How To Have Anything You Want

How to have anything you want

What do you want from life? Do you want to be rich? Do you want to travel the world? To be successful in your career? Have a wonderful relationship? A loving family life? Do you want to be a great leader, or teacher, or athlete, or scientist or musician? What do you want? Do you even know?

With clearly focused, disciplined effort, you can achieve whatever you want. You can decide today precisely what you want to achieve, and begin immediately to bring it about, no matter what it may be.

You already know how to do it

You're already skilled at getting what you want. Ever since you were a baby, you've been learning how to do it, and erfecting your skill.

Now, it is so much a part of you that you don't even realize it's there. And because of that, the process sometimes leads in undesirable directions. You've become very good at getting what you want, or rather at getting what you think you want. Yet you have probably lost focus on exactly what that is. That's a problem, and it causes you to work against yourself. Your obedient mind is using all the resources available to you
to achieve what you think you want, but that's probably not even what you really want.

You can turn this situation around by consciously deciding exactly how to
direct your mind. That will focus the enormous creative effective energy in you toward whatever purpose you desire.

The key to living with fulfillment is to intentionally control the process of getting what you want. Once you make yourself aware of it, you'll realize that you've been doing it all your life. When you add some focus and direction, then your life becomes magical.

Know exactly what it is

The first step to getting what you want, is to know exactly what you really do want. The more precisely you can define what you want, the closer you are to getting it.

You want to be wealthy? What does that mean? Exactly how much money do you
want to have in the bank? Exactly what do you want your income to be?

You want a new car? What make and model? What color? What kind of
interior? What options? Where will you park it? What company will you purchase the insurance from? What car wash will you take it to? Where will you drive it? Be specific. Picture the new car vividly in your mind. Know exactly what you want.

Your mind is the most powerful and effective goal-seeking tool in the world. It will find a way to achieve what you tell it to achieve, but only if you are specific. The more specific, the better. So it is absolutely essential that you tell it exactly what you want. Vague generalities like "being happy" or "being rich" will confuse your powerful, goal-seeking mind and prevent it from focusing on your desired outcome. Be absolutely specific about what you want.

And besides, if you don't clearly define exactly what you want, how will you even know when you get it?

Know WHY you want it

This is crucial. In order to be fully committed, you must know, without any doubt whatsoever, WHY you want what you want. Once you touch and experience the true, deeply-imbedded "why" of what you want, it will start to happen.

Most people just give lip service to their desires, without examining why they want them in the first place. Often when we look at the reasons why we want something, we realize that we don't really, truly want it.

Failure to consider the "why" of your desires, will result in a tremendous
amount of wasted energy, spent striving for things which you really don't want, and which if you manage to achieve them, will leave you disillusioned and unfulfilled.

So how do you determine why you want something? It's simple. Just ask yourself, and keep asking until you get a meaningful answer.

Often times, by asking why, you'll discover that what you thought you
wanted is only a shallow token of what you really want. And, more importantly, you'll often find that what you really want is more readily available to you than what you thought you wanted.

For example, Ron was a stockbroker in Atlanta who wanted to buy an expensive gold watch. In order to commit himself to doing what was necessary to get the gold watch, Ron asked himself why he wanted it in the first place. The answer -- so he could impress his clients and the other brokers in the office, and so he would be recognized as successful. He
realized that what he really wanted was not the watch, but the respect and
recognition of others.

So, rather than focusing on the gold watch, he went to work on improving his performance as a stockbroker. And that earned him the respect and recognition of others. He went right to the heart of the matter, and cut out the "middleman" (in this case a gold watch) to get what he really wanted.

In asking why, you need to be brutally honest with yourself. Don't accept a lame answer, such as "because that's what everybody else has" or "because that's what my family expects of me." Find a real, solid, gut-level reason why YOU want what you want. Keep digging until you get there. Keep asking why until you uncover a reason that is so compelling
and so much a part of you that you cannot deny it. This can be emotionally
draining, and at the same time powerful and refreshing. It will make a crucial difference in the effective pursuit of your goals, and in the degree to which you experience joy and fulfillment in your life. Find a reason why. It's there. And it will make an enormous difference.

