I have always believed in the importance of setting goals. A well-defined and thoughtfully constructed goal becomes a blueprint which, if faithfully adhered to, can culminate in the realization of our life’s dreams and aspirations.

I spend a lot of time discussing this topic with my clients and am often asked questions like how many goals should one be working on at the same time and which goals should take precedence over others?

Almost all of the goals brought forward for discussion by my clients are tangible and extrinsic goals that deal with topics like health career and finance and require physical effort to get there.

There is one goal that is, in my opinion, the single most important goal for us to achieve and it is one that no client has ever discussed as being on their list of things they want to accomplish.

I believe this goal to be the foundation upon which all others are built and without accomplishing it first, all other goals become far more challenging and difficult to reach and, as I have seen many times, are discarded, leaving behind feelings of despair and frustration.

The Big One

The goal I believe to be far and away the most significant and necessary is to achieve complete and total mastery of our mindset and emotions. This is absolutely crucial if we are to develop the habits we must have in order to achieve any or all of our other goals.

Almost every result we experience comes from something we have done, or not done, and habits are simply those things we do repeatedly.

We have hundreds of them and collectively those habits have sculpted us into who and what we are today. If you out of shape, you do not have good habits regarding movement and exercise; if you are a salesperson struggling to make sales, you probably have poor habits around making sales calls.

Every habit we have is anchored by our mindset and emotions, not by the behaviour of the habit itself.

The Story We Tell Ourselves

Mastery of the mindset and emotions includes absolute command of the story we are telling yourselves, the steady flow of thoughts churning through our heads all day, our temperament, our attitude, our interactions with others, our perseverance and our pain tolerance to name just a few. The difference between the hyper-achievers at the top, the masses in the middle and the mediocre at the bottom is seldom attributed to intellect or natural ability but is almost always the result of their habits.

And as you well know, those at the very top do things very differently, and do very different things, from the rest of us.

It takes work – hard work – to achieve mastery of our mindset and emotions. We are all works in progress and, arguably, this work is never done. Many give up on their quest to achieve excellence and will argue that the task is too great, the price too high but the irrefutable fact is that the short term pain, challenge and cost of achieving any worthwhile goal will never be anywhere near as high as the long-term cost of not doing it.

And the difference between those who give up and those who won’t is that the first group is governed by their mindset and emotions and the second group is the governor of theirs.

If it was easy, everyone would do it.  But it is not, it requires concerted effort and the undeniable realization, that honestly, you never get there.  Which means it is something that will require your focus and attention for the rest of your life.

The only question you need to ask yourself is this, “Am I worth it?”  Assuming the answer is yes – then call me and let’s get started.

Till we read again.