I’ve always wanted to do something great, to really achieve something in my life.
For years, I never acted upon it and that desire stayed a dream. This year I decided to turn that dream into a goal. I found the book Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill and once I finished it, I was a different person.
I thought I might tackle the challenge of summarising the book and make it as simple to follow as possible.
But before we start we’ll share warren Buffets 10 steps to success.
1. Try
2. Try again
3. Try once more
4. Try it a little differently
5. Try it again tomorrow
6. Try and ask for help
7. Try to find someone who’s done it
8. Try to determine what is not working
9. Try to determine what is working
10. Just keep trying
It literally is that simple. However we know most people prefer to keep things complex so here are more elaborate steps from think and Grow Rich:
1. Desire
The very first thing you need to do is decide on exactly what you desire. You continue life without a purpose, it’s time to decide on what you want.
Once you’ve decided on what you want follow these steps to develop your desire:
* Fix in your head exactly what you want. It shouldn’t be within reason or what you think you can achieve. It should be exactly what you want.
* Decide on how you’re going to achieve it — There is no such thing as something for free.
* Determine the exact date that you plan on achieving your goal. This must be an EXACT date, not a general timeframe.
* It’s time to create a plan. Once you’ve written your plan you must start straight away. No more excuses, no more distractions.
* Write out your goal in a clear statement — remember to include; what the goal is, when you intend to have it and how you’re going to get it. Using my goal as an example, it should look something like this:
By the 3rd of December 2020, I will have $1,000,000 in my bank account. I plan to achieve this by saving $XXX every week and then investing that money into shares. I will also achieve this goal by giving my new business 100% and chasing it relentlessly.
This is just one type of goal. You might have health goals, friendship goals. Whatever your goals are, this approach will work the same.
6. Read this statement aloud every morning and every night.
While you’re reading this imagine yourself having already achieved your goals.
For this to work you must follow these steps to the letter. You can’t cut corners. After you have done this you will have a very clear idea of what you want and a general idea of how you’re going to do it.
2. Faith
Having faith that you can achieve your goal is critical. You must develop a mental image of yourself having already accomplished your goal in order for it to become reality. This is where faith comes into play, you would never have decided to act on your goal if it wasn’t meant for you. To develop the faith needed, you must have confidence in yourself.
The formula for self-confidence is:
* I know that I can achieve my goal and I promise, right now, to do so.
* I know that my thoughts will eventually transform themselves into reality.
* I know that through the principle of autosuggestion (see next section), the goals that I constantly hold in my mind will eventually show themselves physically. So I will spend 10 minutes every day imagining myself having already achieved my goals.
* I have written down a description of my goals. I will not stop reading this until I have developed enough self-confidence to purse them.
* I will commit myself to this formula and repeat it once a day to embed it in my mind and therefore, my faith will gradually influence my thoughts and help me become a more successful person.
3. Autosuggestion
Autosuggestion is having the ability able to concentrate purely on your goal until it’s permanently embedded into your subconscious mind, to the point that it begins to feel real. In turn, you will begin to find ways to achieve your goal.
Now it’s time to build on your original statement, to better help you image having already achieved you goal. Alter your statement to read similar or exactly as the following:
By the (date) I will have in my possession $xxxxx which will come to me in various amounts from time to time during the interim. In return for this money I will give the most efficient service of which I am capable, rendering the fullest possible quantity, and the best possible quality of service in the capacity of (how you will achieve your goal). I believe that I will have this money in my possession.
My faith is so strong that I can now see this money before my eyes. I can touch it with my hands. It is now awaiting transfer to me at the time, and in the proportion that I deliver the service I intend to render in return for it.
Go to a quite place, close your eyes and say this statement aloud. While doing this imagine yourself having already achieved your goals. Do this twice a day, I suggest once in the morning and once at night. Then, put a copy of this statement in a place that you will always be reminded of it.
Overtime, you’ll have memorised the statement and you’ll be able to imagine yourself having achieved your goal.
4. Specialized Knowledge
Before you can achieve your goal, you will need specialised knowledge in the field you plan to use. It’s critical you learn everything you can about the industry or field. This means constant research — of your competitors, reading books, searching the Internet. Never stop learning. Never stop gaining knowledge.
Set time aside every day that is dedicated to research on your subject. I generally do 1 hour after work and 2 hours on weekends in the morning. I find that these times work best for me, you might find other times suit you better.
5. Imagination
Walt Disney said “ If you can dream it, you can achieve it’, whatever you can imagine you can achieve.” That’s why it’s so important to be able to imagine yourself having already achieved your goals.
