How to Get What You Really Want

“What do you want?” We hear that question in the “micro” sense all the time – sharing a drink with a friend, ordering food at a restaurant, someone wondering what birthday gift you might like… But when’s the last time you stopped and thought of it in the “macro” sense?

As in… What do you really want from life?

That’s why I hosted a special goal-setting workshop where we’re going to craft your 5-year vision together in the way the most successful people in business do.

To help you prepare for that, I want to get you thinking about what you want. And then how to get what you really want.

It sounds simple, doesn’t it? But when you look a little bit closer, write everything down, and study what you feel instead of what you think, the answers might surprise you. That’s why in this blog, we’re going to talk about how to decide what you really want so that next week we can talk about refining that desire and figuring out how to get it.

Let’s get started…

 

Your Mind is a Tricky Place

Author and public speaker Bob Proctor says that the reason most people don’t get what they want is that they don’t really know what they want. Bob met with thousands of people all over the world to ask them what they really wanted and after talking with them further realized that they couldn’t actually articulate it, so they transferred the desire onto something else.

Do you think that you want to be extremely rich? That seems like a nice goal for everyone, right? On a surface level it might, but there’s a lot that comes with being rich that you may not necessarily need in your life. If what makes you happy is constantly spending big amounts of money than sure, but what the majority of people want is to just not have to worry financially.

If you’re in this group, then depending on where you live and the factors surrounding that, all you need to do is figure out what that amount of money would be for you to not be stressed.

 

It’s Usually Not About “Stuff”

Everyone likes having a nice car, a nice house, going out to fancy dinners, and taking luxurious vacations, but are these your goals? If they are, that’s fine, but we need to keep in mind that we only get to set so many goals in our life that we’re actually capable of achieving.

Whatever your goals are, they should be worth giving precious time in your life for, things that last and create purpose in your life.

 

Your Definite Chief Aim

Probably no other book in the history of the world has made as many millionaires as Napoleon Hill’s “Think and Grow Rich.” This book changed my life when I was young, and a lot of that comes from Hill’s biggest point – having a Definite Chief Aim that you remind yourself of every day.

Your Definite Chief Aim is your reason for living and the one thing that everything else in your life is based around. If you could only accomplish one thing in your life, what would that thing be?

This is key to goal setting. To figure out what this is, write down everything that is important to you and everything you want to do and have over the course of your entire life. Then start to cut down. Most people are surprised when they get down to what it really is.

 

Finding Balance

Even though your Definite Chief Aim is the biggest thing in your life, it’s not the only thing in your life. Every person has these categories in their lives:

  • Health
  • Wealth
  • Family
  • Career
  • Travel
  • Contribution
  • Relationship
  • Social / Fun
  • Spirituality

Your Definite Chief Aim could fall into any of these, but all of them are important to finding balance. And a balanced life is a happy life.

So try to figure out what you really want for each one of these categories and then check it against your Definite Chief Aim. You might find that some of them aren’t compatible. Is your Aim to raise a big family but you also want a job where you travel constantly? Is your aim to contribute positively to the world but you work for a company that has a negative impact on communities?

We need to make the connections here if we’re going to find out what we really value.

 

Get Ready to Set Your Goals

I hope this has been helpful and will help you take the first step to learning how to achieve goals you’ve set. Figuring out what you really want is hard. It takes a ton of emotional energy and a lot of hard realizations, but once you figure it out, the rewards will start to pour in almost immediately.