In the thick of the holiday season, it’s easy to make promises to yourself about the New Year. In January, I’ll eat healthily / stop smoking / cut back on drinking / exercise regularly / start studying for that qualification …

Some experts might tell you to get started on your goals straight away (“there’s no time like the present!”) – but that’s not necessarily realistic advice. If you know that December is going to be hectic, you don’t want to set yourself up for failure.

So, instead of making a start on your big goal right now, here are three things you can do to make your New Year’s resolution much more likely to succeed.

#1: Decide What You Want to Accomplish

This might seem like a very basic step – but we don’t always follow it.

Rather than figuring out your goals on December 31^st, start considering them now. Don’t pick too many things, either: one big goal or two – three smaller ones will be much more likely to succeed than a dozen self-improvement projects.

If you’re struggling to decide, write down all your possible goals and ask yourself which of these would make the biggest difference to my life?

#2: Ask for Gifts That Will Help

Once you’ve picked a goal (or a couple), you’ve almost certainly got a few potential items to put on your Christmas list.

For instance, if your goal is “lose 50lbs”, you might want:

• Recipe books with healthy, low-fat meals
• A subscription to a health/fitness magazine
• Sports kit (comfy workout clothes, trainers)
• Sports equipment (exercise machine) – or gym membership
• Some yummy but healthy snacks

These gifts will help you to keep your goal in mind during Christmas. They can also be a good way to let friends and relatives know about your resolution: these people can keep you accountable and encourage you towards your goal.

#3: Pave the Way with Small Steps

You might not want to begin outright just yet, but you can still take some small steps towards your goal. For instance:

• If you want to exercise more, check out local gyms during December (when things are quieter!) rather than in January.
• If you want to get a new qualification or learn a new skill, look into courses and fees. If you want to start on a course in January, you may need to sign up several weeks before.
• If you want to write a book, set aside a space in your home and get any necessary supplies (e.g. index cards for planning, a spare USB pen for backing up your work).

Right now, you can gather information, look into different options and decide how best to move forward. Don’t wait until January – otherwise you might end up dithering for weeks, without starting on your goal.

Depending on your resolution, you might need to avoid backsliding before January 1^st. If you want to lose weight next year, for instance, it’s clearly not a great idea to gorge during December: finding that you need to lose 60lbs not 50lbs isn’t going to make for a good start to January!

All of these steps are simple and don’t need to take up much time – but they could make the difference between success and failure next year. Which of them could you do today?

If you’ve got another tip to add to this list, let us know your thoughts in the comments!

Do you have a tough time accepting help?

A few years ago, I thought that achievements only really “counted” if I did everything alone. I was afraid that accepting help would make me look weak. But the truth is, getting help isn’t a sign of weakness – it’s a way to maximize your potential.

Getting help can cover a whole range of situations, so let’s take a look at some of the most common ones.

Public Accountability

This is the most basic level of assistance: feeling accountable to someone else. You don’t even need the other person (or people) to take any active role here.

If you tell your family and friends that you’re going to lose 30lbs in the next year, you’ve made a public commitment. As time goes by, they might ask you how you’re progressing. When you’re tempted to eat a candy bar or dig into a bag of chips, that accountability can be enough to give you the willpower boost that you need.

Accountability works on smaller goals, too. Perhaps you’ve decided that you want to spend 30 minutes writing every morning. You could tell the world on Facebook or Twitter that you’re about to get started on your daily writing – that way, you’ll feel more motivated to actually do it.

Emotional and Practical Support

While accountability helps, you’ll probably find that you need a higher level of support and encouragement in order to stay on track long-term. That means finding people who can get directly involved.

There are a couple of key ways they can help you:

• Emotional support. This might mean praising you when you’re doing well, or encouraging you to keep going when things are tough. You might need a sympathetic ear, or a pat on the back.
• Practical support. Some goals require time, energy or physical resources. Do you have family or friends who can help out in practical ways – perhaps looking after your kids while you exercise, or letting you use their home gym?

At this level of help, your friends or family don’t need any involvement in your actual goal. If you want to be a writer, it doesn’t matter that your partner has no interest in doing likewise – what does matter is that s/he accepts that your goal is important to you.

Advice from Peers

While family and friends can be a real support, they won’t always be able to give you advice that can help you towards your goal. Look around for people who can – like-minded individuals, working towards a similar goal to yours. You may need to pay a membership fee to join an organized group.

For instance, if you’re struggling to lose weight, you might want to join a local club or an online forum. Perhaps your friends all seem to be effortlessly thin, and they can’t offer you any useful tips – but the members of your weight-loss group may be able to show you where you’re going wrong.

At this level of help and support, there should be plenty of give and take. You want to find a group where you can advise other members too, sharing what you yourself have learned. This can help you too: teaching others may allow you to consolidate your own knowledge and experience.

Expert Assistance

This level of help isn’t right for everyone: it may mean a substantial commitment of money and probably of time. If you’re going for a big goal, though, you may find it’s very worthwhile to invest in expert help.

Whatever you’re working on, there’ll be people who can help in the role of a teacher, mentor, tutor or coach. With some goals, these individuals are essential and their involvement is pretty much automatic (if you’re aiming to get a degree, for instance). With other goals, you may have to look around.

Experts might be consultants who can teach you how to run your small business more effectively, teachers who can give you weekly music lessons, life coaches who can give you new insights into your behavior … pretty much anyone who’s at a level above you and your peers.

If you can’t afford to pay for one-to-one time with an expert, look for opportunities to attend group sessions (such as a seminar) – or even consider buying a book that you can learn from.

