Your Goals Are Useless If You Don’t Make These 3 Journeys

The engines revved up. The crowds cheered. Spirits were high! Camera stands littered the sidelines; each jockeying for the best spot to capture this historic race. The argument had lingered for a few years now. Who was the king of speed, the Lamborghini Diablo (1990) or the Volkswagen Beetle Type 1? It was time to put the matter to rest once and for all. Thousands of raving fans have staked their money on this race. Even though it seemed like a lost cause for the Beetle camp, some believed it could be a modern replay of the David and Goliath duel. The Diablo cruises at 325 km/h and accelerates from 0 to 100 km/h in only 4.5 seconds. While a typical Beetle covers 130km/h max and takes thrice that time to accelerate. When the flag went down, it was no surprise who won. May I add that the men behind the wheels were onetime winners of the Monaco Grand Prix. So, it wasn’t about skill levels. It was a question of capacity. For one, the Diablo had a 5.7-litre tank, a 48-valve rendition of the classic V12 engine; with multi-point fuel injection, 575 horsepower and 580 Newton-meter of torque. What’s more? The Diablo’s sleek bodywork beats air resistance; tearing its way through long distances. And we haven’t even talked about manoeuvrability and comfort yet. The Volkswagen Beetle had a turbocharged 2.0-litre four-cylinder engine with 50 horsepower and a torque of 98.1 Newton Meter. Therefore, no matter how motivated or fired up the Volkswagen driver was, his engine capacity has set him on a losing trajectory already. I know you’re fired up for the new year. You have even started taking steps towards your goals already. But hard as it sounds, most people won’t reach their goals or achieve 10% of it. Not because they don’t care (although that could be a reason) but because they are gunning for Lamborghini-sized goals with a Volkswagen Beetle capacity. It takes a certain mindset and behaviour to achieve your big goals. In an article I published weeks ago, I talked about the excellency of pursuing growth over goals. Link at the bottom. Back to track. If your goals are big enough, they’ll require a better version of you to achieve them. Change is hard. Behavioural change is even harder. You want to know what’s the hardest? Sustaining a transformed mind and behaviour until it becomes muscle memory. Anyone can start. But champions are the ones who finish. That’s why there is less competition on the extra mile. This is why there’s free space in the air. Only few objects can go there. Best-selling author Darren Hardy wrote, “To get different results, you’re going to have to do things differently.” I’ll rephrase that to “To get different results, you’re going to have to think differently. Most people are not thinking about their progress in the right way. They want to change their external reality by changing what they can see and feel. Little wonder James Allen, author of As a Man Thinketh, wrote, “Men are anxious to improve their circumstances, but are unwilling to improve themselves; they therefore remain bound.” When you want to correct a typo you’ve spotted on a printed report, where do you effect the change? On paper or the computer? Most people would scream, “on the computer of course!” But in real life, we don’t seem so smart. We focus on the wrong things. For anything great to happen to you, you must begin the work from inside. That’s where your mindset comes into the picture. I’m betting you’ve either read or heard about the change-your-mind-change-your-life mantra a thousand times. But there’s a different angle to it. We credit Abraham Lincoln with the saying, “Give me six hours to chop down a tree and I will spend the first four sharpening the axe.” Most people approach their life and future without preparing their mind first. While setting their lofty goals, they forget the long mental journey it’ll take to get there. Every meaningful journey in life is done twice; first in your mind and then outwardly. Setting long-term goals is great but if you try doing it without first shifting your mindset, you’re simply chopping down a tree with a blunt axe. You will spend more energy and time with meagre results. You must sharpen your tool first! So, here are 3 mental journeys you must make before you’ll record real, lasting results in any area of your life. On with the show… 1. FROM SCARCITY MINDSET TO ABUNDANCE MINDSET Have you ever caught yourself thinking, “…will there be enough land for me to buy when I grow up?” To be honest, I’ve thought this way too. Can I shock you? This is the tip of a scarcity mindset. In my opinion, moving from scarcity to abundance mindset is the hardest mental journey. Here’s what a scarcity mindset sounds like. It believes there’s only one huge pie in life and the more someone else progresses, the fewer chances there are for you. This is the mindset that sponsors greed, baseless insecurity, fear of losing out, fear of failing, office politics, jealousy, resentment and hoarding important knowledge for fear of others becoming better than you. The pie fallacy has eaten deep into our culture today. Per contra, an abundance mindset rightly believes that there are infinite pies in life. Someone having a thousand pies doesn’t mean fewer pies available for you. Just because others are winning doesn’t mean you’re losing. Life is not a zero-sum game. Well, most of it. An abundance mindset manifests in several ways including, a sturdy sense of security, calm confidence, generosity with helpful information and kindness to others. Don’t let sports and politics deceive you, we can all win if everyone progressed in their own lane. Jon Westenberg said, “The time you spend being jealous of others’ success is time they spent working…” 2. FROM FIXED MINDSET TO GROWTH MINDSET Ace Psychologist, Carol Dweck, popularized this concept. In her groundbreaking book, Mindset, Dweck describes the fixed mindset as believing that you have traits that can neither be improved nor changed. It’s a life set in stone. You are who you are. And there’s nothing you can do about it. Period! Subconsciously, most people think like this. They’re scared of trying the unknown. They fear failure because, as they reason, failure confirms their worst fears; not being good enough. However, a growth mindset tells a different story. It believes that you can evolve, improve, transform and change your reality in life. People with a growth mindset are super flexible. They are fast learners. And they never give up on themselves. I call this the mother of all mind shifts. If you don’t believe in the possibility of growth, how then can you become the kind of person who can achieve great things? 3. FROM ENTERTAINMENT MINDSET TO A LEARNER’S MINDSET I struggled with this. We all struggle with prioritising learning over entertainment. But the trick, as I’ll be showing you, is making hard things easy and easy things hard. People are so distracted today. Our minds weren’t designed to absorb the sheer volume of information cascading down on us from social media, the news, celebrity gossip, reality TV shows, movie series, email and work. Little wonder cases of anxiety, social media-induced ADHD and sleep disruptions have skyrocketed recently. These constant inflows of distractions make it difficult to enter the deep levels of focus required to produce our best work. The most successful people in the world have created bubbles around their lives that keep them focused. They understand they cannot be available for everyone every day. They don’t tolerate mediocrity or distractions from themselves or others. Most people would rather scroll through Instagram memes than read a book. Most people would rather spend a weekend binging a series than taking an online course, creating an eBook or other digital products. If your goals are big enough, it’ll take a better version of you to achieve them. To evolve faster, you must prioritise learning over entertainment. Go off social media on certain hours of the day to focus on your real-life work. Have specific time limits you spend on apps. There are digital wellbeing apps you can use for this. Have a time of the day beyond which you can’t be found online. You can plan your joy, recreation, movies, fun time and many more rather than making it a a procrastination tool or a placebo for boredom. In the end, every journey happens twice. First inwards and then outwards. These three journeys aren’t all of it but they’re enough to help you start. Here’s the link I promised you: https://web.facebook.com/groups/readerscirclebookclub/permalink/362213640121570