Develop a desire to achieve
One of the first steps I teach in my P.I.P.S. course is about setting goals and the system I use is the SMART system which I spoke about in ‘The secret to making money from property developing’. Well after nearly 8 months here is the second part to the secret of making money from property developing.
We’ve all set ourselves targets and goals and failed at them, it’s part of the learning game of life. However did you ever stop to ask yourself why you failed? A lot of people fail at something and just brush themselves off and get on with it. I have encountered many people in my life and one of the main reasons I see people failing is the lack of desire. Now you might be thinking ‘I have failed in the past and it’s nothing to do with desire’, I have to tell you it was because you didn’t have enough desire. I have the desire to make myself a cup of tea as soon as I wake up in the morning but sometimes I fail to do this because I fall back asleep. That’s an oversimplified example but if I truly had the desire to make that cup of tea, I mean real burning desire, I made it my sole focus each morning to get up and make that tea what would happen? I would get up and make that cup of tea because my desire is strong, it is burning, there is a passion there to succeed. A lot of people might think they have desire but they have a want and a hope which is totally different from desire.
I know when someone has a true desire, I have seen it so many times. How do I know? Well there are signs:
- You see it in their eyes
- You hear it in the way they talk
- You see it in their actions
I constantly think about my property projects and how I am going to succeed, and I am always on the lookout for my next project. I go to bed late thinking about property and I wake up early thinking about property, it always there because I have a true desire to succeed.
How to develop desire and passion
I use and teach a two part strategy to developing desire and passion.
The first part involves making two separate lists. I hear you groaning, ‘not a list, I hate lists’. This list is different, this list can literally change your life so bear with me.
I want you to think about a goal you want to achieve. When you have this in mind take a sheet of paper and list all the benefits that achieving this goal will give you. It could be financial freedom, personal happiness, spiritual freedom, wealth, more time with the family. Think of as many as you can. Once you have hit around 20 you will find that your goal will be unstoppable.
Now what I want you to do is make a second list of all the challenges you might face if you do not achieve this goal. Warning! This can be pretty scary and a real eye opener.
Reward and fear
The observant among will have noticed that the above lists represent to two motivating factors in every single action we take in life: reward and fear. The first lists represents reward and its all the benefits that happen when you achieve your goal. The second list represents fear of what might happen if you don’t achieve your goal.
Think about it for a second. You are reading this as you feel there may be some benefit to be gained from reading it which is a reward. There is a small goal to your action which is to learn something. What about the fear factor, well you wake up every morning to go to work as you fear you will not be able to pay the bills every month if you don’t get up and go to work.
The fear factor can be a huge motivator in life and has been shown to be one of the best motivators when trying to reach a goal.
When you are first starting out in the property developing field the fear factor may be high but as you go along and stick with it and the desire becomes stronger the fear factor will diminish and move toward the reward factor.
When is the time to take action?
RIGHT NOW! There is never a better time to take action than right now. Get that piece of paper out and start writing about the benefits of your goal and then the consequences if you don’t achieve that goal.