Wisdom-Trek / Creating a Legacy

Welcome to Day 372 of our Wisdom-Trek, and thank you for joining me.

This is Guthrie Chamberlain, Your Guide to Wisdom

How to Achieve Anything You Desire

Thank you for joining us for our 3 days per week, 12 minutes of wisdom podcast. This is Day 372 of our trek, and today is Motivation Monday. Each Monday our trek is designed to motivate and encourage you to make a significant positive impact on the lives of others. Today our trek will take us to the land where we can achieve anything that we set our minds to.

We are broadcasting from our studio at The Big House in Marietta, Ohio. As we continue inside and out on our renovation projects, I power washed the fences around “The Cabbage Patch” house my brother Jack owns, the children’s play fort, and the trim and front porch of The Big House. The temperatures over the weekend were in the 90s, so it was great to be working with and getting soaked by using the power-washer. We were also able to use the walk behind weed trimmer around the house, the trees, and the path through the woods.

Between our client work and the renovation projects, we do work hard and are able to accomplish a significant amount, but it is not because we have any special abilities or talents. We have a drive and motivation to accomplish certain goals and tasks. We also have a belief that we can achieve anything if our desire is greater than the work and risk involved.

As we head out on our trek today on the Trail of Motivation, let us travel to that Promised Land where we can achieve anything that we desire, as I title today’s trek…

How to Achieve Anything You Desire

Is there a goal you want to accomplish but just cannot find the time or desire to start it? It might be something trivial like reducing your amount of TV watching or time spent browsing the Internet. You may desire to become an early riser or to quit drinking alcohol or to start a home business. Whatever it is, what is keeping you where you are instead of reaching your desired destination?

While I consider myself a pretty disciplined and motivated person, I too struggle at times with staying focused on my highest payoff activities that will bring the most value to my life. Overcoming these mental blocks and actually taking action towards our most important activities needs to be our focus on a daily basis.

Setting routines which form habits, even in the small mundane tasks of life, is an important element in actually achieving your dreams and desires. If you can continue these smaller tasks for a couple of weeks consistently, then push for continuing for a full month. If you can consistently do it for a month, you will have habituated the activity into your daily rhythm and be able to keep it up for a very long period of time. Even when you run into obstacles, if it is a habit, you will be able to continue forward.

The point of this podcast and journal is to extract the lessons needed for achieving a goal successfully and then applying those lessons to other areas of your life. In doing so, you will also have to analyze why you have failed to achieve your dreams and desires. Many mistakes are unavoidable. Learn to forgive yourself. It’s not a problem to make them. It’s only a problem if you never learn from them.

Bottom line:  Just because you have not achieved the level of success you desire yet, doesn’t mean you never will.  Sometimes things have to go very wrong before they can be right. That is how you gain experience, which is how you grow in wisdom, which allows you to live a legacy that will positively impact others. So, let’s analyze some of the reasons for failure.

1.   You use the excuse, “I don’t have enough time.”

All of us fall into this trap.  You have to realize that the excuse “I don’t have the time” is the biggest lie you can tell yourself to justify your lack of action toward your goals and desires. You have to change your mindset, and even your talk from “I don’t have the time” to “I choose not to allocate the time.” The fact is if we added all the time we spend on unimportant and not urgent things – like web browsing or TV watching – we would have the time.

It may be that you have over-committed yourself. You need to say no to commitments and distractions unless they are your highest payoff activities, which are the trails that lead you to fulfill your life objectives and purpose.

We all have 168 hours each week, so it is not about having enough time. It is all about allocating the time to what is most important. It’s a matter of finding the compelling reasons why something is important enough to us to drive us to make lasting change.

2. You focus on the pain instead of the results.

The more you focus on the uncomfortable or negative factors associated with the goals and objectives that you desire to achieve, the less motivated you will be and the more excuses you will make until you end up abandoning it altogether. The “WHY” of achieving your objectives must be stronger than the pain you will have to endure to achieve it.

3. You lack motives to take action.

You must be fully clear on why you desire to achieve a goal or objective. What is your underlying incentive to complete it? It has been scientifically determined that you will do more to avoid pain than you will to gain pleasure. The perceived long-term effects of not completing your goals must be more painful than the pain that you will endure on the short term of not completing your goals. As an example, let’s say you are overweight and borderline diabetic. The perceived pain of life using insulin must be greater than the pain of changing your eating habits, even if that is painful short term.

4. Your language, focus, and priority is wrong.

This is best explained by using an example. Say you are out of shape but desire to become a long distance runner. You must change your language, focus, and priority from “I should go jogging”, to “I must go jogging to gain the energy and strength needed to reach my objective.”

