Overcoming Obstacles to Reach Your Goals

by Deni Tato, President - April 2010

We often think about setting goals and creating plans at the beginning of the year, but when we get resistance, or improvement isn’t occurring at the pace we desire, we lose sight of our work plan and by April, the goals have been retired, only to be dusted off again the following year. They are rarely experienced, tasted and felt. Why is that?

What are your goals?
What is it that you really, really want?

Reaching your goals is an important component to success, but mistakenly people tend to think of success as a stroke of luck or maybe something that will descend upon them like a sunny day. That is not true. Success is the result of persistent personal effort and personal responsibility. In order to reach your goals you have to a strong desire, and be willing to fight for it, strive for it, demand it, insist on it and accept nothing less.

I believe the key to reaching goals and attaining success is to have a strong bias to action. We are often good at thinking, dreaming and planning but don’t consistently move toward that which we want for fear of failure. It feels safer to stay in the comfort zone of our head, than making the daily commitments of action.

I believe the Universe is always working to our greatest good, but often our individual time table is out of sync with the Universe’s, as we usually want immediate gratification and quick results. We can easily get discouraged, feeling we have been doing all the right things but nothing seems to be manifesting. The truth is you can’t release the old until the new structure is solidly built.

In terms of personal growth, even though it may seem as if you are taking 3 steps forward and one step back, with persistence and strong intention, you are building an internal structure to make a change. It can feel like you are working hard doing all the things that you committed to do, but nothing is any different. Then overnight everything changes, and only then can you look back and see how far you have come and what you have achieved. If you have a bias to action and are working the plan that you have designed to reach your goals, things are happening. You are gaining confidence, you trust your vision, you are listening to the stillness within and you are making incremental changes each day. You are moving little by little, closer to what you want. At a certain point the new internal psychological structure becomes so strong that you can release the old structure and obvious change has occurred and is apparent.

Take the actions that you commit to and give thanks and acknowledge that at every moment you are making progress. As you live more in that space, you will get into a rhythm or flow. You will let go of the old and bring in the new. Remember that life is designed to be an evolutionary process so everything you are creating right now, you are going to have to let go of to reach a new level of success and happiness. Growth demands a constant process of building and releasing, transcending and including.

While you are working to manifest the life you desire, remember one thing. Until the really “great stuff” comes along, you need to do the “not so great stuff”. The “not so great stuff” always leads to the “great stuff”, whereas doing nothing leads to nowhere.

Doubting and questioning yourself along the way to achieving your goal is simply a part of the process, so when you find yourself in that space, here are a few tips:

Show up early
Think less, Feel more
Ask for what you want
Give thanks often
Expect the best
Appreciate everything
Never give up
Have fun
Lead
Create
Invent
Dream
Have faith
Regroup
Wink
Chill
Smile
And live as if success were inevitable

And so it shall be….