Enhance Your Lifestyle With NLP+©: Ways To Achieve Anything You Want

By: Shantanu Das Sharma, Sr. Associate Editor-ICN Group

Flexibility is simply the ability to constantly change our strategy and do whatever it takes to get the results we want.

No man will change for the better until he sees the need for it.

– Socrates

KOLKATA: Now, we got to understand that people who succeed are those who perceive failure as feedback. They subsequently use this feedback to change their strategy and take action once again. They keep repeating this process over and over again until they get what they want. So, how is it that so few people are willing to keep changing and taking action until they get what they want? Why do so many people quit along the way? Worse still, why do some people even procrastinate in initiating action? The most appropriate reason is that while everybody desires to succeed, only a few are truly COMMITTED to their goals. Predominantly for most people, having more money, more freedom, more security and more success is a desire. They think it would really be great to have it. And they can live without it, if they had to. As a result, they never take action as something more important always comes up to fill up their time. Do you recognize such trends in your life experiences too? Probably yes. Then you are at the RIGHT place to learn how you may choose to shift your ways to change your outcomes.

Now consider this. When a goal is nothing more than a feeble desire or a wish, you will find yourself being held back by setbacks, frustration and failures. People whose goals are nothing more than desires will only do whatever is within their comfort zone to achieve it. Beyond that, they will give themselves all kinds of excuses for not doing it. As a result, they will never do whatever it takes to get what they want.

Research shows that,

There was once a financial advisor during my stint of career abroad (outside India) who approached me for advice. He had been in the business for five years and had attended many seminars and read many books on sales and success. Right from the start, he had set goals to achieve the Million Dollar Round Table (MDRT), which represents the top 6% of advisors in the world. However, he couldn’t understand why he could never get close to the mark, despite working ‘so hard’. He asked me what he needed to do to get there. I sat with him and gave him a whole list of action steps and strategies he had to put in place to increase his sales. I told him that he needed to make 20 cold calls a day, attend two networking functions a week, invest in impressive looking brochures, spend his nights targeting night shift workers (who are a big untapped segment), spend his weekends presenting seminars and organizing road-shows with side walk surveys. He was also told to upgrade his product knowledge skills every month. As I went along, I could tell that doing all these things were going to stretch him well beyond his comfort zone. And he was not prepared to give up his weekends; he was not prepared to spend some late nights prospecting nor was he willing to invest money in brochures and upgrade his skills. He started coming out with excuses like ‘I don’t have the time’, ‘I don’t have the money’, ‘I don’t like reading’, ‘I’ve never done it before’, ‘It’s too much work’ and so on. As we parted, I doubted that he would use even one of the techniques I suggested, even though he knew that it was a proven formula with many others I had worked with. This man is typical of those who set goals but are not prepared to do whatever it takes.

Soonest a Goal Becomes a MUST… We Operate from a Different Mind-Set

People who achieve their goals are those who are truly committed to get what they want. To them, their goals are not a mere wish or a weak desire. They are an absolute must. When a goal becomes a must, we operate from a very different frame of mind. Moment something becomes an absolute must, we will do whatever it takes to get it (within ethical, legal and moral boundaries, of course).

No sooner something becomes a must; we will stretch well beyond our comfort zone and keep changing our strategy as many times as it takes to succeed. Time and again, you will notice that people who succeed are those who show this level of commitment. In fact, I believe that failure, setbacks and frustrations are life’s ways of testing our level of commitment. Most people fail this test by quitting when they hit major obstacles. The few who succeed do so because they do whatever it takes to overcome obstacles. I truly believe that when something becomes a must for you, and you are willing to do whatever it takes, you will always find a way!

And majority of my coachees and trainees can vouch that they are succeeding with flying colours today simply by adopting this simple shift in their approach. Are you ready to learn more about how to go about this? Then read on.

‘You will never achieve anything in your life…unless you make it a Must’

Moment We Give Ourselves No Option but to Succeed, We Will Always Find a Way!

It could be truly amazing to realise what we are capable of achieving when our life depended upon it. Have you ever set a goal to lose weight through constant exercise and dieting? Most get excited and motivated for a couple of days or even a couple of weeks but pretty soon they give up and fail to get any results. ‘I just don’t have the discipline!’ many people would say.

