persistent Archives - The Goalden Lady

#TBT: How To Create Your Own Luck

We hear people say, “I got lucky.” Luck does exist to an extent, but it’s not something you want to depend on blindly to carry you through life.

They type of luck we’re talking about is built on intentional effort. You can create your own luck by having discipline, focus and being persistent. Build your foundation by creating your own luck.

Build Up Your Own Luck

Discipline. Being able to do things when you don’t feel like it, takes discipline. Getting up earlier than normal to put in extra work, takes discipline. Trying again after you failed 2 times before, takes discipline. Moving forward after people have criticized your efforts, takes discipline. Exercise your discipline muscle everyday – it’s the only way you will see results.
Focus. Giving strict attention to one thing is focus. It’s not jumping up to answer the phone when it rings. Your focus allows you to work on your goals fluently, without giving in to interruptions or distractions. Get focused if you want to see your luck happen.
Persistent. You can’t have it if you give up. Being persistent is what makes luck happen. Giving in just because you’re tired is the weak approach. Persistence is continuing the process until something happens. Nothing short of death will stop you from making progress. This is what luck is made of.

Be Mindful Of Your Goal

As you can see, getting lucky takes diligent work. No matter what your goal is, discipline, focus and persistence will create your luck, every time. No magical outside forces are needed to make it happen.

What attracts being unlucky? Mindlessly watching television, gossiping, scrolling through junk on social media and having desperate, uninspired conversation.

These things don’t contribute to luck because they don’t lead to productivity. Laying around in bed, waiting for life to happen, is a sure way to being unlucky. It doesn’t enhance your plans in any way.

Take The Lucky Route

It’s easy to be unlucky, but it takes positive and mindful action to become lucky. Think about your end goal and work backwards to where you are now. Take the first step. No more research, but physical action – making that phone call, eating that salad, or walking for 20 minutes.

By utilizing these 3 characteristics, you can create your success many times over. Begin with baby steps.

Don’t do what everyone else is doing – whatever they’re doing isn’t going to help you. Create your own luck.

How To Persist, Without Giving Up

We think that successful people are smarter than we are. They had this genius idea, threw it out into the world and it was accepted immediately.

That’s where we’re wrong. Those that have achieved, what we call ‘the impossible,’ aren’t different from us. They are regular people who chose to be persistent.

Anybody can be successful. The only thing that holds us back is our lack of persistence and giving up.

3 Tips To Stay Persistent

Excuses are for the weak. Being persistent takes courage. There are a million reasons you can give that will keep you from starting. “I don’t have enough money,” or, “I don’t know how to do that part.” Excuses hold you back from your greatness, but if you are confident, you can work past them. It’s easy to create excuses, but it’s hard to create progress. No matter how fast or slow you are going, as long as you’re moving forward, you are improving towards a result. You won’t make it there with excuses, but you will make it, eventually, if you ignore the distractions.
Do the hard things. Of course, we would rather take the path of least resistance, but most of the time, that won’t get you far. If you have to find a needle in a haystack, start looking. Most people would automatically give up because they think it would take too long, or they don’t have time to do such tedious work, but if you don’t start, you’ll never get there. Even if the task requires you to do more than expected, do it. You want to know what separates you from the others? Doing the work! No one else is smarter or better than you, they just decided to do the hard things that other people shy away from.
Encourage yourself. Some people give up on their goals because there was no one there to keep encouraging them. This is what you wanted to do – this is your promise to yourself. It’s great when we have people in our corner to cheer us on. Sometimes, you have to be your own cheerleader. It’s not their responsibility to keep you motivated or to make sure you don’t give up. You must hold yourself accountable. There will always be someone in the crowd ready to discourage you, but there won’t always be someone there to encourage you. Use your progress as personal encouragement – you are farther along than you were the day before.

Expect Difficulties, But Don’t Give Up

The most important thing you need to know is that it will be hard. Again, it will be hard.

When we stop expecting things to come easy and deal with the obstacles as they are, growth happens. Growth creates forward movement and that’s what carries us to success.

Facing obstacles and challenges head on will give us instant clues on what to do next. It didn’t work this way? Try that way. Did it go too fast? Next time, slow it down a little. You’re perfecting your path, one obstacle at a time.

Down 9 Times, Get Up 10

In today’s society, we are living in the age of instant gratification, but achieving your goal is a process that isn’t microwaveable. Your social media feed shows you everyone’s success, but it won’t show you the time, dedication, and focus it took to get there.

Don’t be intimidated by someone else’s accomplishment – it’s just a reminder that you can do it too, as long as you remain persistent and focused. Whether it takes two months or two years, you have the ability to make it happen.

It’s exciting to put your life’s puzzle together, piece by piece. There’s no doubt that it will take some time, but we are all capable of creating our outcome. If anyone asks, just tell them you’re still working on it, but it’s all coming together.

#BeGoalden

Change The Path, Not The Goal

We all want to get there in as little time and pain, as possible. No matter what it is, our logic tells us to take the path of least resistance.

If you haven’t noticed, that path leads no where. It takes you directly to the place where you don’t want to be or back to square one – with the other average people.

The entire point is to get to your goal. You start and you hit an obstacle. That’s what happens. You figure it out (hooray!) and then you continue. Something happens that sets you back two steps. You deal with it.

Your belief in reaching your goal is strong, but a few months in, your faith begins to get a little shaky. “There has to be a better way,” you think.

Doing your best, you come up with a plan and switch your game up. That seems to help! Once again, you’re making progress. You can see the top of the mountain and you’re getting closer and closer.