——

How are other people helping you on the road towards your goals? Is there any level of support that you’re missing out on? Feel free to share your experience and thoughts in the comments below…

Don’t forget to sign up for the PickTheBrain NEWSLETTER!

We’re getting dangerously close to the end of 2011. If you made any New Years resolutions this year (and if you read this blog, I’d wager there’s a pretty good chance you did), how are those coming along?

If you’re like a lot of people out there, you might find that those hopeful thoughts in January are starting to get replaced by excuses or maybe even a sense of defeat or futility.

But why is is that people don’t achieve their goals? What keeps them stuck, unable to lose that weight, make more money, find the love they really want, or do the countless other things to make themselves happy?

Here are the 4 things that keep most people from reaching their goals.

They Don’t Have Clarity About What They Want

Maybe you know that you want more friends, you want to make more money, or you want to start a business. You probably have at least a vague idea about what you want, but have you ever sat down and painstakingly thought about exactly what you want down to the last detail?

One exercise I like to do is to take several hours (yes, several hours–not just a few minutes!) and actually write down exactly what I want my daily life to be like. To help you as you do this, consider answering questions like:

• What do you do?
• Who do you do it with?
• What do you talk about?
• What do you eat for breakfast?
• When do you wake up?
• What do you dream about?
• What are you most proud of?

When you can put yourself in the ‘future you’ shoes and start to imagine life from that point of view, you’ll have a real and concrete idea about what you’re working toward. Your goals will be clear and you’ll know exactly what you want.

They Don’t Have the Right Plan

Maybe you know what you want extremely well. However if you don’t have the right plan, you’ll likely never be able to achieve it.

Taking action is great, but if you’re just taking any old action, you won’t be making consistent and steady progress toward your goal. Somethings might take you a step closer to what you want, while the next things moves you away from it.

A common example of this is when someone tries to learn how to start an online business. Many beginners (like myself, not too long ago) end up getting seduced by the latest ‘shiny new thing’ and keep jumping from one program or course to the next, never really making any progress.

The solution to this is to study someone who is successful at what you want to achieve and follow the same plan that they used to get there. Success leaves clues, so follow those and use them as your plan to guide the way.

They Are Not in the Right Environment

Are you around negative people most of the time? Is your life just too hectic to give you a moment’s peace to get clear thinking? Maybe your workspace is too cluttered to focus on what needs to get done.

I’ll be honest, not everyone is gifted with being in the right situation, especially when they are just getting started reaching their goal.

If you don’t feel like you are in the right environment to support you, you may need to take some actions to fix the situation. Make the effort to create a tidy space to keep your creativity flowing, block off time away from cynical people to do the things you want to do without guilt or judgment, take some personal time to just hear yourself think once in a while, or do whatever it takes to get yourself into a situation that maximizes your chances of success.

They Don’t Have the Right Mindset

The last big thing that keeps many people from finding the success they want is a proper mindset. If you’re reaching for something that’s just outside your comfort zone, it’s not uncommon to go up against your limiting beliefs.

Fears that you’re not good enough, doubts that you don’t have what it takes, or even hesitations and second-guesses that what you want is really even possible are common.

Many years ago, I learned that the best way to overcome a limiting belief is to try your hardest to prove it true. Commit to giving it your best shot and move forward anyway despite the fear.

If you have a belief that you are too shy to ask someone out, then prove it! Go and force yourself to ask out ten people. If you think you just can’t lose weight, then prove it! Improve your diet and exercise routine and see if those pounds don’t budge.

This will likely make all of your fears go from a quiet whisper in the back of your mind, to screaming at you at maximum volume, but keep pushing through it. The point isn’t to back down when your limiting beliefs come up, it’s to get in the habit of barreling through that fear and taking action anyway.

Before you know it, you’ll embrace the fear and, although you may still feel afraid, you won’t use that as an excuse to not take action.

Do any of these sound familiar to you? If you’re anything like me, you can probably relate a little bit to each of them. But if you recognize any of these roadblocks, you shouldn’t feel bad.

Accept that they are keeping you from success, and work on overcoming the specific obstacles that are holding you back rather than feeling stuck by vague limitations. Getting clear and identifying exactly what’s in your way is the first step to moving past the roadblocks that keep you from where you want to go.

Clay Andrews has a lot of personal, first-hand experience with dealing with obstacles. Although, he hasn’t got it all figured out yet, he likes to think he’s made some good progress. He also writes a blog on relationship advice and another on lifestyle design. Go visit one of them and say he (he doesn’t bite, and he loves meeting new people!).

Whose permission do you need? Really, it’s not a trick question. Who needs to give you the nod of approval before you can start a business, start dating after a bitter divorce, or write the book you’ve been talking about for the past nine years? Whose approval are you desperately seeking? Your spouse, a boss, friend, or expert in your field? Unless you’re six years old, you don’t need anyone’s permission to create a better, fuller, richer life for yourself. Of course, it doesn’t always feel that way. Someone has to tell you you’re good enough and smart enough, right?

Well, no actually. We cling to the (irrational) belief that we require approval before we can achieve because it’s safe. It gives you a fabulous excuse. You can tell others, and more importantly, yourself, that it’s out of your hands. It can help you sleep because it gives you the illusion that you’re not in control. And if you’re not in control, it’s not your fault. But if you want to do more than sleep well and want to start living well, you need to make a decision. Are you going to put your success and happiness in your hands or someone else’s?

