How to Avoid False Starts and Progress Fast: Part 1

This guest post is written by InspireRobin. This is the part 2 of this series. If you haven't already please read How to Avoid False Starts and Progress Fast: Part 1.  

The primary lesson you will learn from any personal development program, tape, seminar, or any other such medium is that we all need to take responsibility. What do we need to take responsibility for? In short, everything! We need to take responsibility for where we are today, what we have today, our health, our mental wellness, and we most certainly need to take responsibility for our future. In five years, you're going to arrive. The question is where? Your job is to plot that journey, and it is a job that only you can do.

After you've taken responsibility you will find that you now have a mission. It is a logical step, and one that you must take to continue onto the next step. And the next step is to actually start improving yourself. That's what your goal is after all.

Now you'll need to get a program, book, audio tape, or take a class on some area or aspect of your life that you want to change or improve. The beautiful part is that it doesn't matter what it is, and it doesn't matter who teaches it. If you're looking to improve in an area then you will find value in just about any resource you sincerely apply to your life. You can seek to improve your personal, religious, educational, professional, or relationship skills. Starting this program is going to get the ball rolling, and it's going to have you firmly placed onto the track you desire. Momentum is an important part of our lives beyond just physics. As humans, we have a tendency to develop patterns and keep doing the "usual" but starting with personal development we're changing the usual into something far better.

You've taken responsibility. You've started a program. But now what? How do you avoid becoming one of the millions of people who start and never finish? Now that you've put together your desired program and built a little momentum our aim is to see it through. Starting and starting will not get us on the fast track to personal success. We need to become finishers.

We can help see our program through by being very real with ourselves. Our expectations are going to play a major part in our success. Furthermore, we're going to need to examine how we are doing. Just like in school, you take test after test and go through exams as you pass onto the next grade. It's very unreasonable for us to think that we can start with being a painfully shy introvert one day and wake up in a month and be the top salesman performing flawless cold calls all day long. Eventually we can get to that point, but we've got to set ourselves up for success and monitor ourselves along the way. Our teachers did that job in school, but now that we're all grown up we must carry this heavyweight, serious responsibility on our own.

Seeing Is Believing

To help you review your progress and stay on course you simply take a little time at the end of each week and put pen to paper. First, write down the positive things you did during the week towards reaching your goal and completing your self improvement program. Next, write a couple lines on areas you can improve upon in the coming week. Give yourself a realistic grade on a scale of one to ten. Once the next week concludes, do this process again but also compare notes. If you see the same problems popping up over and over then you need to kick it up a notch and change something immediately. The key to making this procedure work is to simply make sure you are doing the review session regularly. It's more than a simple writing exercise. It's a tool you use to analyze yourself, in addition to being a major player in your future success.

Welcome to the Party

Undoubtedly, if you start your program and review your progress you are now in the top 5-10% of the population. It didn't take a six-figure income and it didn't require a 140 I.Q. score. It's quite incredible, and the formula is so simple that many people simply dismiss it. Apply it to your life and you'll move from being a starter to becoming a finisher.

You too can be in the top 5%. Even better than that, you can be on this track tonight! You've got to recognize the areas in your life you want to change. Then you need to find a program to help you improve it. Remember, finding any program is the key. Avoid looking for the super-perfect-end-all program that you've never been able to find yet. Once you start the program, help yourself finish it by consciously monitoring your progress and rewarding yourself for taking these necessary, albeit completely voluntary steps toward your better self. Your contribution to your own personal development will reward everyone you associate with, and it will grant you incredible personal rewards that can only be earned by living the superior life you know you deserve.