5 Reasons Why Desire is All You Need

We all have goals we want to achieve. At least, I hope you do! On our way to success, we can encounter many roadblocks and obstacles along our way.

If it’s not outside circumstances that may get us off the path or influence our progress then it’s our internal state of being that’s getting us off track.

Do you ever wonder how the people you look up to are actually achieving their goals and dreams?

Are they just like you and me or do they come from another planet, where literally everybody can do anything?

Well, except for maybe a few, everybody is only human and mostly started just like anyone else, and that is at 0.

Some people even had worse circumstances than we have today and still, they managed to accomplish their dream.

So what is their breakfast like, or do they have some kind of Super Power that makes them unstoppable and unbreakable?

From as far as I can see, these people had one very very big and strong desire to achieve and accomplish. A strong will goes through barriers of self-doubt, ignorance, fear, limiting beliefs and perspectives, and low self-esteem.   

In this article, you will read why having a strong burning desire is all you need to get going and make the first steps towards your greatness.

When your desire is strong enough you will:

• Find a way to get past fears

• Learn new skills even though it’s not your strong suit

• Make the right choices towards your goals

• Open up to new perspectives

• Increase your self-worth

“When your desires are strong enough you will appear to possess superhuman powers to achieve”

- Napoleon Hill

Find a way to get past fears

When we are pursuing a goal that is beyond our comfort zone and beyond our experience so far, a lot of fears can come storming our way. Our brain is trying to protect us from harm and the unknown.

Brain farts you might be having are:

What if everything goes wrong? what if I suck? what is my family going to say or our neighbors?

Will people like me? Would they think I’m a fraud or a full-time loser?

These are just some fears that could come up for us.

Fear is a bad advisor in my eyes (there are exceptions 😉), but how do we actually get over our fears to pursue what we truly want in life?

Of course, it is very crucial for you to know what you want exactly. Otherwise, this is going to be a long road considering you don’t have a road to follow towards your goal.

Knowing your ‘why’ is just as important as knowing ‘what’ you want. This is the backbone of your goal. When you know ‘what’ and ‘why’, you have a package for a ‘strong desire’ and you could overcome any fear.

When you have such a desire that will reframe any fear you came up with and turn it into a curious question on how far you can go, you have good relentlessness skills.

When you weigh out the consequences of any fear and the outcome of it when and if it would happen, would you be able to overcome it? Even though you might have to bite some dust, take some critical remarks, or if it might take some time to get over?

Would it be worth it if you would reach your goal? I hope the answer is an outspoken YES!

“The only thing to fear, is fear itself”  

- Franklin D. Roosevelt

Learn new skills even though it’s not your strong suit

Learning a new skill can be challenging, take a lot of time and effort, be boring at certain times, and might be completely out of your comfort zone. However, you will need it to reach your goal!

Sometimes we have to dig a bit deeper to find the willpower and willingness to figure out something that we are naturally not so good at.

Even if it takes the best of us, we have to be relentless and ruthless to work towards our true desire.

Again, when your desire is strong enough, you will find the way, time, effort, and resources you need to learn a new skill even when you don’t necessarily like it.  

Do you think any invention we use today was made just because people took the easy route and just left things the way they are and learn nothing new??? How about no!

Just imagine how the car was ever invented if mister Henry Ford just didn’t want to learn something new or be willing to try something new.

Would we be driving cars today? I think not!!!!

Just think about the person you will be when you master THAT skill that you need, to be successful. Would you be proud of yourself? How would that feel? Would you have grown?

There are so many benefits in learning something new, not only the skill but also as a person we’ve grown. When we have that burning desire, we truly can move any mountain.  

Make the right choices towards your goals

Do you ever have problems keeping yourself to your new discipline or restrictions to accomplish your goals?

I get you! Been there, done that! Changing behavior is hard on itself but when you have to stop or limit yourself in doing something that you enjoyed, you might be cutting yourself short if you keep yourself in the victim mindset.

When you have that burning desire, you need to find out what it is that you need to do, to get this desire into reality.

Do you need to leave cookies in one piece and in the grocery store?

Do you have to wake up earlier to create more time?

Do you have to learn a new skill or get back to school again?

Do you have to say no to your friends more often to prepare ourselves to be the best in what you desire?

Whatever it is, mostly we have to make some kind of effort or sacrifice to accomplish something new.

However, when you have that desire, you will be sure to make the right choices that will help you move the needle towards your desired goal.

Ask yourself good questions to decide what you are doing is actually helping you along the way:

• What does it look like when you reached or accomplished your goal?

