in itself.
I find that a lot people know what to do, but they still don’t do it. They rely on justification or an easier solution because the real solution seems too long-winded. Some people would rather use their energy to find a way to use less effort for the same result. Working smarter is essential for effective productivity, but even finding a solution to work smarter requires a lot of effort. We must come to terms with the idea that some things have to be done the difficult way.
For example, if you want to lose weight, you have to create a calorie deficit by either increasing physical activity, improving your diet, or both. Most people know they need to do these things but they don’t commit to them. Instead, they’ll look for a magic pill or another shortcut to solve their problem. They spend excessive time, energy and money on trying out different miracle cures, when they could have achieved much more if they simply decided to apply some effort.
Other people in this situation may do nothing at all. They want to lose weight and they’ll moan about it, but they don’t take any action. Many of us will label these people as lazy. People usually act in this way because of two things. One is that they simply don’t believe that they can achieve the results that they want to, so they’re defeated by the idea of it straight away. The second is that they find the idea of working for the result too painful. People won’t want to take action on things if they perceive the process of achieving the results as being too hard. The idea of going to the gym or eating healthily may seem much more painful than remaining how they are. So these people take no action. They tend to stick with easier and more comfortable options – but rarely do we grow within our comfort zone.
Sadly, many will wait until they have no other option before they commit to changes, when you see your current situation as being more painful than going through whatever it takes to get what you desire. Great pain and pressure can force great changes to occur. This is the same reason why people will put up with toxic relationships until they reach breaking point. They may find the idea of being single and lonely more daunting than putting up with their abusive partner.
Step out of your comfort zone and face your fears. Growth takes place when you are challenged, not when you are comfortable.
We must be consistent as we strive to achieve our goals.
Imagine that you want to build lean muscle, so you purchase a three-month workout and nutrition plan from a personal trainer. You then follow 50 per cent of the instructions, but after a month you notice that you’re not getting the results you’d hoped for. You might conclude that the plan doesn’t work. Alternatively, you might follow the whole plan but observe after two or three weeks that the results aren’t showing. Again, you say that the plan doesn’t work. In both cases, you simply give up on it.
If you do 50 per cent of the plan, you can expect no more than 50 per cent of the results. If you’re not consistent in your actions, then you can’t assume that you’ll see the final results you were expecting. I myself did a home workout series. It was a two-month programme and after a month I couldn’t see any exciting results. In spite of this, I promised myself I’d see it out until the end. I’m glad I did: I dropped nearly three inches off my waist by the end of the second month.
The same goes for meditation, affirmations, visualizations and any other positive practice. If you want to reap the benefits, you have to do regular, solid practice. Be committed to the cause. With consistency, we can create habits that shape our lives.
Lack of time isn’t an excuse. If you can’t make the time for something, it’s not a high enough priority for you. If something is important to you, you’ll make the time for it.
‘We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence then, is not an act, but a habit.’
- ARISTOTLE
Soccer legend David Beckham was once known for his amazing free kicks. Each time he stepped up to take one, the crowd were certain that the ball was going to land in the back of the net.
Beckham didn’t become a master of free kicks overnight. He practised over and over again. He didn’t practise until he got his free kicks right, but until he couldn’t get them wrong. Even when he was scoring them, he ensured that he stayed consistent with his practice. With repetition comes habit.
Not everything will work, or be the best fit, for you. Reviewing your methods and adapting to change is vital. If you’ve given something a good shot but you’re still not progressing, this might be a sign that you need to try a new approach. Use your intuition to guide you. If something feels wrong, it usually is!
The difference between ordinary and extraordinary is simple: extraordinary people will get things done even when they don’t feel like it, because they’re fully committed to their goals.
When you pursue a goal you’re passionate about, you’ll naturally be motivated to achieve it. If you don’t find the process enjoyable, then you may want to reevaluate where you’re investing your efforts.
This isn’t to say that you won’t have your down days, even if you’re very focused on your goal. If you hold a high vibration or make an effort to increase it, motivation will come quite easily to you, but the prospect of having to take action can lower your vibration if you’re not in the right frame of mind.
Maintaining your motivation isn’t always an easy task, especially following a setback or on a dark and gloomy day. Motivation comes and goes. Low motivation might indicate that you need time out to recharge. Or it could mean you need to go out and search for inspiration.
