Path to Your Destiny

When Saturday rolls around and people take a detailed look at their past week, they often showcase a variety of emotions. On one hand, people are elated that they made solid progress towards their dreams; on the other hand, people are saddened by the fact they’re not sure where or how much progress was actually made. Across the board, these people vow “Next week I’ll have a sharper focus and get more accomplished.”

9 times out of 10, this type of weekly review fails you. Why? Because it’s flimsy, it doesn’t hold you accountable for what you’ve done (or didn’t do). Your memory is inherently biased; you don’t think in terms of specifics, you think in terms of visuals. When you try to objectively look back at your past week, what comes out is a mess of “I did this… sort of did that… didn’t do that at all… ah, oh well, next week will be better!”

An easy way to circumvent this disastrous problem is to keep a simple track of all of your accomplishments during the course of a day - what I like to call your “daily success log”. When you meet a daily quota for a goal that you set - say, 30 minutes of exercise - write it down on a running file on your computer or a page in a notebook (divided up by days, of course). You can choose to track a certain area that needs desperate improvement (such as health and fitness) or an overall “improve my life” spectrum that covers everything.

I’ve been using a daily success log to track the various advertising and marketing aspects of my blog - blog carnival submissions, forum posts, blog comments, emailing other bloggers, the list goes on and on. I have to say, from first hand experience, keeping a log of everything I’ve done really helps me keep focus. When I’m having a lackluster day and nothing seems to be going in my favor, I just look back at the accomplishments I’ve made so far. That propels me to go even farther and try even harder to get something done; my motivation returns!

You can use a daily success log to track a variety of things in your life:

• Health and Fitness - max amount of time you want to exercise / watch TV / sleep / stay online, max amount of cups of coffee you want to drink, calories eaten, % of calories coming from fat
• Career - # of leads followed up on, hours spent researching / formatting / completing a project, # of applications sent in to various employers
• Hobby and Free Time - amount of time practicing a musical instrument, # of posts you made in your blog

If you wanted, you could break everything down into even greater detail. For example, if you were logging how much you practiced a musical instrument, you could elaborate with what time you practiced at, what pieces you practiced, musical problems you fixed, and technical difficulties you want to solve in future practice sessions.

All in all, a daily success log holds you accountable for all of your actions. You can’t elaborate or escape cold, hard facts - you either did action that moved you towards your goals, or you skipped out and didn’t do anything. Your log will say it all!

Try out the log for a couple of weeks. What aspects of your life can you begin to keep tabs on? What improvements can you make to the basic outline I presented here?

For most people, “change” is regarded as one of those seven dirty words you can’t say on TV. Why? Because change can be a really terrifying ordeal to work through! Who wants to change when everything can stay the same it is now? Why should we even bother with improving our lives? Of course, these two questions are for each person to decide for his- or herself. As for me, I’ve always regarded change as something vital for my life. Change is definitely something I look forward to!

Change can either be gradual or sudden. Gradual change would be along the lines of starting an exercise program and carrying it out for six months. You would see a few immediate results from your workouts, but the fruit of your labor would come later on down the line. Other examples of gradual change would be learning an unfamiliar musical instrument, writing a romance novel, or reading five books on your favorite subject.

People are usually accepting of gradual change. Why? Because it’s controllable! Using our above example, you can totally decide if you want to hit the gym or not. (And, well, for most people, the decision is obvious!) When you have a degree of control over something - anything - if change happens, it’s suddenly not so bad. You can always revert back to how you were at the drop of a hat, and nothing would be too different than how you started.

Sudden change, however, is what drives people mad. Sudden change is - you guessed it! - sudden changes in your life that normally involves circumstances out of your control. If the sudden change is in your control, it usually involves an incredible lifestyle switch. Examples of sudden change would be divorce, a death of a close friend or family member, or relocating to a new city. Sudden change is heavily characterized by sweeping emotions, new role learning, and total life adjustment to new circumstances.

Sudden change is scary! No wonder most people don’t like change! If you had to deal with the aforementioned changes every single day, life would become unbearable. It’s for this reason that people outright reject all change to their lives, instead wishing “everything would always stay the same”. To them, change is the epitome of death to themselves. If their world changed, they themselves would change, and to change themselves would mean to change their life. That’s something these people don’t want to do, at all costs.

But is rejecting gradual and sudden changes really a way to live? To me, that’s the #1 way to completely stall out your life. Myself, I believe change = growth. A life changing experience - which can be anything from the birth of a son or daughter to becoming more healthy to learning a foreign language - is something that can promotes growth as an individual. It makes life richer, more rewarding. Constantly tackling changes in your life head on can make life an incredibly fascinating experience.

Without change, there can’t be any growth. If everything constantly stayed the same, your life would literally stagnate. Your earthly existence wouldn’t get any worse, of course, but it wouldn’t get any better either. And that’s okay! Some people choose to keep the same job for 40 years. It’s their choice. Some people don’t move out of the area where they grew up; some people keep the same friends they’ve had since high school or college; some people hold on to their childhood values for dear life as they grow older. That’s fine - you are completely entitled to do that.

But can you really grow if you stay in the same area, hold onto the same values, and keep the same job you have? You can, to an extent. There’s some wiggle room in there for improvement, and you can definitely learn a new thing or two. But you can never experience real growth if you don’t bash through your comfort zone and change your life completely every once in a while.

Shake things up! Read a new book on an obscure subject. Travel to a place you’ve always wanted to explore. Write that country song you’re itching to get out of your brain. Start up a blog on your favorite subject. Join a brand new religion for the thrill of learning how it functions. Do something that changes your life.

It’s up to you to embrace a life of constant change, excitement, and thrills. What’s your decision?