This message hit home for me last week. I presented to a roomful of actors and artists at a Screen Actors Guild event. Talk about an industry built on the need for approval. If you’re an actor, you need a casting director to tell you you’re good enough. If you’re a musician, you need a record label to give you their seal of approval. And if you’re a writer, you need an agent or publisher to recognize your genius. This is true for all actors, musicians, and writers . . . except those that have decided they don’t need to wait for anyone to tell them their art is worthy. These are the artists that don’t wait, they create. The ones such as Zak Ambrose, Craig Benzine, Christina Perri, Oren Peli, or “Born this Way” Maria.

Not an artist? Not a problem. It doesn’t matter what you do for a living. The freedom that comes from discovering you don’t need anyone’s permission is yours for the taking. But how can you break free from this destructive and limiting belief?

Get conscious. It’s time to name names. List a goal or aspiration and write down next to it all of the people for whom you are secretly waiting approval. If you’re having trouble, ask yourself this: Who needs to tell me that I am old enough, young enough, experienced enough, smart enough, attractive enough, thin enough, funny enough, or creative enough? Maybe you’ve been waiting to get a boyfriend before you travel across Europe. Why can’t you go alone? Whose permission are you seeking? What about dropping your current job and switching to a career that inspires you?

There are two truths. The first is that nobody will ever give you permission. The second is that you don’t need anyone’s permission. Success doesn’t come to those who wait for it. Success doesn’t even come to those who ask for it. Success comes to those who fight off the naysayers and push forward without a permission slip.

It can be incredibly scary (and life changing) once you realize it’s up to you. Regardless of the story you sell yourself, it always has been up to you, and it always will be. What would happen if you woke up tomorrow and decided you didn’t need anyone to give you permission? What’s the first thing you would start? Really, it’s not a trick question.

Are you ready to create more money, time, energy, and passion in your life? Learn how to live your best life now with these free resources:

Get the “Achieving Peak Performance” ebook and video now! (free for a limited time)

You can also join a community of passionate people at Richer Life who want to achieve more in life and at work. With your free membership, you can participate in conversations I have with experts, celebrities, authors, and thought leaders that are laser-focused on practical ways to drive more money, motivation, and meaning into your life. Take the first step toward creating a better life by joining Richer Life for free now!

Remember those New Year’s resolutions you made at the beginning of the year?  Did you make good on them or did you forget about them by February 1?  With less than 100 days left in the year, you can still turn those resolutions into a reality and reach your goals before 2012 officially rolls in.  Whether it’s losing weight, getting out of debt, organizing your home or whatever, all it takes is a little mental toughness.

Get Really Clear and Committed to What You Want

One of the biggest reasons people don’t stick to their New Year’s resolutions is because they aren’t clear about what they want to achieve.  You must get really clear about what you want to change, define it in detail and get totally committed to doing it.  Don’t just say, “I want to lose weight.”  The correct way to define this goal is to get really specific.  Instead, say, “My goal is to lose 20 pounds in the next two months.  I’m going to commit to being at the gym every morning at 7am and eat healthy and nutritious meals.”

The other big mistake most people make is their lack of commitment.  In mental toughness training, we say it’s all or nothing.  If you’re on a diet, for example, you can’t let those old thoughts, habits or temptations to cheat in the door for even a second.  It sounds harsh, but 99% compliance is failure.  You wouldn’t cheat on your partner in a committed relationship, and you shouldn’t cheat on your diet either.

Expect Obstacles

Military training is filled with obstacle courses.  The purpose of this is to train soldiers to be ready for anything.  Same concept holds true for making and keeping a New Year’s resolution.  Everyday isn’t going to be smooth sailing and there will be times when you want to throw in the towel.

If you know ahead of time that you are going to run into obstacles, you can be better prepared to deal with them.  There will be days when you don’t feel well, your kids are stressing you out, and you’ve had a bad day at work or a fight with your partner.  Whatever the case, know that days like this are going to happen.  While you can’t change that, you can take control of how you handle these situations.  Have a plan to stay on track.   If you’re not ready to suffer during adversity, you’re not going to be successful.

Develop A World Class Self-Talk

One of the most powerful mental toughness tools is developing a world class, positive self-talk.  Do you pay attention to what you say to yourself?  What you think to yourself plays a major role in your attitude and what you are capable of accomplishing.  It’s estimated that 77% of the average person’s self-talk is negative.

Self-talk is what we say to ourselves all day long, yet it’s also how we say it.  Most New Year’s resolutions aren’t an easy or quick fix, and the difficulty involved usually leads to a party of negativity in your self-talk.

Begin monitoring everything you say to yourself and others.  Ask yourself if your self-talk is programming you for success or failure?  Start listening to the way people around you use their language.  Are they programmed for success or failure?  This is an eye-opening experience.  You must develop a world-class positive talk if you want to make your resolutions a reality.

Choose Discipline Over Pleasure

Discipline is the watchword of great performers.  Discipline makes the difference between the good and the great.  It’s the ability to stay the course and complete promises you’ve made.  The fulfillment of these promises, or resolutions, builds confidence and self-esteem, which eventually leads you to believe that almost anything is possible.  Discipline is a logic-based decision that performers adhere to, regardless of whether they feel like it or not.  Discipline will push you past pain and punishment.  The average person sees discipline as a painful chore to be avoided at all costs.  The world class sees it as the ultimate power tool for performance.

To achieve your New year’s resolutions, rate yourself on a scale of 1 to 7, 7 being most disciplined.  How disciplined are you in the different areas of your life?  How disciplined have you been in the past about resolutions you created?  If you’re weren’t really disciplined, you need to get disciplined if 2012 is going to be your year.

