Want to learn how to actually achieve your life-goals and live a better life? Watch the video version here:
In this post, I’ll be sharing the 9 steps I’ve been following myself over the last 18 months and now teach other men and women over 40 who have decided that now is the time to commit to working towards the things they REALLY want in life…
OR risk getting to the end of their time on this planet having never achieved their life-goals at all.
I understand YOU really well because I AM you…and I’ve been in your shoes.
You’ve read so many blog posts, watched so many YouTube videos, listened to podcasts and audio books till you can repeat them verbatim and the online courses you’ve paid for…Jeez.
Maybe you feel like you should be able to put all this together to create the income and the lifestyle you really want – but something always seems to be missing.
I know what it’s like to want to make a real difference for others and to create an amazing future for you and your family while doing it
And that means you need a simple strategy to get crystal clear on exactly what that future looks like and practical steps to help you get there…
so you can create the impact and income you are meant to be making in this world.
That’s exactly what I hope to provide for you in this post, as I walk you
through the exact steps I lead my clients through to help them achieve any life-goal they set themselves:
'Achieve My Life-Goals' Step 1: Ask Yourself 'Is My Goal The Right Goal'?
In other words…”Is My Life-Goal BIG Enough?”
If it’s NOT, you might need to make some changes…
(GREAT NEWS: Crazy as it may seem, picking a life-goal that just seems totally out of reach at the moment actually makes it more likely that you’ll achieve it than one you know you can probably do!)
On our campus, we divide goals into 3 categories – A, B & C Type Goals.
An A-type Goal is a goal you already know you can achieve. So let’s say you bought a new car a few years ago, and you want to do the same again next year. You know you can do it.
That’s not a true goal. There’s no reason why you shouldn’t get a new car but it’s not a goal.
A B-Type Goal is something you think you can probably achieve. If ‘this’ happens and ‘that’ happens…if you just try a bit harder than last year…
A lot of people go for this type of goal because it seems like a bit more of a stretch to them than an A-Type Goal, and they want to see different results. Better results.
The problem is there’s just no motivation in an ‘incremental’ goal. There’s no joy in just doing ‘slightly better’ than you are now.
The purpose of a true life-goal is to make you grow.
A true goal should make you pull something from deep inside you that you didn’t even know was there.
The reason the vast majority of people never achieve their goals is because they’re going for A or B-Type Goals. There’s no real burning desire to achieve them. Not really.
So when things get tough, or it just looks like it’s not going to happen…they give up.
There’s not that much to lose.
A C-Type Goal, however, is what we deal with. It starts off as a fantasy – a dream, if you like.
It’s a goal that lights you up inside, a BIG goal that would change your life so dramatically that it lights a fire inside you.
A vision of how you desperately WANT things to be – your income, your relationships, your health, the way you serve people…your life.
So this is where we start.
What do you really, REALLY want?
Not what do you think your kids want or your partner wants or what your parents want you to want…What. Do. You. Want?
Build a picture – a crystal clear, detailed vision – of the life you want to be living in 3-years’ time and write it down. All of it.
Once you’ve done that, pick one element. The most important piece of that jigsaw. If you could just achieve one thing, what would it be?
Maybe it’s a 5-bedroom house by the ocean, or your dream car, or speaking to a room of 200 people, or taking the kids to Disney, or a soul-mate you can spend the rest of your life building dreams with…
Pick the one thing that means the most and write it down.
That’s the life-goal you’re going to spend every waking hour focused on achieving from now on.
Resources:
'Achieve My Life-Goals' Step 2: Creating Habits For A Better Life
There’s an enormous difference between what most people know, and what they actually do with that information. We call this the Knowing / Doing Gap.
Most people know what they need to do to be successful (even if they don’t know all the details of exactly how).
On the whole, however, people are not taking the actions they know they need to take to actually achieve whatever it is they want to achieve.
The reason for this is their ‘Paradigm’ – the current conditioning in the sub-conscious (or ‘doing’) part of their mind – which is trying to keep them on the path they are currently on.
