Achieved a Goal? Now What?

If anyone has been following my posts for the month of December 2010, you know I’ve been involved with a challenge I set for myself, post 16 posts per day with one being a full page article. You will also know that I overshot that goal every single day with the minimum posts being 20.

I wanted to achieve 500 total posts by the end of December; I will hit 800 by the end of today.

What was the purpose of this challenge? I read that if you treat your goals as promises you are more likely to achieve them. Under normal circumstances I would probably never have set this goal nor achieved it.

I started this challenge by setting an ultimate goal of 500 posts and 31 full page articles and then broke it down into daily goals of 16 posts per day and 1 full page article. There were NO excuses allowed for missing, no making it up the day after and no writing more than 1 full page article each day.

The purpose was to test the theory to see how I would handle the challenge and the promise I made to myself. The thought of failing ME by not completing this was what kept me going, and pushed me to over achieve. The thought of not completing this challenge never even occurred to me. Even when I hit the major goal of 500 posts by mind month I was determined to stay the course, and I’m glad I did.

I learned a lot this month about myself and my goals and follow through. You can read all the books, articles and reports, watch all the DVD and listen to the CDs, but until you take ACTION and test it yourself, try it yourself, you just don’t know what it is like.

It’s like having the perfect meal. Someone can describe it, show you pictures or videos of it, but until you actually taste it you cannot truly experience the entire effects.

I have tried writing in the past and have written some stories and even written half a novel, but the follow through was never there. You’d miss a day, then a few more, and then a week and finally it was forgotten altogether. The key is to break it down into daily tasks. This DOES work, but you do also have to treat it as a personal challenge and a personal promise.

You also have to remember if you do fail at a daily goal, don’t beat yourself up over it, promise you won’t let happen again, and at least try to do something that day, no matter how small. If you cannot for some reason complete the daily goal, make note of why, complete it the next day along with that days task.

I have also learned what they mean by you never succeed alone. Yes I am the one that made the posts, the one that wrote the full page articles, but if wasn’t for the people on the warrior forum to post in response to it would have been harder to accomplish.

I would especially like to thank Ryan Critchett (rcitchett), LD Carter, mikey21, Michael Lee, Justin Jordan, Dominique Couffignal, ServingThroughEmail, ryanbiddulph, and others for helping to make this possible. The high quality and thought provoking posts you made helped make it so easy to achieve this goal.

You may also noticed that my article posts have been focused around commenting on Napoleon Hill’s classic “Think and Grow Rich” so to finish THIS challenge and finish commenting on the book I will finish by commenting on the next and final chapter in “Think and Grow Rich”; “How to Outwit the Six Ghosts of Fear.

When it comes down to it one of the main reason, if not the only reason, for not achieving our goals and in return success, is fear. Hill lists Six Major Fears; Fear of: Poverty, Criticism, Ill Health, Loss of Love, Old Age, and Death. If you look at all of these they all fall into one fear, the fear of failure.

If you do not do something then you cannot fail because you haven’t tried and there is no fear. If you set a goal and follow through on it you have to face the fear of failure. If you fail what will others think of you, what will your family think of you, your wife and worst of all YOU; what will you think of yourself?

What is fear? It is nothing more than a state of mind and you can take control of your mind, your state of mind and thus your fears. How is this done? Where does fear originate? How can I rid myself of fear?

Fear is the result of learning and conditioning and resides in the subconscious mind. The subconscious mind is dedicated to your survival and to help protect you from what it believes is a threat against your survival. Most people believe that just means life and death, and keeping you from physical harm, what most people don’t realize is that this also extends to emotional and psychological harm as well.

Fear is the enemy that is holding you back, fear is the destroyer of dreams, fear is the master and you are its slave. To be free, to be successful, to achieve your dreams and goal you must over through this master and declare your freedom.

There are many great books out there by great people that tell you in their own ways how to overcome your fears, Anthony Robbins, Jim Rohn, and Zig Ziggler to name just a few. But no matter who you read or listen to it all comes down to you. YOU must decide that you are not going to live in fear any longer, YOU must take action, and YOU must follow through.

One way to begin to overcome fear is to become good at what it is you really enjoy and KNOW it inside and out. This will build your confidence and reduce the fear factor.

Another way to overcome fear is the internet. You can hang out in forums and take part in conversations and not have to do it face to face. You can see how people react to what you have to say, but do this ONLY on a creditable forum such as the Warrior Forum, where people are here to help and respect you.

Overcome your fears is a must for true success. The greatest thing when overcoming your fears is that every time you conquer one it becomes easier because you know you can do it, and since fears tend to feed on themselves once you destroy one the rest begin to crumble.

I thank everyone for reading what I have written over the month and all I have learned from each and every one of you. Many of you have created those little “Ah Ha” moments for me, or had me rethink a view, or realize something that I never thought of before.

Every one of you have a very Happy New Year and a Very Prosperous one as well. I’ll be continuing to post every day, but probably only 2 or 3 posts per day. I’ll be using the reminder of my time to design my websites and post on my own blogs and forums.

My friend and I are also creating a Mastermind group that is focused on making each of its members Billionaires. I know it’s a huge goal, but like here, have an ultimate goal with minor goals along the way, and daily goals.

This is posts 800 within 31 days, thank you all and may all you be Blessed in the New Year.

Thank you all so very much,
James Darren Davis