Become Future-Oriented

The average person often lives in the past, while champions look toward the future.  Pros habitually focus on the present while creating their ultimate vision for, and landscape of, the future.  This future orientation allows them to dream of grand visions and unlimited possibilities.  It also keeps them motivated and moving forward by keeping the proverbial carrot out in front.

When it comes to your New Year’s resolutions, you must be future-oriented.  If you’re trying to lose weight, for example, think of how great you’ll look with a sexy, lean body.  If you’re trying to make more money, think of all the things you’ll do with that money.  How does it make you feel?  Use this as your motivation to keep you moving forward.

2012 is right around the corner. Sharpen your mental toughness tools and finish off the year strong!

Steve Siebold is an internationally recognized mental toughness expert.  His corporate clients include Johnson & Johnson, Toyota, GlaxoSmithKline and Proctor and Gamble.  He’s author of the international best-selling book 177 Mental Toughness Secrets of The World Class.  A former professional tennis player, today Siebold is a mental toughness coach to Fortune 500 corporations, entrepreneurs and other super achievers.  To learn more, visit www.speakerstevesiebold.com and http://www.mentaltoughnesssecrets.com/

Don’t Forget To Follow PickTheBrain on Twitter!

Related Articles:

10 Secrets To Success

The Language of Success

Clarity of thought helps us make decisions that will lead to the outcome we desire.  Unfortunately, at some point in our lives we give into the fast paced world around us and disregard the faculties of our own mind.  These faculties of reasoning, processing information, and determining truth help lead to clear thinking.  Clear thinking comes from having being informed.

Going through school we are taught to question things, at least in science class.  When I went to church it seemed quite the opposite.  Most people simply took what was spoken by the preacher as an unquestionable truth.  To not do so was almost heresy.

This goes against the very nature of being human though.  If God wanted us to not question things, why even give us the ability to reason?  For that matter, if we are given the freedom to choose, how are some things right and others wrong?  It seems hypocritical to give your kids freedom, and then say “However, these actions are punishable”.  That doesn’t seem like a benevolent god to me.

Enough of religion though, lets discuss some other aspects of life.  These are questions that few people have even considered to ask, much less been asked.  You may think the answer to them is obvious, but take some time to really ponder where you got your beliefs from.

Are the answers you put down things that you personally researched, studied and found definable, concrete answers to?  Or are they simply vague, wishy-washy answers you were told by someone else?  If they are the latter, you need to take the time to study them on your own.  It’s past time that you gave power over your mind to someone else.

What is money?

If  cash is money, then how did the first one ever get made?  Doesn’t it take money to make money?  So, if it didn’t exist already how was it made later?  Ah, you say that someone used “other money” to make it.

This is perhaps one of the least understood questions here, so I started with it.  Money is not a piece of paper, nor is it the gold that backs that paper up.  In reality, what backs the cash that we use up is the people of the country.  When other countries see us bailing out companies that are going bankrupt, they lose trust in the dollar bill.

It is nothing more than a medium of exchange that we use to express to others the same thing: value creation.  You grow corn for someone that knows nothing about it and they give you cash in return.  Each person knows how much a dollar bill is worth, not everyone knows what it takes to make that corn.  So the corn maker then negotiates a deal with others so that they get an idea of what kind of value it takes to get it from him.

How is it created?

You dig it up right?  No, you cut trees down and make paper, then mix that with cloth right?  Both are incorrect.  Money creation has nothing to do with materials, it has everything to do with people.

People going about their days, serving others.  Doing things that other people find valuable and offering an exchange of something in return.  Money doesn’t always have to be cash.  It can be a handshake, a hug, a kiss, or even just a smile.  It is created by what you do that others desire.

What is a relationship?

A relationship are the connections you have with other people.  Some of them are physical, like sports.  Others are emotional, like romantic relationships.  Many are simply professional, you speaking with people at work.

What is the meaning of marriage?

It really depends on who you ask.  In ancient times women were treated as property, given to men as a prize or gift.  At other times arranged marriages were done simply to help strengthen a country, or family.

In modern times, they still have different meanings.  To some they are a form of pairing off, giving oneself to the other only.  This (hopefully) means that you give yourself just as much emotionally as physically to each other.

What do you do in a bad marriage though?  Some people say never leave no matter what.  Others say only if they cheat, or abuse you.  Yet who decides what cheating is?  Did the two of you actually discuss and agree on what it is?  Or is it simply “known”?

Some say marriage is meant for a man and women only.  A covenant between the two until death, or eternity for others.  Some wish to marry someone of their own sex.

What is the purpose of sex?

Speaking of sex, why do we always think that you are only allowed to have sex with the person you are married to?  Or why do you have to wait before having sex?  Can’t sex simply be an enjoyable activity?  If you are doing safe sex practices isn’t that alright?

Is it just for procreation?  Only to be done to have kids and not at other times.

Conclusion

While everyone is entitled to their own beliefs, don’t just turn your brain off and not think about it.  I’m not saying one person or another is right, or wrong.  I’m simply saying that you need to free your mind from the dogma that holds you down from seeking the principles and truths that govern these areas of life.

Joneric Bohman has been doing self improvement for the last 10 years and finds it to be a real passion.  He desires to help provide thought provoking articles to help change the lives of many people.  Find more insightful articles at JonericBohman.com.

Maybe you’ve got a big goal in your life – something that excites you but also scares you.