• What does it feel like to have reached your highest desire?

• What does one need to do to get this done? Make specific steps.

• Will this what I am doing or planning to do help get me closer to my most desired goal?

• Will it slow me down or speed the process when I do this?

• What are the most tactical and strategical next steps if I want to accomplish this in x days, months, years?

Of course, we have to find a good balance between fun and chasing our dreams and desires.

When you want to write a book, writing every single free hour, every single day might move the needle a lot but will not improve your life’s happiness.

Open up to new perspectives

When you are chasing your desires, you might have to take on a different perspective than you have now, since you would go to another level and do and see things that you have never done before.

In order to do so, an open mind is required. If you stick to your own ways and your own perspective, nothing would really change.

This will not only change your point of view but might open up a whole new world for you which can be so interesting.

Of course, we have boundaries and don’t have to take everything in as our new truth.

However, having new perspectives gives us a broader view of the world and gives us more choice in choosing what is best for us.  

Increase your self-worth

After doing all the above, we have more confidence in our growth and our achievements.

We have invested time and effort to become a better version of ourselves and we grew.

Because of the experiences, we have higher self-worth than we had before the journey of chasing our true desire. We are worth it to chase our dreams and desires. While doing it, we discover and truly feel that we are. That is what will increase our self-worth.

Actions you could take

Finding your why

If you didn’t find your why yet and you really want to deep dive into this, Simon Sinek wrote a book about finding your why called ‘Start with Why’. Otherwise, you can also read through my article called ‘The Beginner’s Guide to Start Enjoying Early Mornings’ and also find out your why, if you don’t want to read a whole book about it.

Affirmations

One other way to imbed your desire into your mind is to make affirmations on your desire.

Repeat these out loud at least once a day, morning or evening, to hear yourself speak these words. The most powerful voice we could listen to is our own. Why would we not listen to the wisest person in our life, right? 😉

For instance:

I love my figure in this dress

I lost 15 pounds with ease

I watch what I eat because I am a healthy person

I am reading every day and get more knowledgeable in xxx

Knowledge of xxx is easy for me to understand and implement.

I am executing xxx with ease

Of course, just shouting these affirmations is not going to cut the cake. You actually have to do something. Take strategic steps towards your goals and make sure you make those affirmations come true. These serve as a guideline to what you want to achieve.

Therefore, think wisely about what your affirmation is going to be.

Conclusion

Do you have a subtle desire or a goal you want to achieve? Are you still doubting if this is something you really want to pursue?

Why do you think you have this dream or goal in your head. Is it really for you?

It’s really important to find out what makes our clock tick and what makes you really happy.

Find your reason ‘why’ this is, the way it is.

Once you have that why grounded in your heart and soul and it’s turned into one HOT BURNING DESIRE, you are ready to go and NOTHING in the world can stop you!

Give yourself the chance to have a heart full of desire and at least chase one dream in your lifetime and make sure you reach it! Even if it’s just half your dream……. You will be amazed at what you learned, who you became, and what it is to really live to the fullest!

Do you want to read other posts on living to your‘ Fullest Potential’? Click here.

How Perfectionism Influences our Lives….. Good and Bad

How Perfectionism Influences our Lives….. Good and Bad - Do you think your perfectionism is holding you back in Personal Development? This article can help you get insight in what it does and doesn't do for you. #Perfectionism #Personaldevelopment

Are you on the perfectionist side of the spectrum? Are you putting in your best effort, scoring, or getting good results but still feel unfulfilled, not proud of yourself, or inadequate?

Is your best still not ‘good enough’ and are the thoughts of ‘what if I was just a bit better’ haunting you with every important thing you do?

You know that you are a perfectionist and you are most of the time being too hard on yourself, but can’t seem to let this go?

You know very well that you would not have come this far without your perfectionism.

It is helping you put down some really good, if not excellent work on the table. Is perfectionism really that bad?

This blog might help you to get things sorted for yourself and give you insight, what it actually is and when you could adjust your behavior for the best possible outcome.

Perfectionism a Bad Trait?

The more I learn about self-development and high performance, the more I learn about the worlds view upon perfectionism. The way I bluntly summarize it:

“We should get rid of it as soon as we can and just start producing and putting something out there just to get started”.

I have to honestly tell you; I get this, but yet I don’t.

I get it that you shouldn’t produce and work endlessly on something that never really gets out there. That is a sure waste of time and good energy.

On the other hand, what if we thought that our smallest effort or the effort we make just before it actually gets uncomfortable was ‘good enough’. What would our world look like?

