There is one quality which one must possess to win, and that is definiteness of purpose, the knowledge of what one wants, and a burning desire to possess it.
Since you become what you think about most of the time, a major definite purpose gives you a focus for every waking moment. As Peter Drucker said, “Whenever you find something getting done, you find a monomaniac with a mission.”
The more you think about your major definite purpose and how to achieve it, the more you activate the Law of Attraction in your life. You begin to attract people, opportunities, ideas, and resources that help you to move more rapidly toward your goal and move your goal more rapidly toward you.
By the Law of Correspondence, your outer world of experience will correspond and harmonize with your inner world of goals. When you have a major definite purpose that you think about, talk about, and work on all the time, your outer world will reflect this, like a mirror image.
A major definite purpose also activates your subconscious mind on your behalf. Any thought, plan, or goal that you can clearly define in your conscious mind will immediately start to be brought into reality by your subconscious mind (and your superconscious mind, as we will discuss later).
Each person has within his or her brain a special organ called the “reticular cortex.” This small, fingerlike part of the brain functions in a way similar to a telephone switchboard in a large office building. Just as all phone calls are received by the central switchboard and then routed to the appropriate recipient, all incoming information to your senses is routed through your reticular cortex to the relevant part of your brain or your awareness.
Your reticular cortex contains your reticular activating system. When you send a goal message to your reticular cortex, it starts to make you intensely aware of and alert to people, information, and opportunities in your environment that will help you to achieve your goal.
For example, imagine that you decided that you wanted a red sports car. You write this down as a goal. You begin to think about and visualize a red sports car. This process sends the message to your reticular cortex that a red sports car is now important to you. A picture of a red sports car immediately goes up onto your mental radar screen.
From that moment onward, you will start to notice red sports cars wherever you go. You will even see them driving and turning corners several blocks away. You will see them parked in driveways and in showrooms. Everywhere you go, your world will seem to be full of red sports cars.
If you decided to buy a motorcycle, you would start to see motorcycles everywhere. If you decided to take a trip to Hawaii, you would begin to notice posters, advertisements, brochures, and television specials with information on Hawaiian vacations. Sending any goal message to your reticular cortex causes your reticular activating system to make you alert to all possible ways to make that goal a reality.
If you decide to become financially independent, you will suddenly begin to notice all kinds of opportunities and possibilities around you that have to do with achieving your financial goals. You will see stories in newspapers and recognize books on the subject wherever you go. You will receive information and solicitations in the mail. You will find yourself in conversations about earning and investing money. It will seem as though you are surrounded by ideas and information that can be helpful to you in achieving your financial goals.
On the other hand, if you do not give clear instructions to your reticular cortex and your subconscious mind, you will go through life as though you were driving in a fog. You will be largely unaware of all these opportunities and possibilities around you. You will seldom see them or notice them.
It has been said, “Attention is the key to life.” Wherever your attention goes, your life goes as well. When you decide upon a major definite purpose, you increase your level of attentiveness and become increasingly sensitive to anything in your environment that can help you to achieve that goal faster.
Your major definite purpose can be defined as the one goal that is most important to you at the moment. It is usually the one goal that will help you to achieve more of your other goals than anything else you can accomplish. It must have the following characteristics:
1. It must be something that you personally really want. Your desire for this goal must be so intense that the very idea of achieving your major definite purpose excites you and makes you happy.
2. It must be clear and specific. You must be able to define it in words. You must be able to write it down with such clarity that a child could read it and know exactly what it is that you want and be able to determine whether or not you have achieved it.
3. It must be measurable and quantifiable. Rather than “I want to make a lot of money,” it must be more like “I will earn $100,000 per year by (a specific date).”
4. It must be both believable and achievable. Your major definite purpose cannot be so big or so ridiculous that it is completely unattainable.
5. Your major definite purpose should have a reasonable probability of success, perhaps fifty-fifty when you begin. If you have never achieved a major goal before, set a goal that has an 80 percent or 90 percent probability of success. Make it easy on yourself, at least at the beginning. Later on, you can set huge goals with very small probabilities of success and you will still be motivated to take the steps necessary to achieve them. But in the beginning, set goals that are believable and achievable and that have a high probability of success so that you can be assured of winning right from the start.
