I Found the Fastest Way to Achieve Your Goals (But No One Wants to Hear It)

From Someone Who’s Made the Same Mistake

You’re your biggest problem.

The world would be a better place if more people could accept this reality.

Solvable problems wouldn’t be blown out of proportion.

Instead of getting jealous, people would get advice.

Unfortunately, that’s not the world we live in…

Most people would rather come up with elaborate rationalizations for why they suck instead of humbling themselves and asking for help.

I’d be a millionaire if I had a dollar for each time I’ve heard someone say, “I could figure it out by myself for free.”

Heck, I’d be a millionaire for the amount of times I’ve said it myself.

The truth lies somewhere in the middle — you can figure it out by yourself…

… But why would you when someone else has already?

You could save years of your life by finding someone who’s achieved what you want and asking them for the blueprint.

This was my biggest mistake in my business and fitness life.

I avoided coaching and mentorship in the name of “saving money,” but would always end up spending it on something stupid anyway.

Instead of learning from the people doing better than me, I’d resent their success and compete with them in my mind.

I’d rationalize why my results were bad — “My metabolism is slow, that’s why.”

Don’t be like me!

If you wanna advance faster than you can ever imagine, make your life a quest of seeking out people better than you to learn from.

Don’t let your lack of self-esteem or confidence block you from growing.

Why I don’t look like a gladiator…

I've been working on my body since 2019.

I used to have the body of a Greek God, but when I stopped playing football in 2016, I completely dropped all forms of training.

Funnily enough, I wasn’t in bad shape when I returned to the gym 3 years later.

Some would argue it’s not bad now, but I beg to differ – I know where I’m coming from.

I’ve put on 20kg.

Most of it is muscle, but I’ve got this fat-jacked look going on…

One day, I bumped into a guy from secondary school at the gym.

I almost didn’t recognize him cos of his transformation.

Back in school, he was a scrawny little fella with a massive head – something we always teased him about.

Fast forward a few years, and you’d think he’d been chiseled by Zeus.

The guy's body reminded me of my glory days as an athlete…

… And this pissed me off.

I could literally feel the resentment building up in me when he said, “I’m doing personal training now. You should come for a few sessions.”

All I was thinking was, “I bet I could kick his ass.”

When I got home that day, I looked at myself in the mirror…

Instead of admitting he knew something I didn’t, I told myself this: “It’s cos I gotta slow metabolism.”

There may be some form of truth to this justification, but it’s not the real reason my body didn’t look like something out of Gladiator.

Psychologists call this phenomenon rationalization.

Rationalization is when you justify controversial feelings logically and rationally to avoid the truth.

It’s a common thing people do to excuse mediocrity.

For example, a lady once told me she’s struggling to be a consistent writer cos she’s a mother, wife, daughter, and daughter-in-law.

All she was doing was justifying the fact she was terrible at prioritizing her time by shifting the blame to things outside of her control.

She effectively implied, “I’m not the problem; my circumstances are.”

We often rationalize our failures to avoid viewing ourselves in a bad light…

We don’t wanna accept we’re wrong.

In an article published in Psychology Today, the author suggested this was due to there being a direct correlation between one’s capacity to accept being wrong and the rigidness of their personality.

The more rigid (and less adaptive) your personality, the more difficult you’ll find it to accept being wrong.

This makes you more liable to rationalize your failures and lack of results.

Instead of seeking out people who’ve achieved what you want to help you, you’d rather defend your delusions since the former means accepting you’re wrong.

I did this for years without realizing how much damage it caused.

The negative spiral caused by rationalization

Rationalizing your flaws is essentially shifting the responsibility away from yourself.

This prevents you from seeing the reality of your situation.

It also strips you of your ability to change the predicament you’re in since it implies you’re not in control.

If you can’t see what you’re doing wrong, you won’t attempt to fix it; if you’re not in control of a situation, there’s nothing you can do.

Constantly justifying your flawed behaviors distorts reality, which grants you permission to ignore the things you need to work on.

For example, I once spoke to an addiction counselor on behalf of one of my mates…

He’d become heavily dependent on marijuana and would get extremely aggressive whenever he went without it.

I also noticed his memory started to dwindle, and he’d struggle to think critically.

The lady on the line listened intently as I informed her of the situation.

Once I’d finished, she asked, “Is the person ready to change?”

The answer was “No” – he wasn’t even aware he had an addiction problem.

“I’m so sorry sir, but there’s nothing we can do if the person is unwilling to change,” she replied.

Eager to see my friend healed, I asked, “Why?” and she replied, “People who aren’t ready to change aren’t aware they have a problem, so they won’t try to fix it.”

This is essentially what happens when you rationalize your flaws.

You’re refusing to see things as they are.

You’re effectively blinding yourself.

Since you’re incapable of seeing you’re the problem, you don’t make an attempt to change.

As a result of your flawed thinking, you carry out flawed actions, which leads to flawed outcomes.

And the cycle continues.

How to get what you want… Fast!

It’s one thing to acknowledge you’ve got a problem, but it’s not enough to change your circumstances.

You must commit to taking action.

Here’s the secret to making your transformation happen faster than you can imagine: find people with your desired results and ask them to help you reproduce the same.

This means you must learn to swallow your pride.

I had to do this recently when I came to terms with the fact I didn’t know what I needed to do to get my body looking like a greek God — I’ve been trying for 4 years to no avail.

When I saw a personal trainer at my gym with the body I was looking for, I pulled him aside and told him how much it would mean to me if he could get me as shredded as him.

It’s been two months, and people are already noticing the difference.

A similar thing happened with my online business…

I accepted I didn’t know how to build one and sought out successful people to teach me the way.

Doing this changes how you see the world…

… And the way you see it determines how you interact with it.

For example, if you think the only reason someone is doing better than you is cos they’re from a wealthy family, you won’t try to change your situation if your family isn’t wealthy.

Being around successful people teaches you to adopt a growth mindset, which changes how your brain functions.

According to one study, it was shown that people with a growth mindset exhibit a higher Pe (error positivity) waveform response, which is correlated with a heightened awareness of mistakes and makes them much more receptive to corrective feedback.

Another study showed that a growth mindset is related to connectivity in an area of the brain responsible for learning and self-control, improving error monitoring and behavioral adaptation.

But this doesn’t mean you should just listen to anyone who’s successful…

Do your research into the life of the person you wish to follow to assess whether their values align with yours.

The last thing you wanna do is associate yourself with someone who has a drastically different set of values from you in the name of becoming successful.

Find someone whose values you align with and stick around them to transform your life faster than you can imagine.

Final thoughts

Most of our problems are self-inflicted.

We think we know the answers to things when, in reality, we don’t.

Instead of learning from people who are better than us, we get jealous, compete, and rationalize why we suck.

This is the sure path to being a loser.

If you wanna change your results fast, you must change your surroundings.

Look for people doing better than you and get them to share the blueprint.

This will save you months and maybe years of trial and error, and you’ll reach your desired outcomes in less time.

Thanks for reading!

Grab your FREE copy of my short e-book — Don’t Just Set Goals, Build Systems.