As part of this section, while you’re undergoing your daily work its critical to constantly be thinking of ways to do things better. For example, you might take 1 hour to get ready in the morning, so develop a way to do it in 45 minutes or you might not be proficient in using Microsoft Excel, so take a course to become better. You always need to be looking for ways to become better and more efficient as a person.
In relation to your goal, if you ever think you can’t or it’s too hard, just remember that everything seems impossible until it’s done.
There’s always a way, you just have to find it.
6. Organized Planning
You’ve decided on your goal, now it’s time to develop a plan to achieve that goal on time.
Follow the below steps to develop that plan:
* Create a group of people (one or more) who you will need in order to reach success. This is called your mastermind group and they bring the skills that you lack in order to achieve your goals. For example you might need a mentor or someone who is really good at marketing.
* Before you develop this group decide what your strengths are and what you bring to the table. No one will work for free, although you don’t necessarily have to give back in monetary form.
* Arrange to meet with your mastermind group twice a week or more to jointly perfect your plan.
* You must maintain harmony between the groups. Remember you’re all working towards one common goal.
7. Decision — Elimination of Procrastination
There’s 3 very important key points to remember when looking to eliminate procrastination and become a better decision maker
* Procrastination and distractions are the worst habit you can have, you must eliminate both. You must stick with your plan. Anything out of the scope of your plan is irrelevant and must be ignored.
* Make decisions fast and change them slowly. Nothing great happens over night, you have to be patient. When you make up your mind, stick with it.
* Take no one under your wing, unless they’re in your mastermind group. Be very careful with the selection of the group. You have to choose those who are just as dedicated as you are.
8. Persistence
Persistence is the ability to never give up. When you combine persistence with your goals, you have a force that will enable you to achieve anything. Persistence, luckily, is a state of mind. So overtime, as you push for your goals, you’ll find it easier and easier to keep going.
Persistence is the difference between success and failure.
Persistence is built from the following causes:
— Knowing what you want
— Trust in yourself
— Planning
— Knowledge
— Cooperation and understanding of others
— Will power
— Habit
9. Power of the Master Mind
It’s important to develop a group of people who have the same or similar goals as you. This group will help you achieve your goal. It can be one or more people and they must have the same amount of motivation and dedication as you do.
The group will create an extra invisible person or force which is all the mastermind members combined. This extra ‘person’ will be the driving force of your group and will help push you to your goal. So pick the members on your mastermind group with care. Make sure they are people who you respect and will up lift you. Picking the wrong people could be the difference between your success or failure.
10. Enthusiasm
You have to really want to achieve your goal. You can’t pursue it with 50% of your effort and expect to achieve it. You have to put in 100% effort at all times. It needs to be your number 1 focus until you’ve reached it.
11. Subconscious Mind
The subconscious mind is where the impulse of thoughts that reach the objective mind, (through any of the five senses) are recorded and stored, which then, can be called upon at any time. Simply put it’s a library for thoughts.
This is where constantly reviewing your goals and imaging having achieved them becomes critical. You can voluntarily implant ideas and thoughts into your subconscious mind that you wish to transform into tangible things. This is where desire and autosuggestion are so important to the process.
Your thoughts become reality. If you think you can’t achieve your goal, you’re right! If you think you can, you’re also right!
If you have been reading your goals and continue to do so, you will be able to get them into your subconscious mind and ultimately achieve them.
You know what your goal is, define it very clearly and now imagine it. Hold it, imagine what you would have if you achieved your goal. It might be money, cars, houses, whatever it is, imagine yourself with it. Do this as often as possible, not just morning and night but all the time. If you’re driving your car, imagine it’s a better car or if you’re looking to lose weight, imagine you already have. Eventually, it will begin to feel real and you will start to see your goals unfold before your eyes.
12. The Brain
Your brain holds the most powerful force the world has ever known. If you recognise your power as a human and give it the job of achieving your goal, it’s guaranteed that you will achieve them. If you allow your mind to follow the previous steps you will literally watch your goals unfold. Failing to realise your brains full potential will lead to not achieving your goal.
You can let your mind do the work for you if you feed it the right information.
13. The Sixth Sense
This can only be understood and applied once all other steps have been mastered.
The sixth sense is the proportion of the subconscious mind, which is referred to as the creative imagination. An example of the sixth sense is like a detective getting a ‘hunch’ or a painter getting ‘inspiration’. It’s where you can call upon infinite intelligence at any point in time.
Another example to help you understand is being able to subconsciously ‘speak’ with other people in your mind. So, if I needed to make a big decision. I could close my eyes and imagine I’m speaking with, let’s say, my father and in my mind we would both reach a decision. Like I said, you won’t fully understand this unless you have mastered all previous steps.
Feel free to print this out!
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By Jesse Kerema