You might have been thinking about this goal for months, years, even decades. And, even if you’ve made a start on it, you might not have got very far.

Your goal might look something like this:

• Run a marathon
• Write a novel
• Pay off the mortgage
• Get a PhD
• Become self-employed

All of these are big goals – most of them would take years to achieve. And if you really want to reach them, you need to break them down into manageable chunks.

Here’s how.

#1: Define Your Goal

First, you’ll want to come up with a clear description of your end goal. Too many big goals are so vague that it’s hard to start and impossible to finish.

For instance, if your goal is “write a novel”, what would finished look like?

• A first draft?
• A novel that you’re happy with?
• A published novel?

If you want to run a marathon, what exactly does that mean?

• Would walking the whole marathon be okay?
• Or do you want to finish under a certain time?

Get clear about your goal. Decide what you’re aiming for, and write it down. Once you’ve done that, you can start on the next step.

#2: Break Your Goal into Major Milestones

Most goals can be divided into clear milestones. For instance, let’s say you’re planning to become self-employed. Your milestones might be:

• Get everything ready to start the business (plan, funding, tools)
• Make $500/month from the business
• Make $1000/month from the business
• Make enough to quit your day job and go full-time

…and so on.

These are still quite big steps, but they’re easier to grasp. You can start to imagine what’s necessary in order to achieve each milestone – and that’s what we’ll be covering in the next step.

#3: Come Up With a Task List

You don’t need to map out your entire goal – just your first milestone.

Come up with a clear task list: what exactly do you need to do? Try to phrase these as action items like “write proposal” or “ask John about tools”.

Here’s an example:

Goal: Run a marathon

First milestone: Jog for thirty minutes

Task list:

• Buy kit – trainers and loose-fitting clothes
• Get an exercise plan – ask for Sue’s help putting this together
• Jog three times a week and gradually build up to thirty minutes

Your task list doesn’t need to be long or complicated, but it should be clear. If any items are vague, then break them down further.

By now, your big goal has been divided into little steps. You know what you need to do during the next week or two – and you can see the milestones mapped out for the next few months or years.

“Run a marathon” is daunting. “Buy trainers” isn’t. But all those little steps really do add up – and in a year’s time, you could have achieved something amazing.

How could your big goals break down? If you want to share your thoughts, the comments are open…

Don’t Forget To Follow PickTheBrain on Twitter!
Related Articles:

Time is All We Have: 3 Ways To Increase The  Return On Investment

How To Find Time For New Habits

‘There is no chance, no destiny, no fate, that can circumvent or hinder or control the firm resolve of a determined soul.’ ~Ella Wheeler Wilcox

You want to lose weight, but you keep eating poorly.

You know you need to exercise, but you just can’t seem to get moving.

You’d like to start that project, but maybe you’ll do it tomorrow when you aren’t so tired.

Our dreams and good intentions are powerful, real, and hold the promise of a happier life, a better you, a sense of pride and accomplishment. But when the rubber meets the road, when it’s time to take action, it feels like you are wading waist-high in water with weights tied to your feet. Your heart is willing, but your mind and body resist. The mental difficulty of even the smallest actions can be shocking and immensely disappointing.

If you have intended with all of your heart to create a good habit, drop a bad one, fulfill a goal, or complete a project, and you have failed at it, you are not alone. Nearly everyone has difficulty maintaining resolve and following through. Even those who are self-disciplined weren’t born that way. It is a learned skill — one that takes practice and the specific knowledge of how to go about it.

When you become a master at launching but a failure at completion, self-esteem inevitably plummets.

Thoughts like, “I’m weak, I’m lazy, this is too hard for me,” often creep in to poison your confidence and further weaken your resolve. To save face, perhaps you create excuses — you’re too busy, you aren’t feeling well, you don’t really need to change. All of this behavior is smoke and mirrors, an attempt by your psyche to keep you comfortably ensconced in inertia and the status quo.

It is as thought there are two people inside of you. There’s the one who wants things comfortable, easy, uncomplicated, immediately satisfying, and unchanging. But then there’s the other you — the one who won’t allow the first to be satisfied with the status quo. It’s the “potential you” who continues to attempt positive change, growth, and life betterment. These two are in a constant battle, with the “status quo you” coming out on top more often that not.

So how does one strengthen the “potential you” with the resolve to conquer the status quo? How does one get over the hump of resistance, inertia, and discomfort that is the standard response to anything new and hard?

You know it can be done, because you’ve seen others do it. Unless you have a mental or physical handicap, your circumstances and difficulties are no different that anyone’s.

If you aren’t following through to create a habit, accomplish a goal, and complete a task, there are really only three things standing in your way.

1. Lack of desire. You may say you want something, but you don’t want it badly enough to deal with the discomforts and inconvenience of getting it.

2. Lack of honesty. You are not being real with yourself about your desire for this accomplishment. You aren’t accepting 100% personal responsibility for making this happen. Everything is a choice — your choice.

3. Lack of information. You don’t have the practical information or skills to overcome resistance and follow through consistently.

Each of these roadblocks can be overcome, allowing you to strengthen your resolve to accomplish just about anything your mind and body are capable of accomplishing. Here are 12 strategies for doing just that:

1. Do your research. Before you begin any new habit or goal, give yourself several days to know exactly what’s involved in making this change happen. How much time will it take? How will you insert it into your day? Who else will it impact and how will you deal with them? What special equipment or information will you need? What preparation is necessary? What must you give up to make this happen? How will it impact your life once you’ve accomplished it?

