Let me show you something amazing...
What is it that defines the people who actually get somewhere versus the people who don’t? This is something that a lot of people are interested in. There are possibly thousands of self-help books on the market today. There’s information everywhere on what you can do to find “The secrets to success.” I even have a little article about success myself. But there’s the thing: success is a state of being. It’s something you get to. If you don’t get there, you’re never going to get it. So you need to get there.
This is something that’s not as discussed, and this is the thing that defines who are successful versus the people who aren’t; it’s that they have a plan. Now maybe this sounds a little bit vague. Maybe you’re wondering, well, how do I get a plan, and what kind of plan exactly are we talking about? That’s a topic that could fit in it’s own book, and while I’ll give you a couple very valuable tips, I also want to help you understand why it’s important!
A lot of people know what they want, but many more don’t. What really stops everyone from getting what they want, and sometimes what stops the people who don’t know what they want from finding it, is not having a plan. This is because if you don’t have a plan, you can’t picture yourself going through the process of succeeding, and the goal or success you want may seem impossible. The result is that you give up, so for anyone having a plan is pretty important because it can help make something seem doable.
The easiest way to understand this is to compare it to a road trip. You have to have two things on a road trip: you have to know where you want to go and you have to know how to get there. If I want to go from Wisconsin all the way to Florida, well, I need to know where in Florida I’m planning on going. Maybe I’ll visit my Mom. Okay, now how am I going to get there? Am I going to take the plane, am I going to take a train, or am I going to drive? And if I drive, what roads will I be taking? What’s the route and how long will it take me? Am I going to have to stay in a hotel or two at night on the way? Now that is a direction with the beginnings of a plan.
Some people don’t know where they’re going and at that point they can just pick a road and start going, but you never know where they’ll end up or when they’ll end up there. Maybe they really end up going nowhere and go in circles because they have no place they want to end up at. So there’s no guideline and they just take whatever road presents itself to them.
Now, other people know which way they want to go, but don’t really know which road they want to take. Using the example of me going to Florida, if I don’t know which road to take and which way to go on it, I could very well end up in California which is completely the opposite of where I want to go. I’m not saying California isn’t nice, but it’s not where I wanted to go, and that’s the important part because my success in getting somewhere is defined by me, not by where I end up. Other people might be happy to end up in California, but their opinion doesn’t count when I’m the one half a continent further away from where I set out to be.
So, back to having a plan. I think the analogy is fairly clear, but let me point something else out: the brain is designed to move us in specific directions. You’re either sitting still or you’re going toward or away from something. That’s how the reptilian part of the brain, the part that initiates movement, works. It gets you moving towards the things you need to survive or away from the things that are dangerous. Then, when those movement impulses are satisfied, you’re comfortable again. Feelings like fear, anger, and desire aren’t just emotions, they’re very basic impulses that get you moving and feelings like comfort and satisfaction allow you to relax and not need to go anywhere as they signal the satisfaction of a movement need.
With that in mind, if you don’t have a clear way of satisfying these needs, or you don’t have a clear way of getting that thing you desire, or a clear way of getting away from what you don’t like, the result is confusion and uncertainty and these are feelings that stop you dead. Obviously, a physical human being cannot move in more than one direction at once. I can’t go to Florida and California at the same time, so I focus my energies on one of them. If I felt the need to go both places at once equally strongly or felt the need to just go somewhere without any direction in mind, I’d either freeze up because it’s just not possible or just wander around in circles, unsure of which way to commit to going.
A plan is what keeps this confusion and uncertainty from popping up, because now you know what the one way you need to take to get where you’re going is. And of course, a plan can involve taking more than one path-you can have multiple options, but until you have at least one option that you can take, you are not going to be able to go anywhere. You will be just sitting around, paralyzed.
This is where problems begin to form. What tends to happen is that having a strong motivating force to move toward or away from something but an inability to do anything about it creates an internal conflict. One way that people get rid of that conflict or get rid of those unpleasant feelings that say “I must to do something” is to just make excuses, to settle into it and let it become familiar so at least it isn’t as bad. They also find something to distract them from the feelings—this could be anything from drugs and alcohol to just vegging out in front of the TV. You’ve probably done this at some point; most people do.
From there, some people take it further and begin to call themselves failures and pass all sorts of negative judgments on themselves. They decide that they’re weak and worthless and that they can never get anywhere in life because they haven’t done something with their lives. At this point they need to put extra work into stripping those negative judgments away because they get stuck in self pity and lose their motivation entirely.
These judgments are decisions they’ve made that say they cannot actually go anywhere and that they are incapable of movement, but the reality is that they just didn’t know where to go. If you’ve been having this kind of problem, I want you to realize that there’s nothing wrong with you; you just didn’t know where to go. People don’t realize this. They don’t realize there’s nothing wrong with them and so they end up in a slump, a rut, a hole and don’t go anywhere and make it worse.
If you’re at this point, there are a couple of things you can do. First of all, clear up the limiting beliefs that you created about yourself. I’d use 3D Mind(tm) because it is the best way if you want to avoid spending many years doing this. The other thing you need to do is to decide what you really want to do.
Put some real thought into what you want or what you want to get away from and set a goal to achieve that, then come up with a plan. Break the goal down into the steps of what you have to physically do to get there. Don’t write down what you have to wait for to happen, but what you can do. Keep active because people fall in ruts because they’re waiting to begin with. They’re waiting for those feelings of needing to do something to go away or they’re waiting for some outside force to make them capable of going out and taking action because they’ve already decided they are not capable of doing it on their own.
Stop waiting; do something because every small goal you reach and every little success you have builds momentum that overcomes the inertia of being stuck in a confused rut. Really, the people who are successful keep building momentum instead of settling.
I want you to realize the dynamic that keeps people stuck, and why you do need a plan. Again, your brain is very movement-oriented and if you want or need something but don’t have an idea how to get it and don’t try to find a way, the result will be confusion and uncertainty that further keep you from moving in any clear direction. The people who are not successful in life are the ones who decide to themselves that this confusion and uncertainty are the result of some weakness or flaw in character and settle into and become comfortable with a life of not getting what they want. Because they simply didn’t start a plan, they took on the identity of a failure.
Don’t get stuck in this loop!
