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

To be nobody but yourself
in a world which is doing its best, night and day,
to make you like everybody else
means to fight the hardest battle
which any human being can fight,
and never stop fighting.

~ E.E. Cummings

Photo courtesy of geeknerd99

As the world is buzzing about the keynote speech Steve Jobs gave yesterday at Macworld Expo, I want to draw your attention to another speech he gave: the commencement speech at Stanford University in 2005.

In this speech Steve Jobs tells three stories. They are stories with a message of the lessons life presents and about how your choices define the outcome of those lessons. The underlying message throughout the speech is a message of authenticity, about being true to your own values, needs and wants, about listening to your own inner voice.

Enjoy this 15 minute video:

Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma — which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of others’ opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary. - Steve Jobs

Photo by Miss Karen

Whenever I’m in a dry spell of inspiration, also known as writer’s (blogger’s?) block, a bottle of red wine will re-ignite the spark of inspiration in me. As helpful as this may be, it also puzzles me. What is it about red wine that makes me creative, when without it creativity comes to a grinding halt?

Red wine, or more likely the alcohol that’s included in the package, has mysterious effects when it comes down to human behavior. It affects feelings, creativity, conscious thought, rationality and, when consumed in too large quantities, even motor skills and control of stomach and esophagus (don’t click!).

Back to the original question
What is the effect of red wine that makes me creative again? I think it comes down to two things:

1. It shuts down rationality
2. It takes away inhibitions

These effects make each other stronger. If rationality is not important, inhibitions have no (rational) basis anymore. And with the inhibitions gone, irrationality is not stupid anymore. Creativity is often a spark of the unexpected. And that, down to the core is irrational; otherwise it was to be expected (or not?).

I, for one, never thought I would ever write about red wine and the effects on human behavior (or my behavior anyway) on a blog about self improvement and achieving authentic success. But it makes sense anyway.

Why do we need inhibitions in the first place? They only make sure we are ‘normal’ and ‘fit in’. You are an original, no matter what you do. If it is what everyone else is doing, that fine! And if it’s ‘different’, that’s fine too!

I think I’m different…how different are you?

This post was written right at the end of a dry spell by the way…time for a refill.

TED has some great new additions to their collection of valuable videos. The TED collection of videos is a great source of inspiration for me. Today I’ve spent my early morning hours watching some great videos (I visited the moons of Saturn for instance, and got a glimpse of how the world feels today)

And there’s a video I want to share with you. I wrote before about how Richard Branson is a source of inspiration for me. If you haven’t read his autobiography (it’s a great read!), you can now watch a 30 minute video of Chris Anderson of TED interviewing him. I embedded it here for your convenience. Enjoy!