2. Make an honest decision. Armed with the knowledge from your research, make an informed and honest choice. Are you willing to do the work involved in making this thing happen? Will the outcome be worth the effort? It’s hard to know for sure until you start taking action, but you should have some idea of what to expect before you charge ahead.

3. Reduce overwhelm. If the goal or habit seems daunting, it will quash your desire to work hard for it. Break it down into small, simple, and brief actions or tasks. Make it so easy to do that it doesn’t feel like a chore. With a new habit, start with five minutes a day, every day — slowly increasing your time over several weeks.

4. Make a public promise. Tell people what you are doing. Announce it to friends, family, on Facebook and Twitter. When you go public with your intentions, it immediately strengthens your resolve. A public commitment shifts your own thinking about your seriousness. No one wants to be embarrassed in front of others.

5. Set up regular accountability. Create a system of accountability so that you can report your actions, successes and failures, every day. This may be a friend or it could be on Facebook or in a forum of some kind. Don’t just announce it once and then disappear. Let the world know about your progress.

6. Expect difficulties. There will be life situations that might try to get in the way of your efforts. And it is so easy to allow them to undermine your work. Think in advance of possible problems that might arise and decide how you will deal with these situations. Decide in advance what you will allow to interrupt your work and stick to the plan.

7. Use positive self-talk. When you want to quit, your mind starts reaching for excuses and reasons to give you an exit ramp from the work you are doing. Be aware of your mind’s efforts to sabotage you, and intentionally begin saying supportive and positive things to yourself the minute you feel mental resistance.

8. Visualize the outcome. Visualization has an incredibly powerful effect on the brain. It can actually rewire neural pathways in your brain to support the physical efforts you are making. Take a few minutes prior to taking action on your habit or goal to visualize yourself accomplishing it.

9. Move past failure. It takes practice to strengthen resolve and follow through on just about any endeavor. And if you tackle something hard, like diet or exercise, chances are good you will fail a few times before you are successful. Failure doesn’t mean it can’t be done. It might mean you started too big or didn’t plan ahead. Learn from the failure and start again, correcting what you think caused you to give up. Be kind to yourself and know that building resolve is a work in progress.

10. Attempt one at a time. You may have many goals and many things you want to accomplish, but until you strengthen your resolve with one effort, don’t attempt to tackle several at a time. Begin the process of strengthening your resolve with something easy. When you accomplish that, move on to another, slightly harder effort. Build up to difficult goals or tasks so that you know what to expect and how to cope with interferences or problems.

11. Practice resolve in small ways daily. Without judging your success or failure, attempt to resist small temptations during your day (ie: snacking, surfing the internet too long, gossiping). Prove to yourself that you are capable of small acts of self-discipline. These little successes will support your larger efforts at strengthening resolve.

12. Accept full responsibility for your actions. Most of what happens to us in life is a result of our own choices. Yes, there are some things that are out of our control, but even then, we can choose how to react to them. We are not victims. We have an endless array of choices that can change the quality of our lives. There is tremendous power in that.

You have the gift of a powerful brain, but it sometimes has a mind of its own! Fortunately, you also have the ability to harness that power and apply it to a fixed purpose that can enhance your life, your health, and your happiness. If you exercise your mental muscle of resolve, over time, you will develop the mental strength and confidence to accomplish whatever you set out to do.

Barrie Davenport is a personal and career coach and founder of Live Bold and Bloom, a blog about bold and fearless living. She is also the creator of Discover Your Passion: A Step-by-Step Course for Creating the Life of Your Dreams.

“A Spirited Debate Will Strengthen Your Resolve” Art by: Daryl Vocat

Don’t Forget To Follow PickTheBrain on Twitter!

Related Articles:

20 Ways To Stretch Yourself

Words That Heal and Empower

Traditionally, when we evaluate what direction to take our lives in we do a ‘values assessment’. This is a checklist of what you believe to be important to you. It might come out something like this (in a particular area):

Business/Career

• Serving customers
• Creating a great product that adds value
• Paying for my South American holidays
• Contributing to the world
• Helping people grow and develop their thinking skills
• Etc

Once you’ve ordered your list the standard advice is to seek a career that allows you to engage and live out your values. You can then feel that you are doing something that interests and compels you.

All well and good: – if you are satisfied in determining your future based purely on what interests you in your head right now. But this approach doesn’t always work because sometimes you don’t value all the things or skills you need to in order to pursue the career you want.

Suppose you really, really want to go into bio-engineering and chemistry but you hate doing detailed analyses – and you know that you’ll have to write a number of experimental reports.

Some people would decide that the field is not for them because they don’t have a disposition towards details or they just ‘don’t like detail work’.

The easy approach seems to be picking something else. It’s not the easy approach.

As Abraham Maslow said “If you settle for being anything less than what you can be, I promise you will be very, very unhappy.”

If you have a calling, if biochemistry and fiddling with strands of amoeba DNA lovingly beckons to you with sweet smiles and kisses – why go for something else?

I advise developing what I call ‘necessary convictions’. This is the act of consciously designing the beliefs and feelings you will need in order to get the job done.

Others may say “You can’t do that!” Watch me. Those who say it can’t be done are usually being overtaken by those who are doing it. Still others may say that’s deliberately engineering your thoughts and it’s manipulative. Yes, it is. To manipulate means ‘to handle’ and we handle our own thoughts every day. This is just stepping it up to the next level.

If you want to go to work, come home and watch television that’s fine. I have a friend who is like that, and he seem perfectly happy to work 9-5 and enjoy his little luxuries.

