Know What You Want

Joe is a retail sales clerk at a busy city department store. On his lunch break one day he went into a nearby bookstore. He bought a copy of a paperback book about achieving success. He read the book in three days. It outlined a success formula that starts with setting a goal to achieve a specific amount of money by a specific date. Joe decided on achieving seven million dollars in two years.

He recited and visualized the goal avidly every night as the book prescribed. He also took the other steps that the book suggested. In about two and a half months Joe gave up. He still wanted to make lots of money, but he couldn’t see how he could achieve it. The pile of money that he had visualized had about as much motivational power as reading an Uncle Scrooge comic book.

The problem with this prescription for success is that visualizing money itself will not motivate most people to achieve it. It is what money can buy that is the motivating force, and that is a personal thing. So, instead of setting a goal for earning seven million dollars, Joe should have first visualized what he wanted that money to buy. That is where the motivation comes from—knowing specifically what you want, be it material goods or a lifetime career.

The best way for you to drive your success is to know what you want. Some are lucky and realize what they want early in life. Others are not so lucky or perhaps have had the ability to want things beaten out of their psyche.

To want something is to believe that it is possible and that you are capable of achieving it. If you don’t think it’s possible you won’t put in the long term, consistent effort that is required. You won’t take all the steps necessary. Or, if you don’t think you are capable of achieving it, you won’t try.

This is when having strong self-confidence helps so much. You can focus on how you are going to achieve what you want, rather than the energy draining activity of wondering if you have the ability to achieve it.

Nevertheless, whether you have weak or strong self-confidence, the first thing you need to do, right this moment, is to know what you want. For now, don’t worry if it seems possible. Accept the fact that you want what you want. The first rule is to want something. Be specific. Then figure out how to get it.

“One must not lose desires. They are mighty stimulants to creativeness, to love, and to long life.”—Alexander A. Bogomoletz

Two Suggested Resources:

• Get What You Want, a self-analysis workbook I wrote to help you identify and stay focused on what you really want, and develop an action plan to achieve it.  http://astore.amazon.com/roadbrains-20/detail/0982577702

• Alan Lakien’s book, How to Get Control of Your Time and Your Life. http://astore.amazon.com/roadbrains-20/detail/0451167724

Ken West is a former U.S. Army paratrooper and the author of Get What You Want, available worldwide on Amazon.com and other fine online booksellers. West is a former President of the New England Chapter of the National Speakers Association, and Association of Objectivist Businessmen. If you would like Ken to speak to your business or organization, he can be reached at kenwest@bettergripmedia.com.  To receive information about the upcoming book, Motive Power, go to http://motivepower.us/ and click on the Contact button.