What if there were no people who really want to dig down and not accept anything else than perfect for that moment in time (of course things evolve and get better over time). What if we just accept ‘good enough’ with everything.

I can get goosebumps of the thought of that, and not because I like it. Somebody else’s good enough might not be mine!

I really wonder what we would miss on this planet just because ‘good enough’ was simply ‘good enough’. Would we have cars, electricity, laptops, or anything else you could think of, and would it be as good as it is now in this time and age?

Boundaries with Perfectionism

Of course, I am not sharing this with you because I want to encourage you to be the best perfectionist that you could be. We should really have clear boundaries with this before it takes the best of us. Why?

I was a person who let perfectionism lead a good part of her life, even to a point of developing some nasty, but in hindsight laughable, neurotic behaviors (not the point you want to get to by the way).

Personally, I am really on the bridge of ‘perfectionism’ and thinking something is ‘good enough’. Truthfully, if I didn’t think this blog or website was good enough, I would have never made it public. I know it is not the best website people have ever seen but it is good enough for me, for now.

I actually care about what I put out and I want to be next to excellent. As you notice perfectionism still has some hold on me but I don’t care that much for it.

I am a worker of excellence and if it takes longer or costs me more energy, that is just fine.

I want to put something out there that people can actually relate to and get value from. I don’t want to just post, because I need to post. This is different for me.

What Perfectionism Really Is

Perfectionism is a mix of different aspects. The combination of fear, knowledge, avoidance, imagination, and experience can cause us to be hypercritical, hypersensitive with an ‘all or nothing’ type of view on things we do.

A person who is a perfectionist wants to succeed in everything the first time and has high expectations of himself or herself. They also have a reason for their high expectations because due to their high effort, they accomplished good things to their own standard. When something doesn’t work out as imagined, the perfectionist thinks he or she is a failure.

Because of this negative belief, perfectionism can paralyze you from taking adequate action towards what you want.

When Perfectionism is Bad

Perfectionism is not a good trait when it paralyzes you to a point where you don’t take action.

When you get so caught up in thoughts of failure, not succeeding the way you want to, scared of other people’s judgment, and fear of burning out.

It is also bad to a point where you do try and not succeed as much as you wished you did and then don’t give yourself a chance to improve or succeed the next time. You think you are a failure because you didn’t do it well enough in one go. Who does that anyway, but hey, I get you! 😉

There is actually a name for this and it is: maladaptive perfectionism. It can be described as perfectionism that gets in the way of leading a happy life with success and fulfillment.

When Perfectionism is Good

Perfectionism is a good thing when you put your best effort into creating something great and putting it out there. Review your results and give yourself another chance (and another, and another) to improve it until you are completely satisfied.

Notice I actually say to put something out there? With good perfectionism, you have to actually put something out there and grow with trial and error. Perfectionism is good when you also feel the freedom and confidence to fail a bit and to learn from that. When you give yourself permission to learn from your mistakes, that is what makes your work great. Perfectionism is good when you can mix your fear of failure with enjoyment, interest, vision, and willingness to grow.

Some smart people will refer to this as adaptive perfectionism.

How Can You Control Perfectionism and Make Your Own Choices

It’s important to know when you are being reasonable with your perfectionism and when you are going over the top with this. Hopefully, you can now recognize when you are being to hypercritical or when you just want to put something good out there.

Awareness and healthy boundaries are key here, in putting your perfectionism to work in a good way.

When you feel like you are being too hard on yourself it could help to sit down, take a few deep breaths to calm the nerves, and think about what you are doing and what I actually so terrible about it.

I always like to remind myself that most perfectionists could actually never really fail because their effort is most of the time higher than the average (non-perfectionist) person. Mostly they only fail in their own head, according to their own standards. Failing is hardly possible for the perfectionist, except when they don’t try or give up after the first or second go.

To stop perfectionism from stealing your mood, energy, and day, it is good to look at the impact of the faults or delay and reflect if it really is that impactful as you think it is.

When you rise above your own view and emotion and ‘burst your bubble’ so to say you have a more clear perspective of what is going on.

This always helps me from perfectionism draining my energy.

Conclusion

To cut to the chase. Use perfectionism to your advantage!

Be aware of what perfectionism is, and set up some good boundaries for yourself when you can be allowing a bit less of your standard and when to go all out on excellence.

I truly think it is an advantage if you implement this correctly. Like I mentioned before, what would this world look like when there were no perfectionists. This world would look a whole lot less if you ask me (and yes I know we still have a lot to do).

Most important is that you manage your perfectionism and your perfectionism doesn’t manage you.

Now go ahead and create something perfect! 😊