Cycling Magazines

When thinking about the changes we’d like to make in our lives, we usually have a mental picture of what that change looks like. We imagine having a bigger house, a faster car, more holidays and perhaps a job with more status. We may even envision ourselves looking a bit different to how we look now – slimmer, more toned, better dressed.

These changes are all focusing on what we’d like to HAVE in our lives, and they’re an excellent place to begin when working out the goals we want to achieve. If we don’t have a vision of how things will be when we’ve reached the great heights of our personal success, we have very little chance of ever getting there.

But we have to be prepared to make some changes, before we can HAVE all these great things. “The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results” as Albert Einstein said. In other words we’ll continue to have what we’ve always had if we keep doing what we’ve always done, and our life will just go round in circles getting no-where.

We need to not only make massive changes to the way we DO things, but also (more importantly) to the way we think, for big leaps forward in what we HAVE.

It’s not rocket science to know that there’s going to be a tad of work to DO to earn the things we want to HAVE. It’s a basic law of life that we have to give in order to receive. But doing the work alone won’t necessarily bring the goodies we want.

We achieve success by behaving and thinking like a successful person – developing the beliefs, identity and values of an achiever before we’ve actually become one. So the person who’s goal is a new career and twice their income in the next three years has to become a conscientious student who each week prioritises a certain amount of time to studying.

If the work hasn’t been done, and the pub beckons – the pub must wait. The success mind-set says there’ll be plenty more time for the pub down the road (and more cash to enjoy the pub!) if the effort is put in first. A healthy attitude to learning makes the studying process easier, and brings results in much faster.

Success doesn’t happen on its own. Developing the mindset of an achiever is a powerful weapon against the knocks, criticisms and doubts that will inevitably come our way. We can associate with winning attitudes by reading biographies, watching films and interviews of others who’ve overcome adversities on their road to victory. A familiar thread runs through each of their stories – that what they have now is largely the result of the work they did and who they became before the gravy train started to roll.

By concentrating on becoming the person we need to BE, the work we have to DO will be more enjoyable and bring us the things we want to HAVE so much sooner.