Become an Achiever.

Are you tired of watching from the sideline while others mount stages and receive accolade under glittering spotlights for achievements you know you can match or surpass?

Achievers in any field, from sports to sciences, or politics to arts will tell you they always knew success was coming their way. Even trying to be humble, downplaying own agency and attributing instead to luck or a divine power, they let it slip when pressed that there was only going to be one outcome.

There is no genius gene. We can achieve whatever we set out to do that is within our capabilities, and capabilities of others around us. If in doubt, reflect that you walked and talked without prior know-how. More profound, you did both without being taught; you simply observed. In Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP) that is termed ‘modelling’.

Again, it’s observed that majority of a group rely on high-creativity of a few in that group: Price’s Law. Thus, by modelling achievers, societies are sustained.

So, how do achievers do it?

If like me you’ve thumbed through hundreds of pages of autobiographies, you would’ve discovered that though they may have excelled in different careers, all achievers have one thing in common. But I’ll shock you to say it’s neither focus nor willpower – one can be focused doing nothing – instead, it’s ‘narrowed interest’.

Unlike the majority who have varying interests thereby make good company at social events, achievers are boring. They’re only interested in whatever it is they’ve achieved, whether writing a book, inventing a technological appliance, breaking an Olympic record or becoming a political leader.

In fact, if you take out time to search YouTube for any famous achiever, you’ll find using repetitive jokes and phrases to different crowds several years apart. You’d think they’re robots.

Remember ‘modelling’?

Thank goodness wearing all-black or becoming eccentric like most achievers isn’t how you model their success. However, you can trick your brain to work like theirs using a NLP technique: ‘well-formed outcomes’. 

It’s a mental exercise that I’ve broken into five questions we must ask ourselves, and shift our mind-frame from enormity of our goals to tiny actions we must take to achieve them.

What is my goal? Basic as it seems, many of us do not know what it is we want. We mask our uncertainty by saying we just want to be ‘happy’. Vague, not specific. 

Achievers are people who have attained a specific goal. Happiness is what happens on the backdrop of daily living. So, make your answer here concrete: becoming an Olympian; a writer; a project manager or may be attaining a specific body weight. 

Be excited by whatever it is you’ve made your goal.

What is my capability? Identify things you’re able to do towards achieving that goal independent of help from anyone. You must take responsibility for your goal and must be able to move towards it without help. 

If you require a skill, qualification or an item to take that first independent step, acquire it. Your capability will build on gradually from there.

How will achieving my goal make me feel? Visualise you’ve achieved your goal, in sensory terms. 

So, if your goal is, say, writing a book, see your book’s cover in your mind’s eye; feel your book’s thickness in your hands; rub your hands all over it. What colour is it? Brighten the colour(s); see your book title; smell its pages. 

In that mental image, are you alone when box of your book copies is delivered to you, or are people there with you? If you have company, what are they saying?

Is your goal weight loss? Imagine yourself in front of a mirror at your specific desired weight, perhaps size 12 or waist 32. How do your clothes look on you? Brighten that mental image and associate with a pleasant smell. Are you alone in front of that mirror, or is someone with you? What are they saying?

Whatever your goal, doing this mental exercise right will immediately increase your energy levels towards achieving it. You may notice your heart beat fast, you may even become sweaty.

How will achieving my goal make those around me feel? From previous mental image, your thoughts automatically flows on. If your goal will make you a public figure or require solitude, how will that affect your immediate family and friends? 

This should fire you up towards achieving your goal. If instead it yields conflicting thoughts, resolve whatever negatives that your subconscious mind has thrown up about achieving your goal, or at least become aware of it. Perhaps it’s seeing your family less, losing friends or even more.

Can I look back from my achieved self and see myself today? Grab a pen and paper at this point. Visualise again that you’ve achieved your goal. You’re excited. 

Now, from that future achieved excited self, look back at yourself today. 

Begin routing your way back to today. Note down every stage backwards and what you had to do to get to that stage. Get sensory feelings of each stage, until stage before today, then stop.

Look at your paper. On there are tiny actions – your enormous goal broken down into ‘narrowed interests’ – you need take to become an achiever. Start!