After turning down dinner with friends, working through the weekends and remaining disciplined and focused, you finally reach your goal!

Congratulations! This is what it takes. Too many of us want the quick and easy way to the end. We want to see it before we even start to move towards it, just to be sure it’ll get us to where we want to be. The only way is to start and feel your way until you get there.

Everyone wants to see the path before they take it.
The Goalden Lady

We can plan that path, but understand that it will not always lead to the desired destination. It’s up to us to not quit – go back to the drawing board and create a new path.

Change the path, not the goal.

Let’s take football, for example. The object of the game is to get to your side of the field, with the football and score a touchdown. Every play that your team makes is important. Sometimes, your team will fumble the football and set you back 20 yards.

Then, you use another plan to throw the ball down the field. It could get intercepted or your team mate could catch it and run as far as they can, without getting tackled.

Or, you could pass the football to the running back for them to run as far as they can, while avoiding getting tackled by the other team.

Your team never stops, even if the ball is turned over to the opposing team – they keep trying with a different plan, to score a touchdown.

Even if the odds are against you to make a touchdown, you can still make an attempt to kick a field goal to get some points (which is still progress).

Both teams change their plans many times to reach their goal, but they never stop. When someone gets hurt, the game may stop for a while, but it continues. The goal still has to be accomplished.

This is how it is with your goals. Have a mindset that never quits. People will ‘tackle’ you and try to push you out of bounds (or away from your goal). Like the relentless football player, you must keep moving down the field until you score a touchdown. There’s no other way.

It’s time to play ‘football’ with your life. Never stop reaching for success. The clock hasn’t run out. Until then, you can keep changing and adjusting your plan an infinite number of times.

Change your path and adjust as often as you need to, but remember to keep the goal in front of you, at all times.

#BeGoalden

How To Finish Strong

The year is winding down. There are only a couple of weeks left until the New Year. Everyone will begin to think about their goals and resolutions.

What about the goals from this year? Did you complete some of them or all of them? How can you effectively move on to new plans without completing your current plans?

This is the time of year where everyone starts to begin making plans for next year. We skip the record and go straight to the end. How about finishing this year, first?

Don’t let up on what you have going on this year. Finish this year strong, so that we can have an amazing start to next year. First, we have to close this year out, successfully…

Have a year-end review. How did things turn out? Were your goals too big or too small? Did you feel comfortable reaching them or was it too difficult? These are important factors to consider when making plans for next year’s goals. Maybe you can go a little harder or you could create more time to dive into your plan. Be strategic when preparing your objectives.
Keep up the momentum. “There’s only two weeks left, I’ll take it easy…” This is where you want to work your hardest. Towards the end, we tend to slow down because we see the finish line. Keep pushing with the same (or more) energy you’ve been working with. Just because it’s close to the end doesn’t mean you’ll automatically finish victoriously.
Build next year’s goals with intent. Goals should be broken down into more achievable pieces. This way, you won’t get too overwhelmed with the process and you’ll feel a sense of accomplishment. Continue to structure your plan according to the end goal. Don’t give up in the middle and have to start over. Even if you didn’t reach the goal, keep it going into next year. It may be the year it all comes together!

Remember, taking your foot off the pedal and cruising into next year doesn’t serve you in any way. Review what you’ve done, make adjustments and keep moving with dynamic strength.

Don’t allow time to sneak up on you and get away by slowing down. Use it with purpose and dedicate yourself to the end result.

If anything, be more persistent as the end draws near. You may be closer to your results than you think.

#BeGoalden

How To Become Remarkably Persistent

What does it take to be persistent? Is it reserved only for those who are playing at a high level? When does it happen? How does it happen?

Being persistent is when you continue to follow through with your actions, no matter what obstacles get in the way. It could be big or small, but persistence is what keeps you going towards your desired result.

People will attempt to set simple goals, but what most lack is the ability keep moving, after the first or second setback. Setbacks happen, but it is up to us to maintain enough persistence to keep going.

Persistence can be the difference between achieving a goal and being complacent. Anyone can be persistent, with the following suggestions:

Create a plan. This could be setting a goal or something as simple as completing a daily chore. When you set a time to do something, preferably at the same time everyday, you’re building power behind the habit. No matter what, everyday you will brush your teeth. Or, no matter what, everyday at 6pm, you will exercise. Create a plan that will build the habit.
Take action. As simple as it sounds, do it. Develop your habit until you can’t go without performing it. This is where the disconnect lies, because a lot of people will stop after 3 days or once they come across a challenge, they’ll stop altogether. Keep performing the action until it becomes second nature to you.
Develop a “no matter what” mindset. When you develop a “no matter what” mindset, it sharpens the habit of becoming persistent. You will mentally feel better, knowing you pushed through and made progress, as opposed to quitting. If you don’t take your daily run because it was raining outside, it will haunt your mind. Maybe you could’ve ran in the rain or done something else to get some type of exercise done. Don’t allow silly things to stop you. Do it, “no matter what.”

Persistence promotes satisfaction, which promotes a peaceful mind. A peaceful mind promotes a restful sleep. A restful sleep promotes a productive start to your day and a clear mind.

The true test of persistence comes when you’re tired, distracted or your plans have been thwarted. Persistence will give you a little more strength when you’re tired, laser focus when you’re distracted and a creative mind to continue your plans.

Learn to become persistent with these tips. You will notice a gradual progression with your goals. By encouraging your habits through persistence, you’ll open yourself to more opportunities.

Don’t live a lazy life – be persistent. Put your best efforts forward everyday and watch your goals unfold!

#BeGoalden