Tips to reach your goal

The stories of celebrity achievers reveal that you can achieve your dreams only if you believe you can.

As per Sigmund Freud, founder of psychoanalysis, dreams reveal a person’s deepest unconscious wishes and desires. Such wishes and desires should not become just an aspiration, but inspire one to channelise energies to realise their desires by self-awareness, planning and effective execution.

A success formula means a proven path to achieve what you want in the academic and professional life. The first requirement is therefore to identify your dreams, passions and desires. Remember, your professional success depends on attaining the required knowledge and life skills.

Success formula

A formula for achieving success is to define a clear strategy and take a series of identified courses of actions as below:

Smart goals: Your dreams are a manifestation of what you want to do or achieve in your life. To achieve your dreams, convert them into Smart goals, which should be specific, measurable, achievable, realistic and time-bound. Such process goals have to be defined for every stage that you go through in pursuit of your final goals.

Self-belief: As per Napoleon Hill, the key factor for success, is indomitable faith in one’s ability, because 95% of people fail simply due to lack of belief in themselves. Having self-doubts kills more dreams than failure does as negative thoughts stop one even from thinking big. Swami Vivekananda also emphasised the importance of this attitude, when he said, every human being has enormous power which remains largely unutilised.

Key resources: To become successful, apart from having vision and faith, you need key resources:

Learning is facilitated by active listening in the classroom which includes receiving information, understanding, responding to teachers and remembering or recalling. Classroom learning should be enhanced through associated learning habits like concentrating on the meaning of words as you read, increasing eye span and mind training.

Decide a clear strategy for entrance exams, group discussion and personal interviews. Finally, ensure personal discipline restricting television viewing, mobile and social media usage.

Convince and prepare your family members to support you, irrespective of challenges and difficulties.

Identify a mentor having academic and industry expertise to guide you.

Organise financial resources through family resources or a bank. Education is a priority sector and loans are easily available; collateral security or a guarantor may be needed for higher amounts.

Effective: Effectively executing your plan is vital to success. At times, despite your efforts and hard work, you might be reaching nowhere. This is similar to an entrepreneur who has to meet several investors before someone buys his idea or a football player who makes several attempts before hitting a goal. It is good to remember that difficult roads lead to beautiful destinations. You should learn from every situation and review your position vis-à-vis the new challenges and adapt your strategies accordingly. Work closely with your mentor, as they provide not just strategic support but rekindle the faith in yourself, making the journey smoother and enjoyable.

Professional and life skills: Success lies beyond academic excellence and attaining professional and life skills is a must. Acquire skills through self-learning or joining training centres. Essential life-skills comprising cognitive, personal and interpersonal skills are necessary to thrive and flourish in any career and also in personal life. Periodic updating and sharpening of your skills is a must.

Reviewing and rewarding: To achieve your dream, you will have to pass five to six intermediate milestones. For example, clearing your Class 12 or Pre-university exam is an important milestone. When you reach such milestones, do pause for a while, review the next process and celebrate your achievement. Celebrating small wins or rewarding yourself upon reaching milestones increases your self-esteem, and will motivate you to reach the next milestone, with increased vigour and energy.

Dreams help to shape your career by establishing goals. Imagining the long-term benefits of your dream career can be a key motivating factor. Like a true champion, continuously evaluate yourself at every stage creating new benchmarks of excellence to be happy and successful in your professional and personal life.

(The writer is a management and career consultant, based in Bengaluru)