Write it down

There is something magical about committing your goals to paper. We think
thousands of thoughts each day. Most of them pass right by, never to return again. Just the act of putting something in writing, gives it a kind of superiority over all the other things we think about. Taking the trouble to make a written record, whether it is with pen and paper or keyboard and word processor, is a significant commitment, the first deliberate step on the path to achievement of your goal.

Putting your goals in writing, in tangible physical form, also serves to provide you with a permanent reminder of what you're working to accomplish. The act of writing your goals is so powerful, that even if you just wrote them down and hid them away, the likelihood of achieving those goals would increase considerably. But don't hide them away. Keep them in
front of you, prominently displayed, and they will happen for you.

When you write your goal, state it positively and in the present tense. For example, instead of writing "I'm going to stop smoking" say "I enjoy breathing fresh, smoke-free air". Goals which are stated negatively, can have the opposite effect of what's intended. If you constantly said to yourself "stop moking, stop smoking, stop smoking" your mind focuses on "smoking, smoking, smoking." It is impossible to even consider the phrase "stop smoking" without first visualizing yourself smoking. Negatively
stated goals will sabotage your efforts. Find a way to state them positively.

Similarly, goals stated in the future tense "I'm going to" or "I will" or "I plan to" run the risk of never getting accomplished. In order to achieve what you want you must first see yourself, without any doubt in your mind, achieving it. To reach your goal, you must first become the person who is capable of reaching it. The more you can see yourself as actually having it, the closer it is. In fact, when you are completely convinced that you will achieve it, in a very real sense you already have it. So state your goals in the present tense, as if they are already
happening, because they are.

Develop a detailed plan

Whatever you want to achieve, there is a path that leads from where you are now, to where you want to be. The trouble is, there are an infinite number of paths leading away from where you are right now, so how do you know which one to take?

To answer this question, you must jump ahead in your mind, all the way to the achievement of your goal. From that perspective, work backwards to where you are now. What is the very LAST step that you would need to take before achieving your goal? And what is the step that would lead to that last step? And what step would lead to that next-to-last step?

For example, let's imagine that your goal is to take a vacation in Tahiti. Now, imagine yourself arriving in Tahiti, ready for two weeks of relaxation on the sunny beaches. What was the step you took, just before arriving in Tahiti? You boarded the plane. And before that? You took a taxi to the airport. Before that, you packed your luggage. Before that,
you washed all your clothes. Before that, you purchased your ticket. Before that, you worked to make the money needed to purchase the ticket. And so on.

There are certain, specific steps that you must take in order to have what you want. How do you know when you've identified them all? When you can work backwards and determine exactly what the first step is, the step you can take right now. Once you work your way backwards, all the way from your ultimate goal to the thing you can do right now, you have a specific, detailed plan. You have a roadmap that will take you to precisely the place where you want to be. One step builds on another, and the next one builds on that, until you get where you're going.

Anything you want to accomplish, can be broken down into a series of steps. Some people may be able to take bigger steps or take them faster, because of the resources already available to them. Other people will have more steps to take. What's important is that you identify the specific steps that YOU need to take, starting from where YOU are right at this moment, that will bring about the achievement of your goals.

Expect to get it

You will get whatever you expect to get. To want something without really
expecting to get it, is just useless wishing. When you truly expect to
accomplish something, you'll do whatever is necessary to accomplish it.
And that's the importance of positive expectations. Your expectations will
color and influence your actions on a minute-by-minute basis. Expectations
will focus your enormous energy toward the achievement of whatever you
expect.

Right now, you are a product of your expectations. Look around you, at the
place where you live, the work you do, the people in your life. These are the things you have expected of yourself up to this point in your life. To change your life, you must first change your expectations.

And the key to doing that is to know, to really know in your heart of hearts, that the world offers limitless possibilities to you. Accept and acknowledge that life can be whatever you want it to be. Understand the awesome responsibility of that. Realize that your expectations can be anything you want them to be, and that desire without expectation only
leads to disappointment. Expect the very best of yourself. No one is better than you. No one deserves more from life than you. You can be whatever you want to be, if only you will expect it of yourself.