If you still don’t feel motivated, proceed anyway and be willing to get things done. You didn’t expect me to say that, did you? It might not sound very appealing, but experience has taught me that this behaviour – this grit – is a key difference between ordinary and extraordinary. It’s about commitment. When you don’t want to roll out of bed in the early hours, or when you really can’t be bothered to go to that meeting on the other side of town – you do it anyway! You recognize that the effort you put in will be worth the rewards that come later.
Although writing is a passion of mine, I’ll readily admit that I’ve groaned at some of the tasks involved in creating this book. Some have been extremely tedious – but even as I write this line, I’m focused on the result.
Things are always easier when you’re in the mood to do them, but if you want to live a greater life than the average person, you have to commit the same effort even when you’re not.
Procrastination will delay your dreams
Procrastination is a habit. If the task ahead of you seems so insurmountable that you don’t know where to start, you’ll put it off – again and again; perhaps you choose a distraction as being more favourable or comfortable. It’s important to kill this habit if you want to manifest your goals. Do it before procrastination becomes the assassination of your dreams.
Behaviours of chronic procrastinators include :-
- putting things off until a later date or the last minute
- carrying out less urgent tasks before urgent ones
- getting distracted before or while doing something
- facing things only when they’re unavoidable
- claiming that you haven’t got time to do something
- waiting for the right time or mood to do something
- not completing tasks at all
Does this sound like you? Procrastinators avoid things that require action. Some of us do everything apart from what we need to do in order to be in harmony with our goals. For example, when typing up an essay for a deadline, a procrastinator might first browse the Internet and waste precious time.
We don’t just procrastinate over small tasks, but over our biggest goals, too. My friend Tony’s mentoring client, Malcolm, is a clear example of someone who procrastinated before taking action on his dreams. Malcolm was fearful, unwilling to leave his comfort zone, and overanalytical. These are common traits in chronic procrastinators. These qualities led him to deviate from the path to achieving his goals.
The story with Malcolm began when he first went to see Tony for support to reach his goal – something he really wanted: to start his own business. It would need his full-time commitment, which meant he’d have to leave his current job.
Malcolm feared what he couldn’t understand, which was how he would make a viable income with his business idea. He lacked self-belief. He doubted his own potential and he didn’t want to feel uncomfortable by compromising his existing lifestyle. He told himself that he was being unrealistic, so he hadn’t pursued his passion.
After Tony had set Malcolm on the path to starting his business, Malcolm suddenly convinced himself that he didn’t have enough information to get it going. He felt that he needed to do more research, which required more time. He believed this because, again, he feared failure.
Research is, of course, crucial if you intend to start a successful business, so his intentions were reasonable. The problem was that he did have all the information he needed; he was using an imagined need for further research as an excuse to delay taking action. Malcolm was eager to start his own business, and he believed it would add value to the world, but sadly he lacked the confidence to take the leap and get started.
After spending months researching every detail of his plans, Malcolm concluded that his idea was pointless. He wrote it off completely. He’d managed to talk himself out of it. This came as a shock to Tony, because he could see that Malcolm’s idea had great potential and that he was committed to it.
But this wasn’t the end. Time went by and Malcolm’s job was made redundant. Instead of finding another employer, Malcolm decided to invest his redundancy money into his thoroughly researched business idea. This time he had no choice but to make it work; he needed an income to live on.
With a bit of capital to work with and no other option, Malcolm finally took action. His business eventually became a success. If he hadn’t been made redundant and received his payout, he might never have started his business.
Now Malcolm realizes that he was held back by fear and wishes he’d started his business earlier.
You don’t need it all figured out. The more you think you do, the more you’ll procrastinate and fear moving forward. Have courage and start now, even if you start small. Just go for it!
When you find yourself procrastinating, it’s important to devise a strategy to overcome this. It’s easy to do this for smaller goals, like completing an essay, but it’s more challenging with bigger goals, like creating a successful online business.
So break your goals down. Big goals can be overwhelming, and it’s hard to imagine how you’ll ever cross the finish line. It’s more effective to set smaller goals and prioritize them in order of urgency.
If the goals still seem big after you’ve made them smaller, break them down further.
If you can meet smaller goals, you’ll become more confident about bigger goals. Even if you’re trying to manifest money, start by making the goal a fraction of the desired amount. So, if the goal is to have £10,000, work on making £100 to begin with. After you make £100, you can try to make another £100 until you reach your target amount.
We have four types of feel-good hormones in our body: dopamine, serotonin, oxytocin and endorphins. Dopamine, in particular, encourages us to take action towards our goals and provides us with feelings of pleasure when we achieve them. When we lack enthusiasm for a task, it means our dopamine levels are low.
