 How to Achieve Your Goals and Multiply Your Success
"My prayer for you is a dream
big enough to capture your heart,
bright enough to illuminate your mind
and deep enough to satisfy your spirit
May you find the strength to pursue it
and be enriched by it across the years."
- Author Unknown
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 Use Your Imagination. One of the most timeless laws of success holds that all things are created twice: first on the picture screen of one's imagination and then in reality. Those people that create rich, fulfilling lives regularly flex their imaginations and visualize a better future. By constantly holding that vision in their mind's eye and taking action to make it a reality, they overcome their circumstances and create the life of their dreams.
Create a Success Mastermind. Just as five fingers can achieve more than one, getting together with a group of like minded achievers and pooling your knowledge and success strategies will bring you to your goals much faster. Set a time every week and meet with your success mastermind. Share your goals and dreams. Share your frustrations as well as techniques that have worked for you. Support each other. Encourage each other. Celebrate even the smallest of successes as you advance confidently towards a better life.
Love Failure. Failure is the highway to success. Every successful person has faced endless failures and encountered adversity. However, rather than giving up and moving on to another easier pursuit, they persisted. They believed in themselves and in the importance of what they were doing. They had the wisdom to know that failure is an essential teacher. From failure, we grow wise. Failure teaches us how to win. Without failure, there would be no success.
Get a Coach. The Law of Duplication says that if you do the same things that someone else did, in the same way that they did them, you are certain to get the same results in your life. Whether you are trying to build a great business or grow a great family, get a mentor. Find someone who has "been there, done that." Why reinvent the wheel? Use your mentors' own experiences to shorten your learning curve. Learn from their mistakes and let their pasts serve you. Mentors need not be alive. Becoming a serious student of great people who have lived before us by reading their biographies and analyzing their personal habits will work just as well as any association with a living achiever.
Play the Numbers. Success is a numbers game. Smart salespeople will tell you that the average sale is closed on the fifth try and yet most people give up after the first. Similarly, the more times you try to succeed, the closer you get to success. The more times you ask for something, the greater the probability that you will get it. Take more chances, seize more opportunities and take more action. Just as the farmer who plants more seeds reaps a richer harvest, you will attract much more success into your own life.
Work Hard. Successful people will tell you that the harder they work, the luckier they get. In this age of the quick fix, where people buy creams to slim their thighs and pop pills to lose weight, one timeless truth remains, hard work always produces its just rewards. No undertaking can ever be successful without patience and hard work. Have the character strength to put in the effort required to reach your dreams. Remember, the harder you are on yourself, the easier life will be on you.
Have Written Goals. Goals that are not written down are impotent. By writing out your goals, they become embedded on your subconscious mind and crystallized in your consciousness. Write out your goals on 3X5 cards and post them next to your bed, on your bathroom mirror, on the dashboard in your car and next to your computer at the office. Never lose sight of your goals. Never let the busyness of the everyday allow you to forget about your life goals. By thinking about them constantly and acting on them daily, you will steadily create the brilliant life you know in your heart you deserve.
Master Your Moods. Just as you are not your thoughts, you are not your moods. Effective people don't let their moods get in the way of their progress. If they feel tired, they keep on working. If they feel disappointed, they laugh it off and keep chasing the dream. If they grow fearful, they act on their fear. By overcoming their moods, they liberate their inner power and grow stronger by the day.
How to Stay Focused and Inspired in Tough TimesThese 5 points will keep you motivated, inspired and focused as you deal with adversity:
 1. Search for the Opportunity. Napoleon Hill once said that every difficulty contains the seed of an equivalent opportunity. The person of true character has the courage to find it and then seize it in order move on to a whole new level of success. Problems are a part of life. When faced with an apparent failure or rejection, ask yourself the simple question: "what can I learn from this?" Then use the experience to grow more effective at what you do. Remember, failure is the highway to success. As J.P. Guildford noted: "To live is to have problems and to solve problems is to grow intellectually."
2. Envision a Better Day. One of the most powerful ways to stay focused and strong in the face of a setback is to simply close your eyes and picture a time when things will be much better. Visualize things going the way you want them to go. Jonas Salk said "I've had dreams and I've had nightmares. I've overcome my nightmares because of my dreams." By staying anchored to a positive vision of your future, you will remain motivated no matter how tough your current circumstances may be.
3. Connect to the Truth. There are certain "Success Truths" or natural laws of achievement that have endured throughout the ages. Unfortunately, with the frenzied pace at which most of us work and live at, we often lose sight of these truths that have stood the test of time, truths such as "just before a great victory one often faces great adversity" or "we learn and grow most from our biggest failures" or "nothing can stop a person who simply refuses to be stopped." The simply daily discipline of reading an inspirational book or a great text of wisdom from a life philosopher such as Seneca or Thoreau first thing in the morning will re-connect you to the success truths that govern the way we live.
4. Select, Reflect and Correct. Reflection is one of the most powerful yet underused business skills. Blaise Pascal mused that "All man's miseries derive from not being able to sit quietly in a room alone." Thinking deeply about the way you are doing the things you do increases self-awareness which, in turn, prevents future mistakes. Let your past failures serve you. Transform your stumbling blocks into stepping stones. Unless you reflect and correct the mistakes of your past, you are doomed to repeat them.
5. Maintain Your Perspective. Stephen Hawking noted that we live on a minor planet of a very average star located within the outer limits of one of a hundred thousand million galaxies. In light of this finding, can your problems really be that significant? While, in the heat of the moment our challenges seem to be major calamities, over time we are able to see them in a new light. All top performers have developed this ability of keeping their setbacks in a proper perspective, learning from them and then advancing confidently in the direction of their dreams.
© Robin S. Sharma
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"Be the change you want to see in the world." Gandhi 
"A person's true wealth is the good he or she does in the world." Mohammed (PBUH)
"All things are possible to those who believe." Jesus
"Life is a bridge; enjoy while crossing, but don't build a castle upon it." Upanishads
