Mission

One thing that is absolutely necessary for success when committing to a new positive lifestyle is having passion. Goals without passion are hobbies. Goals with passion become a mission! The word mission adds strength to your cause. It signifies a desire to succeed even when times are difficult and you experience temporary defeat. Keep in mind that you CAN succeed at every mission you set out for. There is only one condition to the previous statement... you are never allowed to give up!

Too many people throw away their dreams on account of a single failure. Failure simply signifies a lousy plan. It is important that you differentiate a plan from a goal. Plans are the rules you've decided to follow while on your mission. Plans are allowed to change and fail throughout the mission. Your goals however are clear, desirable and never change. The failure of a plan is what helps us learn how to develop stronger plans. The larger the failure, the more opportunity there is to succeed in subsequent efforts. Some of the greatest success stories in history involve individuals hitting rock bottom only to spring to the top and achieve successes beyond their original goals. The one thing all of these people have in common is they were able to accept and move on from the failure of their plan, but not the failure of their goal/mission.

Here are some tricks to keep you on your mission:

• Cut off all forms of retreat: This is like the story of the warrior chief who burned all of his boats after landing on an island with his army. By doing so, the only options were to win or die (even though he was out-numbered, he won)! A common way to cut off retreat is to make your goals public. By doing so you will be held accountable by your peers
• Autosuggestion: This is a mental exercise where speak your written goals twice a day to help affirm your desire and implant your positive mission into your subconscious. Considering that your subconscious accounts for almost all of your daily physical actions, having your goal programmed in this corner of your mind will assure that all of your actions are directed towards achieving your major purpose.
• Get Emotional: By recognizing and attaching human emotion to your mission, you are breathing even more life into your goals. Try to focus on positive emotions. If you focus on negative emotions you will tend to only recognize the negatively associated results.
  
• Measure and evaluate: Don't fall in love with your plan! You should always objectively measure and evaluate the effectiveness of your plan. The quicker you can recognize a failing plan, the faster you can change course and realize your overall goal. I see soo many people doing their same stagnant routine day in and day out with the hope that someday they'll magically start seeing results. Hope is not a viable plan!
• Use people: You don't have the answers to all of your problems. The more effectively you utilize the help, knowledge and strengths of others, the faster the success you'll find on your mission. There's no use in reinventing the wheel. Learning from the hardships and mistakes of others helps you forgo the same setbacks.

Get passionate. Get desire. And most of all, GET STARTED!