When you break big goals down into smaller ones, you overcome this. Your brain will celebrate every time you meet a goal by releasing dopamine. You’ll then be encouraged to take further action on the rest of your goals.
If your final goal is time-sensitive, make sure each smaller goal has a deadline on it. You can only meet big goals on time if your smaller ones are done on time, too.
If you still struggle to beat procrastination, try the following techniques:
1. Get rid of every distraction possible, even if this means changing your environment. Have you ever been hungry and ended up snacking on something unhealthy just because it was there? If it wasn’t there, the temptation wouldn’t exist. We get distracted by things that are easily available to us.
2. Give yourself an incentive to complete the task. For example, tell yourself you can meet with your friends later if you finish whatever needs to be done. This will give you something to look forward to and motivate you to take action.
3. Take breaks to do something enjoyable. We all need a little time out when working, but make sure your breaks are for a fixed duration. If you want to watch a new episode of a show, schedule a period for it and don’t exceed it.
4. Get creative. Make your tasks more appealing. When doing activities that don’t require much thought, you could play music in the background. This will raise your vibration. Singing along might make the activity even more enjoyable.
5. Get some help if required. Never be afraid to ask for help. Talk to someone who’s recently accomplished a similar goal to you. This may provide much-needed inspiration and they may be able to give you valuable guidance.
6. Give yourself a consequence for not taking action. For example, you could tell yourself that if you don’t go to the gym today, you can’t watch television for the entire week. To ensure you don’t go back on what you say, make sure you tell others about it. This leads me to my final point…
7. Announce your intentions to some trustworthy friends. This will give you some accountability; they’ll know if you don’t stick to your plans, and they might even give you a little push to ensure that you achieve what you set out to do.
Patience is a must when pursuing your goals. Your desires can take a while to manifest. If you believe you’re doing everything in your power to manifest your goals, sometimes all you need to do is practise a little patience. Accept today as it is and stay optimistic in the face of delays, setbacks or challenges.
Time is the most precious commodity you have. When time is spent, it’s gone forever. This is why businesses that save their customers time often thrive. But while these companies might significantly improve our lives, they’ve also contributed to the creation of a quick-fix society.
The quick-fix society demands instant solutions. We expect things to be done straight away. We want to use less effort and less time to get a desirable outcome. Online clothing retailers will get clothes to us the next day. Services like Amazon Prime get all manner of goods to us within a day. If you want to watch a movie or a television show, you can just hop on to Netflix and pick something. If you want a date, you just need to swipe through a dating app. Meals can be replaced by frozen ones that can be heated in a microwave in a few minutes. No more need for patience – we can get what we want without delay.
There’s nothing wrong with indulging in these things now and then, but they’ve created a culture of impatience. We don’t want to wait, and if we have to wait we may lose faith in our intentions. The assumption is that things must arrive quickly, with minimal effort. Don’t get me wrong: if you can achieve something great at lightning speed, that’s fantastic. Just don’t be oblivious to the fact that most things in life require effort and patience.
This quick-fix way of life encourages us to give up on our goals when they don’t manifest as rapidly as we’d hoped, and move on to the next thing. This will never be fulfilling. A lot of the time, your goals aren’t eluding you; you either haven’t put in the effort you need to or you’re expecting things to happen instantaneously. Practise a little patience.
You’ll get the job, the partner, the house, the car, etc. Just don’t rush the process; trust it. You have to grow into your dreams.
Swap short-term pleasures for long-term gains
You’re not missing out on anything great if you’re using that time to make your life greater.
These days, I tend to party only when there’s something to celebrate. But in my late teens and early twenties, I went to a lot of clubs in a lot of places. I even flew all the way to Cancún in Mexico from the UK just to experience the infamous American spring break. I was living for the moment. This is important because, as we’ve learned, we only ever have this current moment and we should enjoy it. But a healthy balance between living for the moment and investing in the future is always required when you have goals.
When I was working in an office, every Friday I used to get that feeling of excitement because I knew I was going to celebrate a weekend free from work. I began living for the weekend, even though I knew there was more to life. The weekend was the time to reward myself. I’d get intoxicated and spend my hard-earned money in nightclubs. In the moment, when I was drunk, I felt great!
But this is what my actions were really saying:
Look at me! I’m working for hours on end in a job I don’t really like, for someone who doesn’t respect me. Therefore, I’m living for the weekend, to celebrate my freedom and spend my hard-earned cash on overpriced lethal substances that come in fancy bottles. This way I can feel better about life for a moment, by escaping the reality I face during the working week while impressing people who might be in a similar predicament.