But for those of us who represent George Bernard Shaw’s unreasonable man (or woman) we know that “all progress depends on the unreasonable man”. And if the unreasonable man needs to manipulate his brain in order to get what he wants, so be it.

Personally, I’m not prepared to be decanted into someone else’s career shaped glass because I might not be ‘pre-disposed’ towards a certain skill. I’d rather make it important to me through the use of neuro-linguistic technology, and then act from a principle I had personally installed in my mind-body. Now that’s self control…literally.

So what do you do when you need to develop a focus and value on something that you don’t really care much for but is essential for your goal achievement?

You can, at times, get other people to do it. That’s why many business people hire accountants … but even so a basic grasp of accounting principles is surely essential to make sure you don’t get cheated? But if you prefer to retain control and develop the attitude and the skills for yourself, read on.

In the values example above you may have noticed that making a profit is missing from the list. In fact, the word ‘money’ is not even mentioned on there.

What if you want to run a business but making money is currently not that important to you?

Since most business people would agree that a business is there TO make a profit, they would say “change your attitude or change your goal” or advise you to go on missionary work to Afgericanistanope. (Which is a worthy thing to do, btw.)

What these well-meaning but short-sighted folk might have missed is that in order for you to meet your other life goal of setting up a social enterprise business in South America (something which I want to do) you will actually need a fair amount of money to do it.

So you could get a high paying job but – oh! – you don’t want to work for someone else. Either you’re stuck – or you learn how to develop a strong conviction that money is an essential tool for getting you what you want.

How do you do this?

You may wonder “How can I value something I don’t value?” How indeed? You need a higher level of thinking to solve this. As Einstein said “A problem cannot be solved on the level it was created.”

What follows is the basic process for developing a felt conviction using Michael Hall’s Mind to Muscle process.

To do a full treatment on this is beyond the scope of this article but I’ll reference other sources you’ll need to look at in order to make this work.

The great thing about this process is that, when mastered, it goes beyond just believing but actually helps you feel like this was something you believed with your whole mind and body. Think of something you know you know and can’t imagine yourself not believing.

Could you imagine yourself forgetting how to type? Or ride a bike. When you feel that about the principle you’re implementing, you’ll know you’re done.

The Process: Detailed Explanation

Identify the Principle

First, you need to identify a principle or statement that you would like to have running and directing your brain.

A principle is a law or statement that applies generally within a particular field. You might state the law of gravity as “What goes up must come down!”

You can find principles all over the Self-Help World. For example, in the books about becoming a millionaire like The Millionaire Mind or Inside-Out Wealth you can find wealth principles that the great and the good (or the not so great and not so…) have used to drive their wealth mindset.

One of the most famous is Robert Kiyosaki’s from Rich Dad, Poor Dad. He defines an asset as “something that puts money in your pocket.” He furthermore goes on to say: “The Rich buy Assets. The poor buy Liabilities. Buy assets.”

So the principle is “An asset is something which puts money in your pocket.”

Develop your understanding

What do you understand by this principle? What does it mean?

Using our example, I might say that “Stocks and shares are generally assets because they can produce dividends. A rented house could be an asset because the income pays the mortgage. Buying a business that just needs investment but will produce 30% profits on last year could be an investment.”

What I am doing is developing my conceptual understanding as a framework for my conviction. Understanding what the concept is about helps me to understand WHY it might be important.

You can also ask yourself: How would living from this concept in real life benefit me?

For me, it causes me to think very carefully about what I am buying. I want to save to buy assets. I imagine how happy my children and grandchildren would be. I imagine feeling pride as I watch my investments grow and I know in my chest or my gut that I am doing the right thing.

Restate your understanding as a belief:

What do you believe about this principle? Do you want to really believe it? If you did believe it, how would you sound? You can find belief change patterns all over the internet but the important thing at this point is to create the belief that this principle is important.

The amazing point here is that once you create a belief that didn’t exist before your mind finds reasons to justify its importance.

This is why you should not be stopped just because something does not feel important to you. You can make it important to you.

Restate the belief as a decision

So now you believe this, you really, really believe this – what will you do?

When you believe something and you know it’s important to you you’ll probably want to do something about it. But it’s possible to believe and yet not act. So you need to make a specific decision

What have you decided to do because you believe what and you understand what?

What you are doing here is building a neurological highway between your mind and your muscles – getting thoughts into your very muscles so you can feel your convictions.

So, I have decided to ask myself whether something I am buying (big purchases) will put money in our pockets, and to commit (a decision) to buy assets where possible.

How does it feel?

How does it feel to understand, to believe, to have decided this? Be with those feelings for a minute.

Express what the principle would look like in action.

What is one thing that you could do today or even right now that would be a living expression of this principle?

For instance, buying some stocks that you provide dividends would be an active expression of buying assets.

Imagine doing the action and as you do remind yourself that:

• I’m doing this because I understand….

• I believe that….

• I have decided to…

• As I understand, believe, and act on my decision I feel…

Ask yourself as you do this: How would I stand? How would I look out of the eyes of someone who believed this and would act upon it? How would I breathe?

Keep repeating this above process until you feel the conviction moving down your body and settling into your muscles and body.

When it feels like something you’ve always believed, you’re done.

This process helped to make its creator a millionaire and you can listen to me interviewing Michael about it, along with a full description of what else you’ll need to do to make full use of the Mind to Muscle Pattern at http://www.personal-powerpack.com/mindtomuscle.html

To your highest and best,

Doug Cartwright

Don’t Forget To Follow PickTheBrain On Twitter!

