Breaking through your goal barriers

Breaking your outcome barriers

I have many outcomes I wish to achieve in my life and there are many outcomes
I have already achieved. What usually happens is the outcomes keep getting
bigger the more I achieve. This is a great sign that I am doing something
right in my world. Over the years I have heard a lot of people say, keep
it real and keep your outcomes realistic and achievable. Yes make them
achievable but if it’s achievable it’s not unrealistic. Let
me share a story with you going back to 1998:

I was elated as I had achieved my dream of making over £30,000, on paper,
on the stock market. I hade been investing in shares since 1998 but I
soon discovered I loved the thrill and started day trading. I lost a
lot in the beginning, about £4000. I set myself an outcome of
making £100,000 and focused on it for weeks. My balance started
changing from being in the red to being in the black. I upped my trading
game and started playing the markets using spread betting. Within the
space of a few months I was getting closer to my outcome of £100,000. However
as soon as I started going from a deficit to making a profit I stopped concentrating
on my outcomes. The tech market was really flying and I was feeling on
top of the world. I was skipping university (one of my other goals was
to get a degree in psychology) to stay at home and day trade.

I remember one day I had £100,000 in shares, again on paper; I was trading
on a 14 day contract. Then the tech market started falling. I panicked
but thought it will turn again, this was just a blip. Pretty soon I couldn’t
get rid of my shares as nobody was buying they were all selling. I wouldn’t
sell for the ridiculous amount they were offering. Then the realisation
of the market being in meltdown hit me.

Eventually I went bankrupt to the tune of £65,000 and it was not a good
feeling at all. I walked out with an education in money and a degree
in psychology; I managed to get my degree in 2000. That was the year
that changed my life forever.

I was so low and feeling down. I started looking at my outcomes again
and started to concentrate on them again. I attended a seminar by Jack
Black and immediately said to my friend ‘that’s what I will be
doing with my life’. I wanted to be a motivational speaker. To
get there I had to achieve other outcomes first. I was in a small flat
in Govan, Glasgow (not the best area of town). I set outcomes to meet
my perfect woman, which I have written about, be married, have a lovely house
with a veranda overlooking the garden, a car, no debt, 2 children a boy and
a girl, have money in the bank, have a good job. These were all outcomes
way beyond what I thought I could realistically achieve but I kept at them
and focused every day.

Today I have all those things (except for the veranda) and I am extremely
happy with my life. I am still looking at being a motivational speaker
but I am about 10 steps closer to that dream than I was.

The point of the story is to illustrate that no matter how low we are in our
lives we can still concentrate on our outcomes even if it feels impossible
to reach. The other point is that no matter how unrealistic our
outcomes seem keep working on them as todays realistic is tomorrows standard.

Think big

That’s the beauty of setting outcomes, you don’t have to worry
about how they will be achieved, just concentrate on achieving them.

Another huge lesson I learned from all of this is dream big. When I
first started setting outcomes for my life I thought about achieving little
things, and then when I achieved them I had to think a little bigger. Don’t
limit yourself when setting your outcomes. If one of your goals is to
get out of debt don’t focus on paying of one credit card at a time concentrate
on having absolutely no debt and having money in your savings account?

The breakthrough method of achieving

When I used to practice Tae Kwon Do I had a mental block about punching through
the boards. I was always afraid of breaking my hand and I couldn’t
quite hit the thickest board hard enough to break through it. My teacher
saw this block and told me I was ‘hitting the board to break it’;
I looked at him slightly puzzled. He told me to imagine that the board
is 6 inches behind its actual position and try to break the imaginary board. I
mustered up the energy and force and imagined a board behind the actual one
and broke through it first time. This was a great breakthrough for me
in tae Kwon Do and in life. He told me to do this when fighting an opponent,
if you are aiming for his stomach aim 6 inches behind his stomach, if you are
kicking his leg aim 6 inches to the side of his leg. This way I am concentrating
all my energy and power on the imaginary rather than the actual and I am going
through the actual board, leg, stomach or whatever it may be.

This was the single most important lesson I ever learned in Tae Kwon Do. It
is the same with your outcomes. If for example you want to make £10,000
in savings this year, aim for £20,000. If you want to clear your
credit card debts this year aim to clear of all your debts. If you want
to meet a nice partner to settle down with aim to meet ‘the perfect’ partner
to settle down with. For every single outcome you want to achieve in
life, aim that little higher and you will get more of what you want in life.

Now I know there will be some people who say ‘Oh you are just setting
yourself up for failure’ this is rubbish. Anybody who wants to
succeed at something will always achieve it if they work hard enough and know
exactly what they want and work on it mentally and physically every day.

Aim beyond what you want to achieve