Sometimes when we make a goal, the next thought is “what do I need to do to achieve this goal?”. Usually, this is the wrong question. The question you should ask yourself is: “who do I need to become?”. The only way to move forward in life, is to grow personally. To move to the next level in our lives or our careers, we need to become different people. Einstein once said: we can’t solve our problems with the same thinking we had when we created them. We need to learn to think differently and to do that, we need to grow.
To quote Jim Rohn: If you want to have more, you have to become more. For things to get better, you have to get better. For things to change, you have to change. Success is not a thing you pursue. What you pursue will elude you. Success is something you attract by the person you become.
This is why you see a person who is struggling financially win the lottery and a few years later they are right back where they started. Or you might see someone lose a bunch of weight, only to regain it within the year. Unless you change how you are on the inside, it is difficult to make lasting changes to your external world.
So, let’s say you set a goal to earn a salary of $200,000 per year. The first thing is to see who you know that is at this level or above. What do they do for a living? How do they structure their day? What books have they read? What seminars did they attend? Then you need to create a habit of reading those books, attending those seminars and patterning yourself after the people who have already achieved your goal.
Personal growth is something you need to do continuously. It should be a daily practice. Reading books, listening to audio programs, listening to podcasts, finding mentors and coaches, attending seminars, these should all be a lifelong pursuit. Many people go to college, graduate, start a career, and that is where they stop. They don’t see the relationship between their own personal growth and the growth in their career, the growth in their marriage, the growth in their finances, etc… But it is the internal changes, changing yourself, your influences, your habits and your thoughts that make external growth possible.