A bit like a plane’s auto-pilot is programmed to keep the aircraft travelling on a pre-determined course.
Although a person might have gained all the knowledge or information they need to make changes and achieve their life-goals, this knowledge is stored in a completely different part of the mind to the Paradigm.
This knowledge / information is stored in the conscious part of the mind, or the ‘educated’ mind.
It is a person’s subconscious mind (or doing mind) that drives their habitual behaviour.
AND…almost all of our behaviour is habitual.
It is therefore the Paradigm, situated within the subconscious mind, which must be changed to allow any kind of permanent changes in results to take place.
More and more information is of little use without changing your behaviour at the primary source – your Paradigm.
There are only 2 ways to change a Paradigm:
- A big emotional impact (usually negative like a bereavement, divorce or global pandemic!)
- Constant, spaced repetition of ideas (this is the technique we use to re-programme your Paradigm in the Thinking Into Results programme).
You must identify those non-productive habits and behaviours you are currently displaying…
And replace them with productive habits and behaviours – ones which will actively move you slowly towards the results you DO want.
Take some time to think about that specific goal you identified in step one – and make a note of all the things you’re doing on a daily basis that are either holding you back from making progress or actually creating the opposite results to what you really want.
Then think about what positive actions you want to replace them with.
Obviously, we all have very different daily routines and different habits.
Choose the number 1 habit you want to work on replacing that will have the biggest impact for you with regard to you achieving your life-goal and start to consciously implement it.
It’s the constant repetition of carrying out the new, productive action whenever you would normally perform the old, non-productive action that will change your programming over time – your Paradigm.
'Step 3: Use Your Infinite Mind
Paradigms are responsible for how we think, feel and act on an hour-to-hour, day-to-day basis. They are the result of all the programming we have ever received – both genetically in the womb and environmentally growing up.
The information we have received and the experiences and feelings we have been exposed to over the years have conditioned us to think a certain way, and to believe certain ‘truths’.
Paradigms formed using this information have enormous influence over everything we do. They control how a person’s logic is structured. So what may seem logical to one person seems completely illogical to someone else.
As the current Paradigm controls our thoughts, which in turn control our actions and then our results, in order to have any chance of achieving better results than we are currently, it is necessary to first change the Paradigm.
We have to break out of the invisible box that our current Paradigm keeps us locked in – and most people will require the help of a coach or mentor to do this.
Our programming has taken place over such a long time (decades) that for most of us it will require persistence, courage and determination to change the thought patterns and habits that have become a part of who we currently are.
This means you must first be able to ‘see’ yourself with these new habits so that your Paradigm starts to accept them, before you will be able to change them permanently.
While ever your new habit is at odds with what your Paradigm thinks is ‘normal’ for you, it will continue to reject the new habit / behaviour / thought and you will keep reverting back to the old one.
For the purposes of this blog post, I advise you write out a number of positive affirmations to repeat multiple times during the day.
Constant, spaced repetition of ideas is the only controllable way to change your Paradigm.
For example:
“I am so happy and grateful now…”
“I have become super productive by jumping out of bed when my alarm sounds at 5.30am and heading straight downstairs for a welcome, fresh cup of coffee.”
“creating time and money freedom for me and my family has become a habit by spending from 9am to 10am every day, without fail, researching my new business.”
“I am creating more energy, clearer skin and faster weight loss by drinking a full glass of refreshing water whenever I am thirsty.”
Visualise yourself performing the new habit as often as possible and repeat the affirmations as many times as you can first thing on a morning, at lunchtime and last thing at night.
NOTE: If you’ve never done anything like this before, this may seem a little strange but it is absolutely the key to staying focused, changing your behaviour and, ultimately, your results. It won’t work over night (it’s not magic!) but try it over a few weeks and see what happens.
