Top 25 Ways To Achieve Almost Any Goal… WITHOUT… An Ounce of Motivation!

If you want to achieve almost any goal… then this article will show you the fastest ways to do it… and how to do it without needing to be motivated, disciplined, inspired or “tough”.

What I’ve found, is it’s great to be a jack of all trades and a master of only a couple things. You see, they say it takes 10,000 hours of dedicated practice to become a master of any craft or skill. That’s what it takes to rise to the levels of Tiger Woods in Golf… Michael Jordan in Basketball… or Floyd Mayweather in Boxing…

World Class VS The Best

BUT — I’ve discovered it takes much less — usually around 1,000 hours of practicing something to become at least world-class at it. And world class is NOT a bad place to be in for most skills/talents/abilities. (this is also why I say achieve “almost” any goal… because if your goal is to be the very best… you DO need to be extremely driven and motivated)

You see, most REALLY high-achievers, the best in their respective fields often live a VERY unbalanced life — where other parts of their lives have been totally neglected to achieve whatever goal they’re obsessed with. That’s why so many high achievers have horrible relationships with their families, are divorced, etc…

Plus, for me at least, once I gain a high level of competency in a new skill or realize I’m at a certain level — I would rather seek out new skills, new challenges, and new ways to test myself — rather than try to be the absolute best at one thing at the expense of all others.

The choice is up to you — but I’m here to tell you it’s VERY possible to become world class in a number of desirable skills, just for example:

• I’ve been a black belt for 8.5 years in Taekwondo and have won national and international titles (both in forms and sparring respectively)…
• I can walk up to virtually any woman in virtually any situation and start a conversation — a completely “cold approach” — and I’ve done this, literally, hundreds of times. (something the average male is said to do only 7 times in his entire life, and most of those times while extremely drunk)
• I’ve started multiple businesses and currently run two of them and my income is growing year after year…
• I’ve written a 4 books, and co-authored 3 other products (counting off the top of my head here, but it’s probably more) in various industries and will continue pumping out more each year…

And there’s more, but my effort here is not to brag, but just to show you that it’s possible to accomplish many different goals and achieve many different things and even become world-class in many different pursuits. And the best part.

I Did It All Without a Single Ounce Of Motivation!

So I’ve decided to write a top 25 list of ways to achieve almost any goal… without… a single drop of motivation. Why? Because Rusty Moore over at Fitness Black Book tagged me to write a top 25 post.

Here is How This One Works

The rules…

Once you’ve been tagged, you are supposed to write a post with 25 random things, facts, habits, or goals about you. At the end, choose five more people to be tagged. You also have to tag the person who tagged you. If I tagged you, it’s because I want to know more about you. To do this, you simply link to their blogs so that they know you responded to their tag.

So here goes:

1. Set Big Goals

You will never accomplish anything if you think small. Think Big. Then think bigger than that. As they say: “If you aim for the moon, even if you miss, you’ll fall among the stars”. Never be afraid to think bigger than you’re thinking right now because you don’t have to actually hit your goals and you’ll still have achieved a LOT of things.

2. Set Your Subconscious Free

Your subconscious mind is constantly being fed your thoughts and aspirations and is at this very moment helping you achieve what you’ve told it you want. Make this work for you. Read psycho cybernetics and give your subconscious mind exact commands about what you want your life to be like and then set it free, let it know it’s ok to go after this goal, and if you fail it doesn’t matter — you just want to enjoy the ride.

3. Ready, Fire, Aim

The most successful people know you don’t need “all your ducks in a row” to do something. Just get something going. Pick a target, get a little info before hand, but don’t wait around always “getting ready” jump in there and correct course as you plow forward — the most important part of success is to JUST GET STARTED.

4. Fail Forward

Change your thinking about failure. You are going to fail. It’s ok — actually it’s good — who gives a flying F*ck anyways? Successful people know that you fail forward towards success, that every time you fail you’re finding out another way that doesn’t work to reach your goal… so you are getting closer to your goal. When Thomas Edison was inventing the lightbulb and had 10,000 failed experiments what did he say? “I have not failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work.” And that should be your attitude.

5. Improve 1% Per Week

Make things easy on yourself. It’s hard to go from not knowing anything about the goal you’re trying to achieve to trying to be world class in a year (although it’s certainly possible). But if you find something you like — just make a committment to start NOW (the most important part) and make it easy on yourself, just promise to improve by 1% each week. That’s simply to do. You can do that in your sleep. Then after a year you’ll be over 50% better, the next 100% better, and so on and the compounding effect catches up.

