Peter Molokwu: Finding the Tools To Help You Achieve Your Goals

Have you ever heard the saying that some people are more afraid of success than failure? This is because success is a lot more complex than failure. When you successfully reach a goal, you are in uncharted waters – it means you are taking a risk and our brains are naturally risk-averse to help keep us alive.

Setting goals and reaching them isn’t easy or comfortable but there are some skills you can develop to help push you through.

Trust

Being courageous involves multiple levels of trust – trusting yourself, trusting God and trusting that things will work out the way they’re supposed to. In order to gain trust with yourself, you must learn and practice how to regularly come through for yourself.

Create a schedule and mark it on your calendar. Do what you tell yourself you’re going to do. If your goal is to lose 50 pounds but you have gone back on your promise to yourself to go to the gym in the past, you need to rebuild that trust with yourself.

Start by going to the gym for five minutes. At this point, it won’t be about the weight loss but rather about building the habit and trusting yourself to go through with it. This will help you build confidence.

Self-confidence is being secure in yourself and your abilities. This confidence shouldn’t be dependent on the results you get, it should come from within you. To increase your confidence, start changing the way you think about yourself. For example, thinking something like “I can do it” will help your brain find supportive evidence of the times you accomplished hard things and reached your goals.

Focus

Focus on one big goal at a time and go all in. You can effectively do this by breaking big goals into smaller, bite-sized chunks. If your goal is to write a book, that could feel like a daunting task, so start by writing in chapters or pages instead. Create a story outline, create characters, research a plot, write chapter 1, etc.

Smaller goals create quicker wins and keeps you focused.

Resilience

Resilience is the ability to push through in the midst of difficulties and adversities. In short, it’s your grit.

In order to be successful, you need to be resilient. To build resilience, you should also have a strong community of people. These are your ‘yard people’. They can be family, friends, online communities, or anyone you connect with.

Stepping Out of Your Need for Comfort

Think of courage as a muscle you need to build. Going to the gym and lifting weights isn’t comfortable but it’s what gets you results.

Questions to ask yourself:

• What is the scariest part of planning my dream?
• What’s the best thing that could happen?
• What’s the worst thing that could happen?
• What discomfort am I trying to avoid?

Getting answers like these out in the open will help you to create a plan that mitigates some of these fears and puts you back in control.

Plan for the discomfort and prepare yourself to work through it

To reach goals, you must be courageous. To be courageous, you must master your mindset.
It is my opinion that every goal you accomplish is a courageous act of rebellion against that negative little voice telling you that you can’t or it’s too scary.

So dream big and go for it!