Stop asking how

The fourth commitment is the hardest for most people. It’s to persist and have the patience to hang in there long enough to make steady progress. Change doesn’t happen overnight.
Roger K. Allen

I’m continually asked questions along these lines: How can I find my ideal mate? How can I achieve my financial goals? How can I lose twenty pounds? How can I get my mate to be more loving, agreeable, helpful? The common thread among these questions is that most people believe there’s an easy answer to their problems and once they learn it, everything will fall into place. But it rarely works that way.

I’ve learned to respond to these questions with one of my own. I generally turn their question around and ask “are you ready?” For instance, if they want to lose weight, I ask, “Are you ready to lose your excess weight?”

The response is usually something like, “I wouldn’t have asked if I wasn’t ready.” So I explain what I mean by being ready. You see, there’s no magic formula to finding an ideal mate, reaching your financial goals or attaining any other ambition in life. But there is a simple, effective method to achieve your goals: get clear about what you want, approach your objective with positive expectations, and take consistent, focused actions that will move you toward your goal.

When most people ask “how”, they’re really seeking a quick, effortless way to get the results they want. Let me be brutally honest: I’ve never found an easy way to achieve a worthy goal. Every successful person I know spent years to achieve their success.

When I ask someone if they’re ready to achieve their goal, I’m really asking if they’re fully committed. I’m asking if they’re willing to do whatever it takes, for as long as it takes, to reach their objective. (I always add that their actions must never be harmful to them or anyone else.)

It’s not the how that stops most people from reaching their goals. It’s simply the failure to take consistent, focused action. They’re not ready to put in the time and effort it takes.

If you truly want to achieve some worthy goal in life, follow these simple steps. Write down what you want and why you want it. Develop a clear, specific plan that will guide you toward your goal, with small steps you can take on a daily basis. Then take action each and every day. That’s the closest thing to magic that I know.

When you’re truly ready to pursue change in your life, follow those steps. And with time and effort, miracles will happen.

Our goals can only be reached through a vehicle of a plan, in which we must fervently believe, and upon which we must vigorously act. There is no other route to success.
Pablo Picasso
1881 — 1973

Copyright © 2024 John Chancellor