Related Articles:

How To Increase Self Discipline

How To Motivate Yourself

“Goals” are like “New Year’s resolutions”…frequently made but rarely accomplished.

If you struggle to achieve your goals, my good friend Bill Bartmann, the author of “Bailout Riches” and once named by Inc. magazine as “The Billionaire Nobody Knows” gave me an awesome tip to trick your mind into accomplishing exactly what you want to, every single time.

“Don’t think of your goals as goals.”

Are you scratching your head right now? I know I sure was. Until I saw the white elephant sitting in the room…

In our society most people describe a goal as “a lofty ambition,” something to “shoot for,” something to “strive for,” or something to “work towards”…

Nothing wrong with with any of that is there?

As long as you don’t care about your goal that much, it’s perfectly fine…

You see the descriptions we give the the word “goal” implies your objective will be difficult to achieve. There is a subtle undertone crafted by the implicit meaning of your words telling you it’s just as likely you won’t achieve your ultimate goal, as it is that you will make it happen.

Too often this gives you an excuse making it okay (or at least forgivable) if you fail meaning the word “goal” by popular definition actually conditions you for failure.

Here’s how it works.

You start out “shooting for a goal,” wanting to hit it, but you also know by the sheer definition of the word it probably isn’t going to happen. Unfortunately opening this door to the possibility it might not be achieved, works against you, weakening your power to manifest the “impossible”.

But that’s not the worst part…

Even if you hit your goals 90 percent or more of the time (which would be incredible), you’d still be failing 10% of the time, right?

(By the way if you said a number anywhere near this high, you are one extraordinary human being, and you shouldn’t be reading this blog post, you should write a best selling book with me).

Even if you gave a more realistic reply, you’d only probably say you hit your goals 60-70% of the time, which means you’re failing 30-40% of the time!

How confident of success or how much momentum do you think you can give when you’re “trying” to do something you’ve previously failed at a rate of 30 – 40% of the time?

Not very.

But what is the success rate for keeping a promise when you “promise” to do something?

I bet it’s a higher percentage than the “goals” you’ve set to achieve because promises are protected by your morals, beliefs and overall value system. Even at a subconscious level, this system to honor promises makes them much more important in our minds than a goal for three basic reasons.

Three very distinct reasons why a promise means more to YOU than a goal:

#1 A Promise Has Emotional Attachment

A promise carries a much deeper sense of responsibility to the person to whom it is made—whether to yourself or someone else. With these feelings, a promise also carries a higher emotional attachment.

When you make a promise, your emotions are involved. Because of the emotional attachment, the file clerk in our mind will now give this promise an immediate priority filing in the filing cabinet.

2. A Promise Has A History Of Success

Our mind recognizes that you have a history of success when it comes to making promises. It knows you’ve historically achieved an exceptionally high success rate of nearly 100 percent in many cases and strives to maintain this momentum.

Based on this history your subconscious assumes you can and will keep this promise. Rather than being preconditioned for failure based on past performance, your mind is preconditioned for success because it knows it’s more than capable of keeping a promise.

These prior successes carry a positive emotional attachment from how it felt when you did what you promised you were going to do. Your file clerk recorded this data in your file cabinet as a positive emotional reaction, working hard to keep your promises so you can feel “good”.

3. A Promise Triggers Your Subconscious Mind To Set You Up For Success

By limiting your level of achievement to just Goal setting you are turning your subconscious into an “overprotective parent”. A parent who is contstantly attempting to talk you out of taking any risk, for fear you might fail.

It actually works against your goals convincing you that you don’t have time for lofty dreams, quietly making it ok to “forget” about them.

But when you set a promise, the opposite happens.

Your subconscious mind switches from the role of “overprotective parent”, attempting to talk you out of your goal to the role of “helpful parent” who is going to clear the path and make it easy to achieve success!

Think of the difference between setting a “goal” to quit smoking and “promising” someone you love you’ll quit smoking.

If you’ve set a “goal” to quit smoking, it’s of little consequence to anyone but yourself you failed to achieve this “goal.” However, if you have “promised” someone you love you were going to quit and then later resumed smoking, you’d be afraid or embarrassed to admit you failed to keep your promise to your loved one, wouldn’t you?

Why?

Failing to keep a promise leads to an emotional reaction of shame, embarrassment, or disappointment. Your subconscious mind avoids these feelings of failure or suffering at all costs because its job is to keep you from suffering any of those things.

In fact, its sole purpose is self-preservation.

This subconscious need for “self-survival” is exactly what forces it to helps you keep your promise like a “helpful parent”. The part of you feeling almost as if you’ll die if you don’t keep your word is comforted as you move towards keeping your promise.

By changing the way you think about the process, you’ve just increased your likelihood of success by a huge margin. You’ll still have some work to do, but now you’re positioned for success. And most importantly we now you have an easy way get your subconscious work for you, not against you.

If you are ready to change your goals into promises, take the first step by leaving a comment and making a public commitment to yourself – TODAY, first list a goal you have now and then change it into a promise. How did that feel?

Goal:___________________________________________________________________________________________________

Promise:_________________________________________________________________________________________________

Greg S. Reid is a #1 best-selling author, entrepreneur, and the CEO of several successful corporations, who has dedicated his life to helping others achieve the ultimate fulfillment of finding and living a life of purpose. Greg will personally share with you everything he knows about how to have a life of Sustained Abundance and Financial Freedom by discovering Your Personal Success Equation as you’ll learn in his program The Pathways To Greatness.