6. Your major definite purpose must be in harmony with your other goals. Your major goals must be in harmony with your minor goals and congruent with your values.
A woman approached me at one of my seminars and told me that she had decided upon her major definite purpose. I asked her what it was. She said, “I am going to be a millionaire in one year.”
Curious, I asked her approximately how much she was worth today. It turned out that she was broke. I asked her what kind of work she did. It turned out that she had just been fired from her job because of incompetence. I then asked her why she would set a goal to acquire a million dollars in one year under these circumstances.
She informed me that I had said that you could set any major goal you wanted as long as you were clear, and she was therefore convinced that was all she needed to be successful. I had to explain to her that her goal was so unrealistic and unattainable in her current circumstances that it would only discourage her when she found herself so far away from it. Such a goal would actually end up demotivating her rather than motivating her to do what she would need to do to be financially successful in the years ahead.
I made this same mistake myself when I was younger. When I first started setting goals, I set an income goal that was ten times what I had ever earned in my life. After many months and no progress at all, I realized that my goal was not helping me. Because it was so far beyond anything that I had ever achieved, it had no motivating power. In my heart of hearts, although I wanted it, I really did not believe it was possible. And since I did not believe it was possible, my subconscious mind rejected it and my reticular cortex simply failed to function. Don’t let this happen to you.
Here is the key question for determining your major definite purpose: What one great thing would you dare to dream if you knew you could not fail?
If you could be absolutely guaranteed of successfully achieving any goal, large or small, short term or long term, what one goal would it be? Whatever your answer to this question, if you can write it down, you can probably achieve it. From then on, the only question you should ask is, “How?” The only real limit is how badly you want it and how long you are willing to work toward it.
One of my seminar participants was a professor of chemistry at a leading university who had won a Nobel Prize in chemistry two years before in partnership with two other scientists. He told me that when he started his university career in his twenties, he decided that he wanted to make a major contribution in the field of chemistry. That was his major definite purpose. He focused on it for more than twenty-five years. And eventually he was successful.
He told me, “I was clear from the very beginning. I never doubted that I would eventually make such a significant contribution to chemistry that I would win the Nobel Prize. I was happy when it happened, but it was not a surprise.”
Everyone wants to be a millionaire or a multimillionaire. The only question is whether or not you are willing to do everything necessary and invest all the years required to achieve that financial goal. If you are, there is virtually nothing that can stop you.
You remember this exercise from the last chapter. Take out a sheet of paper and write down a list of ten goals you would like to accomplish in the foreseeable future. Write them in the present tense, as though you had already achieved them. For example, you would write, “I weigh X pounds” or, “I earn $X dollars per year.”
After you have completed your list of ten goals, go back over the list and ask yourself this question: “What one goal on this list, if I were to accomplish it immediately, would have the greatest positive impact on my life?”
In almost every case, this one goal is your major definite purpose. It is the one goal that can have the greatest impact on your life and on the achieving of most of your other goals at the same time.
Whatever goal you choose, write it on a separate sheet of paper. Write down everything that you can think of that you can do to achieve this goal, and then take action on at least one item on your list. Write this goal on a three-by-five-inch index card that you carry around with you and review regularly. Think about this goal morning, noon, and night. Continually look for ways to achieve it. And the only question you should ask is, “How?”
Your selection of a major definite purpose and your decision to concentrate single-mindedly on that purpose—overcoming all obstacles and difficulties until it is achieved—will do more to change your life for the better than any other decision you ever make. Whatever your major definite purpose, write it down and begin working on it today.
1. What one great thing would you dare to dream if you knew you could not fail?
2. Make a list of ten goals you would like to achieve in the months and years ahead, in the present tense. Select the one goal from that list that would have the greatest positive impact on your life.
3. Determine how you will measure progress and success in the achieving of this goal. Write it down.
4. Make a list of everything you can do that will move you toward your goal. Take action on at least one thing immediately.
5. Determine the price you will have to pay in additional work, time, and commitment to achieve your goal, and then get busy paying that price.
6. Do something every day that moves you at least one step closer to your most important goal.
7. Resolve in advance that you will never give up until you are successful.