AMY HANSEN

Everyone has goals that they work towards.  Some achieve them while others don’t.  It makes you think, what’s the difference between these people?

The following five step process will help you become one of the success stories and stay motived toward reaching your goal.  It all starts with simply believing.

Believe It Is Possible

You must believe the goal is something you can achieve.  You may not have any evidence that the goal is possible, but you must believe it anyway. This belief gives you motivation to keep going, even when things get difficult.  Other people may tell you it’s impossible.  This is when you have to believe even harder.  You have to believe in your goal more than anyone else in order to achieve it.

Believe In Yourself

Not only do you have to believe in your goal but you have to believe in your ability to make it happen.  Again, other people may put you down saying you’re not capable of doing something so great. However, you must have a strong belief i...

You may not even realize it but you’re limiting yourself from living life to your fullest potential. Here are four ways you’re limiting yourself.

Fear 

Fear limits you from trying new opportunities.  It’s easier to stay in your current situation than to try something new that you’ve never done before.  This is because you don’t know how it will turn out.

In new situations you automatically start running through all the different worst case scenarios.  Maybe you will fail, maybe it will feel uncomfortable or you’ll embarrass yourself.  You interpret the new opportunity as too hard, dangerous or too much to try.  Whatever it may be, your brain just wants to keep you “safe.”

Your brain knows that you’ll be safe by remaining in your comfort zone.  You won’t have to face failure, discomfort, or embarrassment.  Your brain decides that anything that is different than the norm should be avoided.  That’s why you crawl back into your comfort zone.  But this way of being only keeps ...

Sunday is the perfect day for planning out your week.  You may be thinking that a structured week sounds so busy and overwhelming.  You’d rather not have anything planned during the week because it feels freeing.  But the truth is, you’ll remain feeling overwhelmed because you’re not planning out your week to accomplish tasks that are nagging at you.

There are plenty of tasks floating around in your head that you need to get done.  Those tasks are causing you unneeded stress because your brain is trying to remember them all.  Your brain is trying so hard not to forget what you must get done this week.  That’s why planning out your week is essential to your success.

Brain Dump

A brain dump is getting all of your to-dos, errands, and must get done tasks down on paper.  Take everything that’s floating around in your head and write it down.

Also, think about things that will prevent you from getting these tasks done.  Perhaps you need to ask someone for help and need to coo...

The decisions and actions you take determine your future.  You are in control of your life as far as the thoughts, beliefs, and actions you take. These will all determine the outcome of your life.

Think of it this way, you are the captain of your ship.  You can steer it any which way you would like.  But first you must acknowledge that you are behind the wheel and in control.

Your response to a situation is something that you are in control of.  You can choose to respond with negativity to a situation or take responsibility for the outcome.  Perhaps the decision you made didn’t turn out the way you had hoped.  Instead of consuming yourself with negativity you can use it as a life lesson.

Life lessons are important to learn so you’ll improve and do better next time.  Look at these lessons and take responsibility to recognize where you went wrong.  But also, don’t forget to celebrate what you did right.

Be intuitive of your thoughts and feelings.  Notice if you’re beating...

Every moment your mind is flooded with thoughts.  It can be difficult to quiet your mind and simply sit there in silence.  That is your challenge this week.

Schedule five minutes to sit in silence.  This practice will allow you to pause for a moment.  It’s time well spent to stop thinking about the mounting pressure of your to do list. 

Set a timer for five minutes.  The timer is used in case you become so relaxed that you fall asleep.  Sitting in silence will not only help quiet your ever busy mind, but it will let you to be more present.

Lay on the floor on your back with your legs stretched out and your arms by your sides.  Palms up if you feel like you need clarity on something and would like to receive guidance.  Palms down if you want to feel more grounded and present in the moment.  Close your eyes.  You may hear some sounds around you but the key here is to quiet your mind.

Your mind may be racing with things you think you should be doing instead of lying there....