6. Do One Thing Each Day

Most important is to always do one small thing each day to bring you closer to your goal(s) — if you do this then you’ll be unstoppable. You’ll be like a snowball rolling down a hill, constantly gathering momentum. And it goes with the rule above because you’re making incremental improvements over time that really add up. Then a unique and funny thing happens — you start to do two things each day after a while… then ten because you’re building the success and taking action habit. But start with just one simple thing a day and try to improve by a measly 1% each week and watch yourself soar higher and higher.

7. Good Enough Is Good Enough

Stop trying to get things perfect — just get things going. That’s some of the best advice you’ll ever hear about success. There’s probably BILLIONS of unfinished novels out there in the world, their writers obsessed with it being perfect before they let anyone see it — when if they’d just finish the damn thing and shop it out to publishers they would probably be best-selling authors in no time. Good enough is good enough because you’ll never be perfect anyways so just get something going and see points number 3 and 4 above.

8. Focus on The 80/20 Rule

The pareto principle states that 80% of your success comes from 20% of your activities. Put it to work in your own life and stop doing the crap that doesn’t get you closer to your goals and start doing those few things, VERY few things, consistently every day that are going to take you to your goals. This is being smart and using leverage.

9. Be 80-90% Perfect

Stop trying to be perfect, this goes with number 7, but it’s how you can be consistent without going crazy or back-snapping into a tailspin of failure. This is why people can’t stick to diets, they never give themselves room to cheat. If you want to stick to a good diet, stick to it 90% of each week — eat clean for 6 days per week — and every time you’re tempted to cheat on your diet RELISH in the fact. Look forward to cheating. Make a list of how you’re going to cheat… just know you’re going to do it ONLY on that one day a week where you’ve given yourself permission to do it.

10. Focus On The Outcome

Instead of pain/pleasure of the present moment now, associate it to what it means in the future. If you think “Going to the gym today is going to be hard!” then you won’t go. Think instead, “man after I get out of the gym today I’m going to feel great, have more energy and be one step closer to those six pack abs I want — and I’ll be able to enjoy my cheat day this weekend without feeling guilty and in a couple more weeks I’ll have all the girls hanging off me wanting to rub their hands over my washboard abs!”

11. Imagine Success

This is called the “theatre of mind” in Psycho Cybernetics. Imagine yourself succeeding and you will. Remember the clinical study where they had three groups of people shooting basketballs, the first group just shot baskets, the second group just imagined shooting baskets and the third group imagined shooting baskets AND shot baskets. The group with the action and imagination improved dramatically but interestingly enough the imagination group and the group that just shot were about even. Use your imagination it’s there for a reason.

12. Get Inspired

Read biographies of great people who did great things. It’s ok to hero worship a little bit because it will get you inspired. I used to read every Houdini biography there was, I would get inspired, get locked in trunks, escape ropes and handcuffs and everything. Then I read Bruce Lee books, got inspired, started working out, etc. Now I read books of great businessmen, get inspired, take action, and am making my own rags-to-riches story.

13. Just Show Up

“90% of success is just showing up” and it’s true because most people won’t even get that far. Try this technique: promise yourself no matter what, on a workout day you’ll at least just go to the gym and step through the door, no matter what’s going on. I know one guy who made this promise and even when he had the flue he made a point to go to the gym and step through the front door without fail on his workout days. What happens? On the days when you’re not sick, and just unmotivated, you realize “I’m already here — it’d be easier to just go ahead and get in a quick workout and get out than go all the way home”

14. Think of the other guy

Think of your opponents (or creat one in your head) and think what is he doing right now? Is he working harder? Is he getting better than me right now? Dan Gable used this when he was training for the olympics for wrestling. I heard he’d wake up from the dead of sleep, thinking about his Russian opponent, thinking “he’s training right now” and get out of bed and start lifting weights because he didn’t want his opponent to be better prepared.

15. There’s No Such Thing as Tough: Just Trained and Untrained

This is a great lesson from the movie “Man on Fire”. There’s no such thing as tough, determined, disciplined, motivated or whatever — just trained  or untrained. Every day you are training your body and mind — either to take you closer to your goals — or take you further away from your goals. Start training yourself in small ways to get better and closer to your goals each day and you’ll achieve them effortlessly.