Let me ask you. If someone were to put a gun to the head of a loved one and threatened to kill that person unless YOU lost 10 kg in a reasonable period of time, do you think YOU will be able to achieve it? I am sure you will.

In reality we all have the resources and capabilities to achieve any goal, it is just that we lack a compelling reason… a MUST to do it. When something becomes a MUST, it taps into our unlimited personal resources and this enables us to achieve virtually anything!

Is Your Desire a ‘Must’ or a ‘Should’?

For most people, achieving success in anything is rarely a must. They would like to lose weight, but it is not a must. They would love to make more money, but they won’t die without it. They wish they could take charge of their lives, but they could live without it. The moment something becomes a ‘should’ instead of a ‘must’, you will rarely achieve it. You will always find a way to put it off or to quit the moment you meet resistance.

People like Sylvester Stallone, Steven Spielberg or Donald Trump who achieve success are not born more focused, more disciplined or more lucky than the average person. What makes them different is that they make their goals a must for themselves. They are not willing to accept anything less than the best.

So let me ask you a question. Are your dreams and goals an absolute must or are they just weak desires that you can live without? Have you been truly committed to do whatever it takes in the past or have you quit and given yourself excuses along the way?

Anything That You Ever Achieved in the Past, Was a Must.

If you have achieved nothing of ‘worth’ up till now, then nothing has ever been a ‘must’ in your life.

Have you ever put off doing certain important things in your life? I’m sure you have. However, have there been things you have put off that you eventually got round to doing? Like writing a report, filing your tax returns or signing up for an exercise program. But one day, you finally may have finished that report, filed your tax returns, and began that exercise program.

I want you to write down four goals or tasks that you kept putting off, but eventually achieved.

Well, what made you get them done eventually? Was it because things got to the stage where it became a ‘must’ for you? You had to get that report done or risk losing a contract and being fired, you had to file your tax returns or risk being fined and sent to jail. You had to lose weight or risk a heart attack. Think about it, all the times in your past when you finally managed to do something really tough that you were proud of, was it a must for you at the time? I’m sure it was.

Unfortunately, we end up doing only what is necessary to survive and live a mundane life. Since living an exceptional life is NOT a must, we NEVER take enough action to do it.

Now, think of all the things you always wanted to do and achieve but never managed to. Think of all the desires and dreams that you’ve put off to a point that you have given up on them. Be honest with yourself. Was it a must for you to have achieved, or something that would have been ‘nice’ to have? Was it achieving an ideal weight? Starting your own business? Achieving a career performance target? Learning a foreign language? Working in a foreign country? Aiming for an MBA? Invest in your personal mastery program?

Write down four goals or tasks you have consistently put off until now.

It should be very obvious that the reason you have not taken action and done whatever it took was because these goals never became a must for you. They were never a necessity that moved all the way up your list of priorities to kick you into action. The only way we will ever achieve our dreams and live an exceptional quality of life is when we raise our ‘level of acceptance’.

(I facilitate Thought Leaders, Change Makers; Professionals & Business Owners translate NLP concepts into actions to achieve and elicit personal excellence. I conduct NLP Lifestyle Coaching Certification programs for individuals, corporate and celebrity clients. In next articles in the series, I will continue with this topic about ‘Ways to achieve anything you want’ and after that you will come to know in the following articles, how you can utilise concepts of NLP+ in all walks of your life to replicate the success blueprint of a winner mindset to win through life.  So, stay tuned every Monday & Saturday and fasten your seat belt to ‘Enhance Your Lifestyle With NLP+’)

My #1 Amazon Best Selling book ‘Awaken The Incredible Within – Incredible Is The New Giant’ is available at Amazon in English at  http://bit.ly/Awaken-The-Incredible-Within

Shantanu Das Sharma, Creator of the concept NLP Lifestyle Coaching with NLP+, Founder of Neuromind Leadership Academy is an Amazon #1 Best Selling Author, NLP Lifestyle Master Trainer & Coach, Clean Language Facilitator & Strategic Interventionist.