When something is a “should,” it is wishful thinking, and you won’t accomplish the tasks consistently. When something is a “must,” it becomes a priority and even a requirement that deserves your attention. When you change your self-talk from “should” to “must,” your focused attention will bring about lasting change and meeting your objectives will become a reality.

5. The Art of Change: You move from desire to result.

The decision to make a lasting change can happen in an instant, and then the change process is immediately put in motion. Instead of thinking about it and silently beating yourself up for not doing it, with a changed mindset you just do it. It is no longer an option!

Unfortunately for many people, the best motivators are the ones you find when you hit a personal low point. As an example, you don’t want to wait to be lying in the hospital with a heart attack before making lasting changes to your diet and exercise routines. Your desire to be healthy must drive the result. You must be very clear on why you desire to achieve this goal and objective

Motivational speaker Tony Robbins has a system that he curated called OPA which stands for:

• Outcome (O) – Having a clear vision.
• Purpose (P) – Focus on results and purpose.
• Action (A) – Create a massive action plan for meaningful results.

Let’s expand on these so they apply to your life.

· O – Outcome

You may have vague ideas on what you desire. You roughly know which trail you want to trek, but because you aren’t clear on what is your true destination, you get buffeted by whichever direction the wind is blowing. Without a clear vision, you will obsess over “the how” and often overanalyze and fail to take action or take ineffective action. What is the ultimate vision for what you want? Be specific in describing the outcome you desire.

· P – Purpose

Knowing what you want isn’t enough to give you the push toward massive action. You must know why you want it. Why is it important that you achieve your desired result? When you achieve this outcome, what will it bring you? Without strong enough reasons, you simply will not be moved into action. Ask yourself these questions: Why do you desire to achieve the target outcome? What are the reasons most important to you? What does achieving the outcome look like for you?

· A – Action

Armed with your clear vision of the outcome and with the burning reasons why it is important to you, come up with an action plan for achieving the results you seek. Once you have your action plan, take one small action immediately. Then commit yourself to taking some action regularly (every day if possible) toward your target. Regardless of how small the action may seem, it will move you one step closer to your outcome, and – more importantly – help build the momentum you will need to reach your destination.

Within the Wisdom-Trek Your Life Plan Blueprint, we have created the structure and tools needed to achieve anything that you desire in life. The free manual/workbook is still available for a limited time on the left-hand sidebar of any page on our website at Wisdom-Trek.com. If you have not done so already, I encourage you to download it today.

· Parting Words

You are the ultimate author of your life story. Within yourself, you hold the power to change anything in your lives, and in doing so, experience the rich and satisfying life that Jesus promised you. Lasting change starts with a change in the way you think – a clear vision for your desired results, meaningful reasons why you desire them, and building momentum toward massive action to make your visions a reality.

We have reached our destination on our trek today, which is the land that allows you to achieve anything you desire. I will conclude today’s trek with an encouraging word from Hebrews 12:1-3,

“Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a huge crowd of witnesses to the life of faith, let us strip off every weight that slows us down, especially the sin that so easily trips us up. And let us run with endurance the race God has set before us.  We do this by keeping our eyes on Jesus, the champion who initiates and perfects our faith. Because of the joy awaiting him, he endured the cross, disregarding its shame. Now he is seated in the place of honor beside God’s throne. Think of all the hostility he endured from sinful people; then you won’t become weary and give up.”

Remember to be faithful in the Proverbs 31-day challenge. For each day of June, read the chapter in Proverbs that corresponds to the day of the month. In less than five minutes per day, you can take your daily wisdom supplements, which if repeated each day, will make you healthy, wealthy, and wise.

Our next trek will be Wisdom Wednesday where we will hike the Wisdom Trail in search of the nuggets of wisdom found in Proverbs 12. So, encourage your friends and family to join us, and then come along on Wednesday for another day of our Wisdom-Trek, Creating a Legacy.

That will finish our trek for today. As you enjoy your dose of wisdom, we ask you to help us grow Wisdom-Trek by sharing with your family and friends through email, Facebook, Twitter, or in person and invite them to come along with us each day. If you would like to listen to any of the past daily treks, they are available at Wisdom-Trek.com. Don’t forget to subscribe to Wisdom-Trek on iTunes, Spreaker, Stitcher, Soundcloud, iHeart Radio, and Google Play, so each trek will be downloaded to you automatically.

Thank you for allowing me to be your guide, mentor, and most of all your friend as I serve you through the Wisdom-Trek podcast and journal.

As we take this trek together, let us always:

1. Live Abundantly (Fully)
2. Love Unconditionally
3. Listen Intentionally
4. Learn Continuously
5. Lend to others Generously
6. Lead with Integrity
7. Leave a Living Legacy Each Day

This is Guthrie Chamberlain reminding you to Keep Moving Forward, Enjoy Your Journey, and Create a Great Day Every Day! See you on Wednesday!