As I talked about last time, rewarding yourself for accomplishing your goals, whether on a daily basis for small goals realized or on a larger scale, is very important. I want to continue with that today, as well as some of the changes that come as you make progress along the way.
Remember, when you reward yourself, it’s an affirmation of not just your accomplishment, but also of the structure and processes that you have put in place. You are rewarding yourself for engaging in a process that leads to your success. See how that works?
As you begin to put a structure into place that allows you to accomplish what you need to each and every day, you get things done. You accomplish necessary steps that bring you closer to success. And then you reward yourself for meeting your goals that are a part of that structure. Each side supports the other!
Now, when you commit to achieving success, you become successful on a daily basis. When that happens, you’ll find that things will begin to change for you. You will see positive changes in your own behavior in both your personal and business life. You will also see changes in your relationships with other people, both professionally and personally. When most people see another person achieving success, they naturally gravitate toward that person. It’s a basic law of attraction. People will want to help you along the way…
As a side note here, it’s important that you not only reward yourself for the goals you achieve, but also the people in your life that are helping you achieve your success. It might be your spouse or your partner, or it might be your team under you—your assistant, your agent, your finance person at the bank—they’re all important people. It is in your interest to reward them as well.
When you reward the people who are helping you, it creates the same affirmative momentum as it does with you. When you reward certain behavior, you get more of it in return. This creates a positive synergy with your team, your spouse or business partner—or all three of those parties. The basic idea is that through positive teamwork that is affirmed and rewarded, you will accomplish much more, much quicker than you can by just working alone!
There are many ways of expressing the idea of a mind-action relationship. One is simply, “as you behave, so shall you live.” Another is “the deed shapes the heart.” What do these have to do with your success? Quite a little bit, to tell the truth.
Let me tell you what I mean. A big part of your behavior is helped by the structure you build around yourself, right? It’s that structure that actually guides and reinforces your behavior in accomplishing your goals. But a complementary part of that behavior is your thought process or mental behavior.
How you think about your life and your goals has a direct influence on your ability to accomplish them. Just as you put structure into place to move the process to success forward, and performance monitors to keep you on track, you also want to put a mental structure in place as well. That’s just business 101 isn’t it? You are constantly reviewing your progress, aren’t you?
Athletes do this all time. They do it with time goals and training regimens to see where they are today and where they need to be for the next competition. But they also do it mentally as well. Athletes train to win; no athlete trains hard and then goes into a match thinking he’s going to lose, does he? No, he trains to win and he prepares himself mentally to win. All successful people do this.
It’s no less important that you hold a mental picture of your success, whatever that is, and maintain the mental attitude that affirms you reaching your goals. When you see yourself achieving your goals in your mind’s eye, it propels you forward in the process and in taking the steps you need to take get there. Expect to be successful. This positive mental structure reinforces the structure you put in place for yourself; but it also does something else.
When you hold your idea of success in your mind, it helps you and those around you maintain a positive attitude when things don’t go right in your day or when a problem or obstacle arises. Success is not about not having challenges in your life or even in your daily routine; there will always be obstacles that may seem to be preventing you from accomplishing your goals. We all have plenty of those.
There’s really only one way to look at an obstacle: as a challenge to overcome and to learn from. Any other way looking at it does you no good. Know this and don’t ever forget it: Obstacles are a given in life. All successful people will tell you that being successful doesn’t mean all obstacles are removed from your life. Actually, it’s quite the opposite. Successful people are that way because of how they are able to overcome the obstacles before them.
You see, it’s not the obstacle that is so important as much as it is your behavior—how you choose to overcome them—and your mental behavior—your attitude toward those obstacles. If you make an obstacle bigger than it is, then your attitude, your mental behavior, is really the bigger obstacle in your way, not what’s in front of you at any particular moment. Like everything else in your journey to success, it all comes back to you, doesn’t it?
That’s why creating a mental structure is so important. You want a solid and powerful mental structure that not only empowers you to accomplish your goals as quickly as possible, but one that serves you well when things are not going well.
Positive changes can and do occur over time. It’s not an immediate process to success, but it is a process that builds upon itself according to your actions and decisions. Understand that success, after all, comes as a result of making good and wise decisions over time with a goal firmly in mind and an attitude that leaves any other outcome other than success, impossible.