This one exercise will help you reach your goals
What’s your emotional state in this exact moment? If you’re not actively thinking about it, it might take a moment to discern. But I want to start with that, because it’s the first step toward what we’re going to discuss in this article today, and it’s a very crucial part of the success exercise we’re going to perform in just a minute.
So: are you feeling happy? Irritated? Tired, sad, “hangry,” exhausted? Figure that out, and then let’s keep moving on.
Okay. Got it? Perfect. Now let’s get into what you came here for: a single exercise that is going to radically change the way you approach and achieve all of your goals.
The exercise
This is a success-based exercise that helps you reframe and reorient your approach to both everyday life and your long-term dreams. Part of it requires some imagination, and another part requires you to really tap into your feelings and assess them.
You’re going to start by imagining yourself sitting down with a journal — one full year from now. Just imagine this (you don’t actually need a journal right now). Once you’ve done that, I want you to imagine everything good that has happened to you in the upcoming year. All of the incredible things you did, all the goals you achieved, all the work that got done, all the relationships you nurtured, cared for and maintained. Imagine them, and start writing them down in your imaginary journal a year from now.
After you come up with a laundry list of 10-15 awesome (albeit fabricated) things that happened to you in the upcoming year of your life, it’s time to start thinking about how achieving all of those things makes you feel. Let that feeling wash out whatever your current emotional state is, and let it take over. So, if you feel pride, happiness, success, joy and curiosity right now, let those feelings fill you up and take over your current mood.
Feeling good? Great! Now, hold onto that feeling. Trap it like a lightning bug in a bottle, and don’t let it go. And while you’re hanging onto that emotional state, let’s talk about what this exercise does, and why it works.
The point of this procedure is simple: instead of focusing on what we want to achieve to be successful, we can focus on feeling wonderful, because feeling wonderful is the natural pathway to success.
This has everything to do with creating our own reality. This exercise is intended to show us that our world is a reflection of the things we think, and the things we think can be thought of at any time, not just when we experience achievements or success. Our world is completely dependent on how we feel about it, and that’s the best part: we can feel any way we want to, whenever we want.
That’s the exercise.