Deep down, I was always wondering when my life would start to resemble my vision of having my own business, doing something I loved. I expected it to transform by pure chance.
I’d continually complain that I had no money to put towards my dreams. It was ironic, but I know I’m not alone. People often complain that they don’t have the time or the money to start their own business, while simultaneously spending lots of time and money on leisure activities. In some places, a single glass of an alcoholic beverage costs more than a book. Which one is more likely to change your life? People invest in the wrong places, and often they unwittingly fund someone else’s dreams; someone who’s worked their ass off and has now manifested their goals thanks to your spare cash.
There are so many individuals living like I was. And if it’s not partying, it’s something else. Yes, we should enjoy our lives and make the most of every moment. However, giving up what you want most for what you want now can deprive you of life’s real treasures.
I believe that everyone is destined for a greater life. Yet I understand that many people are unwilling to delay brief gratification for the sake of long-term rewards. When you’re unwilling to delay temporary pleasures, this can have massive implications for your future.
Most people are living the ‘When I have X, I’ll be happy’ way of life, but this is a delusion. However, you can have pleasure in the present by living mindfully, appreciatively, and altering your perspective.
You’re free to make your own choices, but you can’t escape their consequences. Sometimes we have to sacrifice small things to get our hands on the bigger blessings in life.
I’m not saying you should ignore all of your urges or stop having fun. But form a healthy balance between work and play while moderating where you’re placing your time and energy.
No matter how much you worry, your problem isn’t going to improve. Be wiser with your attention and energy. You can only step up in the world once you put your anxieties, fears and worries under your feet.
Faith is an active choice we make to stay optimistic. It can be extremely demanding to show faith in your goals at times. Fear will creep in and deceive you. It will steer you away from all the greatness that you’re due to be blessed with.
Fear is a mechanism that helps us to avoid physical harm or death. Yet we often use it to stay comfortable – to avoid challenges. We utilize it in the wrong way and it just ends up hindering our progress and preventing us from reaching our full potential. Fear keeps our lives mediocre, because it forces us to flee from our potential, rather than from anything truly harmful. Fear sets us back in our everyday lives and controls our choices. We use our precious energy to imagine what could go wrong, instead of having faith in what could go right. And our actions reflect this.
Both faith and fear ask you to believe in something that cannot be seen. You may fear stepping outside in the cold because you believe it will make you ill, even if at present you’re not ill and it’s unlikely that exposure to cold would cause illness. This is just a figment of your imagination until it manifests as your reality.
We make fear-based assumptions all the time. Unfortunately, when feed these assumptions they expand into our experience.
Fear is a low vibrational state and it therefore brings about more of what you don’t want in your life. Unlike faith, it disempowers the mind and this is reflected in your experiences. If you remove fear, your experience improves. For example, a surgeon without fear is likely to be less hesitant and more focused. Their decision-making may be considerably better, resulting in an improved performance.
Replacing fear with faith encourages us to do the unthinkable: it helps us to explore the realms of possibility. Faith doesn’t necessarily make things easier, but it does make them possible. When going after your goals, you must have an unwavering faith that can remain sturdy when challenged by venomous opinions or unfortunate twists of fate. The faith I’m talking about is the one that says, ‘I’m going to win,’ when all you can see is losses.
Sometimes all we have is our faith – our faith in the fact that things are going to get better. Hang on to it and keep believing, even if that means you’re the only one who does.
Embrace good vibes and learn to let things flow. There is no need to force outcomes. Once you are in harmony with the Universe, what’s meant to be yours will come to you.
No one in the world has always manifested every single goal they’ve wanted in the time they’ve desired. You can change outcomes through your vibe, but you must accept that things will unfold in their own time and for your highest good – which sometimes means in a way you hadn’t imagined.
Once you’ve learned to hone your manifestation skills, you must let go of your attachment to the goal. By trying to force or control the outcome, you breed resistance by feeding fear and doubt. When your heart is in something, only good things can follow.
Now, this may not always seem true. But remember that rejections are just redirections to better things. Setbacks are pauses for thought, opportunities to alter your plans – for the better. And however big any failure may feel at the time, there’s always a lesson to learn. Only with faith can we recognize the value of our apparent downfalls. What we truly want often comes wrapped in different packaging.
Learn to let go and let things flow. As I mentioned at the beginning of this book, the concepts of action and inaction must be balanced. Your job is to do the best you can to achieve this.
THANKS FOR READING POSITIVE PEOPLE!
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