What is your burning desire?
Successful people know that they must identify their burning desire, their reason why they want to achieve the goals they have set out for themselves. Some of us are lucky enough to know instinctively what our burning desire is, what goal we want to achieve and what talents we have inside of us. Others of us must spend some time identifying those factors in order to be able to succeed in the tasks we set before us.
The key phrase to most questions asked of successful individuals is “did you have a burning desire to . . .” your burning desire helps you to make the right choices on a daily basis as you are taking positive action steps towards your goals.
If you are not lucky enough to be born with a talent you could easily identify or a burning desire that carried you through challenges in your early years then it’s time to take a few moments to figure out what you’re burning desire really is.
Interestingly, your desire to achieve a specific goal can change as you learn and grow. In your early years it may have been to identify and marry your life partner. In the middle years many people have a goal to achieve the highest level possible within their company’s organization or achieve a higher level of income by transferring or moving to different companies. The middle years of an individual’s life are often focused on amassing enough income to fund their retirement years as well as help their children successfully get through school and send them on their way through life.
Goals and desires in the latter years of life can sometimes center around weight loss when metabolism has declined significantly and many individuals have put on an extra 10 or 20 pounds. Goals in the retirement years can also include improving health, traveling to specific areas of the world or spending more time with the grandkids.
These are all common goals and desires which the majority of us share based on our age, time in life and previous accomplishments. But what is your burning desire, you’re all encompassing passion that drives you through more challenges and helps you to achieve goals beyond the generic?
Here are several ways you can help define your burning desire that goes beyond the common and drives you further towards success. List at least six reasons why you want to attain a specific goal. You will want to look at both the positive and the negative reasons, such as the reasons why you want to attain a goal in order to avoid a negative consequence.
For instance, considering a weight loss goal, your positive reason may be in order to look good for your next vacation while you’re negative reason may be that you want to avoid the health risks that go along with obesity.
Now imagine a short visual description of the reason that you want to achieve your goal, and integrate the goals you can. For instance, if your goal is to purchase a new SUV and your reason is to be able to transport donated foodstuffs to the local food pantry then you can imagine and visualize yourself driving the new SUV filled with donated food and canned goods for the local food pantry.
Look at your reasons and determine which ones are the most emotionally charged. Reasons which you equate with love, fear, desire or hatred will be the ones which drive you the hardest and work you toward achieving your goal. You want to avoid the negative emotions as much as possible in order to make the achievement of your goal a positive experience. However, you should recognize that by attaching a negative emotion to any specific desire, want, need or imagined event you are also increasing the probability that you will achieve that negative event.
For many this will be the first time that they had ever considered sacrificing short-term immediate gratification for the benefit of long term goal achievement. But those who do this will receive gratification from the achievement of their goal and the knowledge that they are able to make the appropriate day to day choices to meet a long-term goal.
It’s time for you to take action. It’s time for you to identify your burning desire, lay out a plan that helps you get there and assess your options. Without that action, without the initial step forward, you will go nowhere and you will arrive they are fast. Don’t allow your fear, discomfort or need for perfectionism to stop you from achieving what you desire most.