16. Treat It Like a Job

Answer this: are you motivated, excited, disciplined, or any of that to go to work? NO! You just do it because it’s your job. You know you don’t have a choice in the matter. Treat your daily actions the same way (but realize you actually do enjoy them!) to reach your goals faster.

17. Pay Yourself Each Time You Do It

Each day, when you complete an action that takes you closer to your goal, pay yourself some reward that doesn’t derail you from your goals (i.e. if you’re losing weight on a diet, don’t pay yourself in ice cream — try going to see a movie instead!) This is success conditioning, you’re telling your subconscious mind “get me more success and I’ll get more things I like”. Like training a dog — only you’re the dog

18. Celebrate and Relive Successes

Important is to celebrate whatever success you’re having now, even if it’s REALLY small… and then relive that success in your head… then apply it to your next goal. This is the secret to using small things to achieve big things. Think of a success, any success in your life where you felt like you accomplished something — it could be putting together a coffee maker or something simple like that. Now relive those success emotions and then picture yourself with your imagination feeling those same success emotions as you achieve your future goals (the bigger goals!) and you’re well on your way.

19. Lie To Yourself

When you’re doing the hard things necessary to achieve your goals, think “I LOVE Doing this” even when you don’t. Your mind will start believing you. Your thoughts lead your words, your words lead your actions and your actions lead your results.

20. Smile when it’s tough

Smiling does a ton of things for you — but it’s the same as the principle above because smiling while you’re doing things that are tough trains your BODY to enjoy the tough things (while lying to yourself trains your mind). Do them both for a compound effect. Also, smile when you’re nervous — it’ll go a long way towards meeting girls

21. Run it like a business

Think of your life like a business. Get rid of things that are bringing the business down and not helping it run profitably (i.e. helping you achieve your goals). Likewise, invest money (your time, money or energy) into things that help it get better and profit more (reach your goals). Measure your Return on Investment with daily activities, use the 80/20 rule to become more efficient, and improve by 1% each day in a “Kaizan” method to reach your goals.

22. Stop Being a Pioneer – Copy Someone!

Anything you could want to achieve, someone has already done. And they’ve almost certainly written a book about it. “Pioneers get arrows in their backs”. Just 1.) decide what you want to do 2.) find someone who did it and find out how they did it (read their book or find out how they did it some other way) and 3.) repeat the same process they did and you’ll get he same results. EASY.

23. Embrace Change and Like Challenge

Stop thinking of change as a bad thing. By the time you’ve read this sentence your life has changed. Change and challenge are normal facets and happenings of life — enjoy them — embrace them.

24. Be a Professional

Professionals don’t need inspiration. They don’t need motivation or discipline. They know they have a job they need to do and they just do it, who cares how they feel about it. I know one advertising copywriter who writes so many marketing pieces each week — it’s the equivelent of TWO 250 page novels he writes each week. Here’s what he says about motivation: “I think the person who needs to be inspired or in the mood and/or is intimidated by deadlines and unable to write to beat the clock is ill-equipped for a high income from copywriting… … I do nothing whatsoever to get “psyched up” other than go to my writing place, put the project in front of me, put fingers on keyboard and write.” Professionals show up and…

25. “Do Work Son!”

This is what me and my friends scream when someone just gets something done, does business, and tackles obstacles. My favorite MMA (mixed martial arts) fighter is Fedor Emilianenko. Why? Because he shows up, smiles for the cameras, then his face becomes emotionless, he gets in the ring and beats his opponent, then he goes home and eats ice cream. No wasted effort, no wasted energy — he just knows to show up and DO WORK SON!

I Just Did Work Son — And Gave You 25 Ways To Achieve Almost Any Goal!

So there you go, those are the top 25 ways I’ve found to achieve almost any goal without the need for motivation, self-discipline, determination, or inspiration. Put them to use in your life today and you’ll see yourself achieving many things you never thought were possible before.

Edit: These 5 Bloggers Are Next!

So Rusty came over here and slapped me around in the comments and let me know I totally forgot to nominate 5 other bloggers for the top 25 list. Well here it is, I’m nominating my brother for his brand new blog about video games: PassionateGamer.com, Yavor from relative strength advantage and Alex over at JustKeepTheChange.com! Have fun guys