''Achieve My Life-Goals' Step 4: Create Your Schedule For Success
Positive affirmations are great for getting us into the vibration we need to be in to attract everything we need to achieve our life-goal.
I’ll be going deep into the Laws of Vibration and Attraction in Day 4 of my FREE 5-Day Science Of Success Quick-Start Challenge, so if you haven’t booked your seat yet, do it now at https://academy.emmahague.com/free-challenge 🙂
And if you’ve completed steps 1-3 of this blog post in full and have put them into practice, ‘CONGRATULATIONS’!
You’re already in the top 3%! 97% of the population will never even attempt this (which is why the majority of people never get what they REALLY want).
However, on their own positive affirmations will change nothing. This is the mistake most people make when trying to use the Law Of Attraction, and it’s why the majority will never make that work for them either.
Emerson said the Law of Cause and Effect was ‘the law of all laws’. And he was right. Every effect has a cause and every cause has an effect. Every action has a re-action.
In other words, if you want to change your results (the effects) you need to change what you’re doing (the cause).
To put this into practice in your life, you must start to take tangible steps to make it happen – however small they may be at first – and yes, we do teach our clients to use affirmations and ‘visioneering’ to make this more effective.
I use a ‘Bullet Journal’ to keep all my ideas, visioneering and scheduling in one place and I’ve put the links to the one I use (and a ‘How To Use It’ guide) below.
This step in this post is all about creating a daily schedule to give yourself a routine to follow and start to make changing that habitual behaviour a reality.
Take a look again at that habitual behaviour you want to change and build practical steps into your day to bring the change about. Literally mark timed activities in your diary system with a reminder to help you maintain discipline.
If nothing changes, nothing will change.
Resources:
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Step 5: “I CAN Achieve My Goals”
“Whatever the mind can conceive and believe, it can achieve.”
~ Napoleon Hill
If you don’t genuinely believe you can do something, chances are you’ll never do it.
In step 1 I asked you to pick a goal that seems out of reach currently – a fantasy, if you like.
Most of our clients start out not believing at all that they can actually achieve their goal.
And that’s fine. To start with.
If that’s you, now is the time to start asking yourself why. Why do you believe that other people can have this ‘thing’ that you want, but you can’t?
The usual reason is because our Paradigm is talking to us all the time and pointing out our current results.
It points out your current bank balance, your current debts, your current living arrangements, the current economic environment. And tells you there’s just no way you can do this in light of your current situation.
But the truth is all people who have ever achieved anything in life have had to come through adversity.
And the way they have all done that is by honing in on that life-goal, and becoming obsessed with achieving it.
By finding ways around their current situation.
By re-programming their mind to know that they CAN have it – they might not currently know HOW exactly, but it is absolutely possible.
This re-programming involves strengthening all your six higher mental faculties – your perception, will, imagination, intuition, reason and memory.
But for our purposes here, it’s your perception I want you to use – the way you look at things, or the angle you see them from.
So ask yourself:
“DO I believe I am able to do this? I might not know how but do I believe I am able?”
If not, ask yourself “Why do I believe that I’m not able to do this?”
Then ask yourself “Is this belief based on an actual fact or on an assumption – a false conclusion?”
Then ask yourself the following questions:
- Is there any rational reason for such a belief?
- Could it be that I am mistaken in this belief?
- Would I come to the same conclusion about some other person in a similar situation?
- Why should I continue to act and feel as if this were true if there is no good reason to believe it?
In a few lines, write out what you believe IS possible for you and how you have come to that conclusion.
'Achieve My Life-Goals' Step 6: Live A Better Life NOW
As part of your Paradigm, the self-image that you hold of yourself in your sub-conscious mind controls your thoughts, feelings and actions.
If that self-image is a negative one – or a limiting one – your results are going to be a direct reflection of that negative image. A positive, confident self-image will produce positive results.
This image has developed over many years – in fact part of the image was handed down genetically to us before we were even born. Things we were told, witnessed or experienced while we were growing up added to this base to leave us with the internal image we have of ourselves now.