Know, value and appreciate what you already have

How can you achieve anything if you don't know what you have to work with?
In order to get what you want, you must make the best use of what you have. That starts with valuing and appreciating the good things already in your life, something we often refer to as gratitude.

The things you appreciate, value and care for will increase in your life. They will serve to take you wherever you want to go.

When was the last time you stopped to count your blessings? Have you considered lately all the skills that you possess, all the valuable and
interesting experiences that you've had, all your knowledge, the people you know, your opinions, your interests and all the other positive things in your life? These are the resources that will take you to where you want to go. Be thankful for them, value them, appreciate them. Your gratitude creates a consciousness of abundance that will bring you anything you desire.

Take action right away

Once you've identified the steps that will bring about whatever you want, and have become aware of the powerful resources in your life, you are well on your way. All that remains to be done, is the follow the plan.

As soon as you make the decision that you want to pursue something, it is
vitally important to start right away. Telling yourself that you want to get 5 new major clients, and then deciding that you'll start working on it "first thing Monday morning" just will not bring about your desired goal. By putting off any action, you're telling yourself that it is really not that important. When you start immediately, no matter how seemingly insignificant that start might be, you take the big step of solidly
committing your mind to the project.

Then just keep going, moment after moment, day after day, until you reach
the goal. Put one foot in front of the other. Take one step after another.
Follow your plan with commitment and enthusiasm. You already know you can
do it. You already know what to do. You already fully expect to make it to
your goal. So, enjoy the ride! Delight in the journey of working your way
to whatever it is you desire. You are purposeful, you are focused, you are
effective, and you are fulfilling the destiny which you have determined
for yourself. What could possibly be more exciting?

Stay on track

Although you have worked out a specific, detailed plan for getting what you want, you will need to make adjustments along the way. Nothing ever goes exactly as planned. A ship's navigator can carefully plan his route across the ocean, taking into account the prevailing winds and currents. Yet, along the way conditions are sure to change. So the navigator must constantly monitor the ship's progress, and make course corrections along the way. The initial plan is vital, and the clear definition of the destination is essential. Just as important is the ability to make
mid-course corrections.

The plan you develop to reach your goal is not a paved superhighway. It is a map. It is up to you to make your way over the terrain, so that you reach the estination. Sometimes that terrain is rocky. sometimes you'll find yourself off course. So you must be committed enough to reaching your goal, that you take whatever steps necessary to get back on course.

Always keep the end in site. Evaluate your progress and, more importantly,
your decisions about what to do next, based on reaching the goal. Continue
to remind yourself what you're working to accomplish and WHY you want it.

Continue making progress in the direction of your goal, and you will reach it.

Be urgently patient

That is, have a sense of urgency about taking action, and a sense of patience about getting results. The fact is, that actions taken today will bring results in the future. An action and its result do not happen simultaneously. Yet without the action, the result never occurs. So, it is necessary to act now, and to expect your results sometime in the future.

But here's the clincher. Time gives you a powerful way to leverage your action. Let's face it. You are not super-human. You can only do so much. However, the good news is that you can keep doing it. So even though you can only do so much at any one point in time, you can have almost limitless effectiveness if your actions continue over a period of time. Your effectiveness increases as your actions build on top of each other.

Many people get frustrated because they try to do it all, all at once. Think of all the "get rich quick" schemes you see floating around. Now ask yourself -- have you ever known anyone who actually got rich from following them? It is highly unlikely.

Anything of true value simply takes time and effort. If it didn't take effort over time, it would have little alue. If people could actually "get rich quick", of what value would it be to be rich? You wouldn't be able to buy anything with all that money, because no one would need to work.

There's no need to do it all at once, and it is a waste of effort to even try. Work toward your goal with a sense of rgency, and realize that time is on your side hen you make use of every moment. Those moments will soon build on each other to bring about whatever you desire.


Ralph Marston