Develop The Internal Willpower To Succeed

Goal setting is not a mind game. It is a process of developing the internal willpower to accomplish what you have set out to do.

~ Joan Benoit Samuelson (Olympic Marathon Gold Medalist)

Setting goals is one of the ways successful people use to get themselves moving. They use it, among other techniques, to stretch themselves and accomplish more than the average person. They don’t use goals as a trick though. The goals they set themselves are the result of an inner desire and get so ingrained in their system that there’s no way to stop them.

Joan Benoit Samuelson called it the process of developing the internal willpower to accomplish what you have set out to do. She won the first ever Olympic marathon for women in Los Angeles in 1984. I’d say she knows what she’s talking about.

The willpower needed to accomplish goals is not a fixed and unchangeable trait. It’s not something you either have or don’t have, it’s a trait that can be cultivated, trained and developed. There are several things successful people do to get that willpower ingrained in their system.

They focus on doing one thing right

To get that willpower successful people choose to focus on only one thing, but they do that extremely well. It takes guts to make this choice, because it goes right against common knowledge! In school we learn to spread our risks and never put all our eggs in one basket. While that minimizes the risk of losing it all, it also minimizes the chance of any real success. Even Warren Buffett works by this premises!

I can’t be involved in 50 or 75 things. That’s a Noah’s Ark way of investing - you end up with a zoo that way. I like to put meaningful amounts of money in a few things.

~ Warren Buffett (big time investor)

The mention of Noah’s Ark is funny, but I’d say Noah was kind of focused on one goal as well. And a pretty serious goal too!

They work hard to improve themselves

Successful people have in common that they work hard. No, even harder than that! They work - work - work and practice - practice - practice. They develop an inner drive to be better today than they were yesterday. And if they feel they’re not there yet, they don’t stop for the day yet. Success is not an accident, it’s the result of a lot of hard work and of wise choices.

It’s this work and improvement ethic that helps to develop that internal willpower to accomplish what you set out to do. It’s the “Don’t quit…ever” attitude, and is built on a strong belief that they will be successful at it at some point in time.

I learned that the only way you are going to get anywhere in life is to work hard at it. Whether you’re a musician, a writer, an athlete or a businessman, there is no getting around it. If you do, you’ll win-if you don’t you won’t.

~ Bruce Jenner (Olympic Decathlon Gold Medalist)

They can easily snap into concentration mode

Besides focusing on only one thing, which is more mid to longterm oriented, successful people have developed the ability to fully concentrate at the job at hand now. They block out all distractions, physically or mentally, and direct all their energy on the activity they are executing in the present.

And that activity is more often than not focused on their goal and destined to improve them to accomplish it in time or sooner. And that ability to concentrate is one of the ways to get there sooner!

When every physical and mental resource is focused, one’s power to solve problems multiplies tremendously.

~ Norman Vincent Peale (positive thinker)

Photo by starryeyez024