You Are Going Towards Your Goal, Are You Doing It Wrong?

Effort is intentional, genius is unintentional.

You have a goal. It is said to visualize your goals. But, what most people resort to doing is to visualize (to be precise, imagine), their goals; from imagining that big house you want, the beautiful beast of Lamborghini parked in your garage, a whole stadium full of people listening to your songs and cheering for you, and all those daydreams which are as unique as you and as diverse as human existence.

To be honest, everybody likes to daydream. But, a dream can only actualize into reality, by stopping and acting on it.

The Mistake

Our mind is like a bowl. It has limited capacity, anything more and it spills. Anything we are doing and thinking, all fill that bowl. That bowl functions perfectly if filled up to the brim, preferably filled with only one kind of soup.

But, a fat NO from all of us. In our minds, there is the work soup inside there and the goal soup inside there. And frankly, you would think they should taste better together, but no. Having a goal is great, indeed a very great thing for which I am happy for you. But, keeping it whole day in your mind will diminish your performance towards it.

Your mind is a busy highway on which a plethora of vehicles are honking and cutting each other to get ahead. One thought after another, not even in a queue, all together. It is always a full house in your cinema of attention. So much to give your attention to! You are putting fires like you are playing whack-a-mole!

Sleeping is an act of switching this 24x7 melodrama that ensues inside your mind. To dive deep inside the void of no thought and resting a bit. To fight another day again. The order of nothingness in this chaos of thoughts.

But, then, I can’t suggest you to sleep the whole day. So, what is the biggest mistake we are doing?

Putting too much in our bowls, filling our highway of mind with loads of vehicles, that is our mistake!

There should only exist one soup in our bowl, one vehicle in our mind, not of the goal but the action we are doing towards it.

The Solution

From today, any task that you do should have these two ingredients in them. These are the two most integral things that if we incorporate into our working style will boost both our satisfaction and success in life.

Total Abandonment

Yes, abandon everything when you start doing a task.

Abandon the goal that this task will achieve.

Abandon the thought of the task you just finished and how great you were at it.

Abandon the thought of the next task you are going to do.

Abandon the thoughts and pressure of all the tasks you will have to do today.

Abandon the grocery list you have to buy today.

Abandon everything, from the minuscule to the massive, everything shall be abandoned at the moment.

Only two things will exist at the juncture of time: you and the task.

Nothing else, nothing else matters for that time.

You empty the proverbial bowl of your mind and put only one single soup into it.

You muster up the resolve to take this task up and finish it.

Unless commitment is made, there are only promises and hopes; but no plans. ― Peter F. Drucker

100% Involvement

The preparation has been done. You have emptied your bowl and now, just you and the task remain.

Now, the real game starts.

Well, I want your involvement in the task. Nothing less than 100% will work for me. And neither it should for you.

But, what is this 100% involvement?

Just because you emptied your bowl doesn’t mean now the other soups won’t try to get in. We all know thoughts don’t stop. But, just because they don’t stop, doesn’t mean we can’t do anything about them.

100% involvement means no matter how many thoughts come and go, you and your task remain there eternally while all things may change around you. Your focus is the key here.

Your unwavering focus is one thing which will keep this 100% involvement, intact.

Keep your involvement at this level and when the task finished you won’t even know.

Focusing is the great secret of power. If you want to use your full amount of focus, you must close down all other thought and direct your power of generating mental steam toward one outcome. ― Stephen Richards

Your goal is important but thinking about it, isn’t. Action towards that goal is what’s more important. Taking that action in the right way guarantees your success in that goal. Don’t put the bounds of time on your goals, it may happen in a day, month or a year. You don’t know that and you don’t need to know.

What you know need to know is that you have to take action towards your goal and take it in the right way.

The right way to take action has two parts: Total Abandonment (Resolve) and 100% Involvement (Focus).

From today, take actions in the right way. Let your actions build up the momentum to break through your goal in record time.

It is good to have an end to journey toward; but it is the journey that matters, in the end. ― Ursula K. Le Guin