Growing up you may have been the star student or the good child.  It became your identity to prove your worth; that you were smart.  Evidence of getting an A grade would only strengthen your identity and confirm that perfect exists.  You were celebrated with “great job” and expected to continue the perfect streak.

Now, as an adult, you may be struggling with perfectionism because you’ve had this expectation for so long. Believing that everything should be perfect before you start a project or put yourself out there.  Often you say, “if I just did this, then I will be ready.” But once you do, you just find another reason why it’s just not quite perfect yet.  This way of thinking only keeps you stuck.  You’re expecting to have all the right answers and the full path mapped out in front of you before you begin.

The truth is, there is no perfect time.  And when you think about it, your definition of perfect may be different than my definition. So, who’s right?  Honestly, it doesn’t...

Focus on one thing in order to make progress.  Think of it this way, you have five soccer balls.  You can kick one ball five times or kick each ball once.  The ball that is kicked five times is going to go farther than kicking each ball once.  This is the idea of focusing on one thing so it gets to completion faster.

Focusing on one thing will help you achieve that goal faster.  Putting your energy toward multiple tasks will deplete your brain power much more quickly than if you were to stay focused on one thing.  Instead of splitting your time between multiple tasks, focus on one thing at a time.

It’s been thought that multitasking is a skill.  You may even have it on your resume.  But studies have shown that when you multitask, it takes you brain longer to get back into the flow of things.  Toggling back and forth only confuses your brain rather than letting it focus on just one thing.

Think about a time when you were deep in thought and someone came up distracting you wi...

You may be thinking the goal in life is to be happy all the time.  That’s like saying you should be a perfect human being and never make a mistake.  It’s nearly impossible to live up to that standard.

Rather than focusing on being happy all the time, you must look for the meaning in life’s situations.

Maybe you’ve encountered a difficult time in life.  You look around and see other people are happy and not dealing with the same difficulty. In this moment, you have two choices.

You can choose to let this get you down and believe the world is out to get you.  Rightfully beating yourself up for feeling negative emotions about your current situation because life isn’t perfectly happy all the time.

The second option is to choose to acknowledge that there is meaning in this situation.  You may not see it now, but once you’ve made it through the other side, you can look back and find meaning.

Finding the meaning in a situation can be a lesson you need to learn in order to ...

Mindset plays a big part in the success of your life.  One of the most important mindsets you can have is a belief in yourself.

The famous quote from Henry Ford, “whether you think you can or you think you can’t, you’re right” speaks perfectly to mindset and believing in yourself.

If you believe something is possible, you can make it happen.  If you doubt yourself and think you can’t achieve it then that becomes your reality.

Having the mindset to believe in yourself is the first step toward your success.  Sometimes you dream up the most outlandish thoughts and have someone say there’s no way you can do that.  All of a sudden, the little voice in your head starts flooding your mind with thoughts of disbelief.  At that point you have a choice.  Do you let that person hold you back from going after your dreams or do you say forget them and go for it?

You can’t live your life dictated by the thoughts and beliefs of other people.  We must forge a path of our own and step ou...

Thoughts can hold you back from taking action and living the life you’ve always dreamed of.

You think, “oh I can’t possibly do that” because you don’t have all the answers, know all the steps, or have the path fully figured out yet.

You want all the steps laid out in front of you before you begin.  Mostly, this is because you don’t want any surprises along the way.  Doing something you’ve never done before can be a bit scary. You think you’ll be more prepared if you plan out the path and it may save you time by avoiding mistakes along the way.

Trying to figure out the perfect path only keeps you stuck in research mode.  You say, “once I do this then I’ll be ready.”  The funny thing is, you figure out that one thing and then you come with another reason why you can’t get started.  You continually sit in this holding pattern, planning out what to do when it never actually gets done.

Perhaps it’s because you’re afraid.  Afraid that you’ll make a mistake, look stupid, get j...