How to Achieve Success through Reverse Engineering

When I share my vision board for a new year in January to my social media audience, it is most commonly met with cheers of support from my friends. I mean, that's only natural right? You always want to support your friends and their goals. What surprises people the most, however, is when I post the vision board again at the end of the year showing what I had accomplished, and what still is left to be taken care of.

The difference between goal attainment and dreams is action taken on part of the individual. You can plan for hours, days, or even months on how you are going to develop a life that you feel that you deserve, but it will never amount to anything or go anywhere without action by YOU.

So how do I achieve everything I set out to do? I plan and I permit myself to have some fun in the meantime.

Life doesn't have to be so serious all the time, that's why my vision boards always contain business strategic goals, and fun little goals for myself.  But regardless if it's a business goal, a personal goal, or just a fun goal that you have set for yourself you need to plan.

The first step is writing down exactly what it is that you want.  What do YOU want? I'm not asking what other people want FOR you, I'm asking you what you want. This is not a list you have to show others, you can keep it to yourself. But get honest about it.

The second step is putting a date on it. When do YOU want it by? Now, some people will say go way outside of your comfort zone with this, but this is a step that I usually spend the most time on because I want my goals to be challenging, but not so much so that they seem impossible. When creating a goal, think about what you have now, what you will have in the future, and the amount of time you have to work on achieving it.  Most importantly, and this can be hard, but how much heart do you have behind it, because that is going to determine a lot of what you are willing to sacrifice to get there.

The third step is to write down everything you can think of that is needed to achieve that goal. This is called reverse engineering and is a step that is most often skipped, but one of THE MOST VALUABLE steps to take. This lays it all out for you. This gives you a clear picture of EXACTLY what you need to do. It is the rough draft of the story that you are about to create. After doing this, you might need to adjust your dates a little bit and that's okay, just make sure you are not laxing on yourself to the point where you will get lazy.

The final step: take action. Take massive action to make it happen. Take one goal at a time, look at it reverse engineered, and think of how you can take one step per day (or more) towards achieving those small items on the to do list of your goal. 

At first it's overwhelming, but practice makes perfect. Not to mention, every goal you mark off is a boost to your own self confidence, and your own belief in yourself which will push you further through life to achieve things you never thought possible.

Getting Clear About What You Want

What is it that you want?

We all want so many things.  But wanting and achieving are two separate things. You can want all day long, but if you don't believe and visualize the achievement of the goal then you are just going to exhaust yourself over wanting.

This year my goal for the Pittsburgh Half Marathon was to drop ten minutes off of my finish time. I visualized myself crossing the finish line, looking at my watch, and seeing my goal time over and over. Even during the actual race itself, when I would get tired I would go back and visualize my finish and it never failed to make me kick it up a notch. I know that sounds funny, but it works. Sure enough, my run went the exact way that I had envisioned it, down to my placement in the finish chute (far left next to the spectators so their cheering pumped me up), the running style (long strides), the breathing (controlled: in through the nose, out through the mouth), the focus of my eyes (the medal), and the celebration (like Tom Cruise jumping on the couch on Oprah). What I had envisioned for myself I had allowed to manifest.

When I swam, I always thought "meditation time" was just a great excuse to get out of the pool, stop working out, and lay around. At 8 years old you do not understand the benefit of visualizing a start, a breakout, a flip turn, or a strong finish. All you care about is getting out of a workout (woohoo!). Fast forward to when I was about 12 years old and I actually started participating in the meditation with my teammates. I listened to my coaches voice with my eyes closed, I pictured myself prior to hopping up onto the starting block right down to me spitting into my goggles so they didn't fog up on me during my swim. I could feel the water hit my body as I entered in, I could feel my arms and legs cut through it with each paddle and kick. Once I started doing that, I started achieving my goal times with swimming and since, meditation has just sort of stuck.

Many people have a misconception about meditation. When you talk about meditation so many people think it is sitting in a zen-like room, repeating Oohms in complete silence. You could do that, but meditation can also be so much easier. You can meditate right before you go to sleep, when you first wake up in the morning, or even while at work. Meditation does not have to be as defined as you think it needs to be. It just needs to be structured in a way that it is done when you have a moment of quiet, and a moment where you can focus. It can last 1 minute or 30 minutes (or more). Once you have thought clearly about a particular idea multiple times, it is easy to take yourself to "that place" in your mind and visualize everything. Thus, meditation gets easier and more rewarding the more you do it.

Meditation allows us to get REALLY clear about what we want. In fact, studies have shown that if we close our eyes and imagine ourselves participating in a particular activity, that we can make ourselves experience the emotions associated with that activity as if it is really occurring. Don't believe me? Try it. And really try it, don't just close your eyes and say, "I'm picturing myself winning the lottery and I feel nothing". Allow yourself to wander for a while, enjoy the time "living" your dream, and then tell me you feel nothing. If you are feeling nothing, you are not clear about what you want. When you have a clear sense, a crystal clear vision, and a drive to achieve something you can picture your exact outcome.

Meditation isn't for everyone. There will always be those that say meditation is a crock of crap that doesn't work, and to each their own. For me, I keep breaking my goals and achieving success and I personally feel that meditation has helped me get to that point, so I'm going to keep on meditating. If you have never tried it, I suggest you give it a whirl. Start taking a few minutes each night this week before you go to bed and think about what you want. Do you want to quit your job? Do you want to take your family on a dream vacation? What about buy a new car? The following steps will help you start to meditate on such an idea in order to help compel you to take action and reach your goals:

1) Envision your goal in its most basic form. What do you want?

2) Get more specific. If you want a new car, what kind, what color, what features, does it have tinted windows? Specify your want.

3) Imagine yourself achieving your goal. If it's a car, imagine your hands gripping the soft leather of the steering wheel. Imagine the key in your hands as you put into the ignition for the first time (or maybe you push to start). What does the engine sound like. Are you in your driveway, or at the dealership? Window up or down? Is there a breeze?

4) "Live" your goal. Take a few minutes to drive in your new car. What are you seeing as you drive past? Who are you waving to? Where are you going? What does the sun feel like on your skin as it comes in through your window.

This is what I mean by getting CLEAR. Your vision needs to be a movie of your achievement playing in your mind. Again, this takes practice but the more you practice, the clearer it will become, the more realistic it will become, and without knowing it you will start to take the necessary actions needed to achieve it.

Dream on!