Whether we have a positive or a negative self-image currently, the good news is it can be changed. The key to a positive self-image is letting our perfect, spiritual DNA shine through.
We must use the higher mental faculties we have been given (see Step 5) to strip away the negative ‘virus code’ of fear, doubt, anxiety, guilt, shame and embarrassment to allow our true self to come through.
It is this ‘inner self’ that is always reaching for greater expansion and fuller expression.
Which is why we often find ourselves with this seemingly inexplicable feeling that ‘there must be more to life than this’.
There is.
And your inner ‘self’ knows it and is trying to get you to move towards it.
We strip away this ‘virus code’ by making a decision. You must make a decision about the person you want to be.
By using your imagination and your will to visualise yourself actually becoming this person and becoming emotionally involved with this image – really feeling what it’s like to be that person – we internalise it and impress the new self-image on our subconscious mind.
Once there, the new, improved self-image can supersede the old one and put you in pride of place to start to change your results.
So to begin this process, write out a full detailed description of the person you want to be…
The person who actually achieves the goal you have set for yourself.
How do they talk?
How do they greet people?
What do they wear?
How do they handle problems?
Where do they work?
How do they walk?
Where do they go on vacation?
How do they walk?
Write out as much as you can possibly think of – at least a side of A4 paper – and then create 5 – 10 ‘I am’ Statements.
For example:
“I love being around people and am interested in what they do.”
“I wear tailored, pressed suits to my office every day and wear light, natural make-up,”
“I am able to stay calm in all situations and am able to confidently respond to problems instead of hastily reacting.”
Read these statements out loud while looking in the mirror morning and evening.
Your self-conscious mind trusts the sound of your own voice and will quickly start to believe the statements you are repeating.
Once this happens you’ll notice a difference in your feelings about yourself and your potential – and subsequently your actions and your results.
“Before you can do something, you must first be something” – Johann Von Goethe
Resources:
'Achieve My Life-Goals' Step 7: Let Go Of The Fear
Once you start to actually give some time to these new ideas, thoughts and goals and you begin to let yourself become emotionally involved with them, your Paradigm starts to come up with a whole manner of ‘reasons’ why you shouldn’t pay any attention to them.
The new ideas you’re starting to entertain (we call them Y-Type ideas) are out of alignment with your current conditioning (X-Type conditioning) which causes conflict in your conscious mind.
You’re trying to get to grips with these ideas and work out how you could make them work, and your Paradigm is working against you, trying to kick them out!
This conflict causes you to feel genuine discomfort – often manifesting itself as anxiety, worry and fear.
It’s this fear that then stops most people progressing. They hit this ‘Terror Barrier’ (as we call it in Thinking Into Results) and just bounce right off it and back into their comfort zone.
They go back to doing what they were doing before because it doesn’t feel as scary, and the Paradigm helps them feel better about it by coming up with justifications like ‘You can always do it next year instead…’…‘It’s not really your thing anyway is it?’…’You’re much better off spending that time/energy/money with the kids instead’…
And they stay stuck.
So getting to grips with what worries you about going for this big goal, right off the bat, is important.
I want you to write down all the worries, concerns, fears, doubts and anxieties that come up for you when you visualise yourself going for this big life-goal. All of them.
Then, when you’ve completed your list, go through it and write down all the things you will do or put in place to either prevent those scary things happening or help you deal with them if they do.
And commit to pushing through that Terror Barrier when it rears its ugly head.
Because “the cave you fear to enter holds the treasure you seek”.
Step 8: What Needs To Be True?
I often hear people say they ‘believe’ something is possible because they’ve seen other people do it. They will say ‘Well, they’re no more clever than I am’…’They come from the same city as me’…’They went to the same college as me’…
So if they can do it, why can’t I?
But there’s a difference between saying you believe you can do something and actually believing it deep-down, at a soul-level.
At a sub-conscious level.
As it’s our sub-conscious mind that dictates our actions and behaviour (and therefore our results), this conflict causes confusion and means that, although we might say we can be, do or have something, we will never actually achieve it because our behaviour is demonstrating something else.
We are not actually doing the things we need to do to achieve our goal.
On our campus, we teach a method called ‘Praxis’ – that is, the integration of beliefs with behaviours.
And it starts with re-connecting, at an emotional level, with the vision of what it is we really want.
By constant repetition of this vision and by impressing it on our subconscious mind by really feeling how it will improve our lives, we will move into the vibration we need to be in to create genuine belief, shift our Paradigm and generate the cause that will generate the desired results.
So take some time to visualise that big life-goal. Really imagine yourself having achieved that one thing you chose in Step 1 and hold the picture on the screen of your mind as long as you can.
Imagine how it will feel to have achieved it. Really feel it in your stomach.
Now ask yourself
“What would need to be true for me to believe, at a soul-level, that I can do this?”
“And how can I bring that about?”
'Achieve My Life-Goals' Step 9: The Magic Word Is ‘Attitude’
It’s no coincidence that as you move up the management structure in a company, the attitudes of those you meet seem to get better!
These people don’t have a great attitude because they’re successful – they are successful because they have a great attitude.
Our attitude is responsible, in very large part, for the results we are currently experiencing.
It’s a culmination of our thoughts, feelings and actions and they are ultimately determined by the ideas we entertain in our conscious mind.
As neutral energy/spirit flows to and through us, we decide whether to make it positive or negative by the thoughts that we choose.
Our conscious mind has the ability to reject negative ideas and thoughts and to only allow positive thoughts to be impressed upon the subconscious mind (in other words, to only dwell on and become emotionally involved with positive thoughts).
Any thoughts and ideas that we allow ourselves to become emotionally involved with (positive OR negative) are impressed upon our subconscious mind.
As it is the subconscious mind that controls the vibration of the body, it follows that positive thoughts will lead to the body being in a positive vibration (and taking positive actions) and negative thoughts result in the body taking negative actions.
It is, therefore, important to understand that we have absolute control over which thoughts and ideas we entertain. We can choose to accept or reject ideas and, in fact, any information that is delivered to us through our physical senses – what we see, hear, smell, taste and touch.
No one can cause you to think something you do not want to think, you have the freedom to think anything you want to think. Looking for the good in everything will help maintain a positive vibration, a better attitude and better results.
And the vibration you are in will determine how other people interact with you.
Being able to shake off negative energy – negative thoughts – is crucial to being able to stay on track every day and do what you need to do to achieve your goal.
What are you taking in from your external world that is affecting your ability to stay focused and positive towards your goal? What actions will you take to remedy this?
Emma Hague is a Certified Proctor Gallagher Consultant and Real Results Mentor based in the U. K.
A qualified accountant by profession, Emma now teaches self-employed women (and some very lucky men!) over 40 in the UK, USA & Canada how to achieve their life-goals – no matter where they might be right now.
As a business owner for over 14 years, Emma believes passionately that we need to take control of (and responsibility for) our own lives in order to create the freedom we all want.
Away from her business, Emma is an avid rugby league fan and loves to spend time with her family (she is mum to two young girls and two grown-up step-sons).
She also enjoys running, beach holidays and going on city breaks with her husband, Karl.
Emma’s own turning point came when, having hit rock bottom financially, she realised that after selling the family home to pay off debts and just try to ‘get in front’, she would likely struggle to ever get a mortgage again.
Bringing their dream of a large, beautiful family home and worldwide travel crashing down around them.
Furious with herself, and the system, Emma committed to taking back control and creating the future she wants for her and her family by doing whatever it takes to create the life she really wants – and to help others do the same.
Emma understands the frustration, and time pressure felt by men and women who are entering the second half of their life and wondering how they’ll ever achieve the things the dream of before their time on this planet is over.
She is a coach and mentor grounded in the real-world and can help you create what’s next for you.
