"CHART your Journey" Blog Series || Chapter 2: The Importance of "C"

For once in your life, have you tried meditating? Where you zone out yourself from all distractions and think deeply or focus your mind for a period of time, in silence? If your answer is yes, then congratulations! You're one step closer to be successful.

The first step in the success roadmap is synonymous to meditation. It starts with the letter "C". Can you guess what it is?

Alright, that's a great guess! The "C" on the CHART your journey series is "Contemplate". Wikipedia defines contemplate as "thinking about something; to think deeply and at length; look thoughtfully for a long time". This is the first step in our journey to success.

To give you more context, contemplating involves the following activities:

1. Assess your current reality.

If we are traveling, isn't it that the first thing we consider is how far is our destination from our current location? The same is true in life. At some point, we need to critically analyze our past and our current state to see if we are making progress or if we're lagging behind.

An online article mentioned that "a wise person is one who desires truth and is willing to do something with reality when it is out of sync with one’s ideal self." This simply means that doing a reality check is indeed a wise activity but doing something or taking the necessary actions to fix one's reality is far more important. This involves carefully analyzing our lives, pointing out the factors that hinder us from becoming successful, and working on fixing those factors.

Accepting reality can be a very daunting and difficult process. The reason why some people are not successful is that they lack self-awareness and are afraid to face their reality. They hide behind their masks, living a pretentious life. If we want to be successful, we have to accept the reality and take the necessary steps to fix our reality. On the flip side, we also need to keep track of what we're accomplishing so far and reinforce our best behaviors to be able to sustain the progress that we're making.

2. Determine what is important to you.

Part of contemplating is finding out what our priorities are or what is important to us. These are the non-negotiables. These may be things we can't live without or valuable things that really matter in our lives that we are striving hard to keep (family, relationship, money/ wealth, time, freedom, etc). These can also serve as our inspiration in achieving our goals.

Knowing these early will be an advantage because this will clearly define what needs to be prioritized therefore eliminating unnecessary actions and preventing time to be wasted doing the unnecessary things. This will also set a clear direction and will guide us in the path of achieving our goals in life.

3. Think about what you want your legacy to be.

This is one of the powerful parts of contemplating. In some way, this links to our life's purpose. Yes, if we want to be successful, we have to know our life's purpose, a purpose which will answer why we exist in this world or what value do we give to the world.

Finding one's purpose is not easy, but several articles suggest that the easiest way to find your purpose is to think about what your legacy will be. This simply means identifying how you want to be remembered if you cease existing in this world. Do you want to be remembered as a successful person? If so, you will notice that the series of actions that you will take in your life will be focused on achieving that goal.

4. Decide and set clear career goals (SMART).

According to an article online, "Goals are what take us forward in life; they are the oxygen to our dreams. They are the first steps to every journey we take and are also our last. It's very important that you realize the significance and importance of goal-setting and apply this knowledge in your life."

This is absolutely true. No one achieves success without setting their goals. A popular quote also says "if you fail to plan, you plan to fail." Setting our goals is a critical part of success, but we have to realize that goal setting is not simply thinking about what we want to achieve. Successful people suggest that our goals should be SMART. It's an acronym which stands for Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic and Timebound.

Specific - our goal should be clear and specific, otherwise, we won't be able to focus our efforts or feel truly motivated to achieve it.

Measurable - for us to track our progress and stay motivated, our goals should be measurable. Assessing our progress will help us to stay focused, meet our deadlines, and feel the excitement of getting closer to achieving our goals.

Attainable - it's important that our goals are attainable, otherwise we will have a hard time achieving those. In setting an attainable goal, we have to evaluate ourselves and know our limitations. We also have to know if we need to stretch our abilities to be able to achieve those goals.

Realistic - this is related to having attainable goals. Our goals should be realistic and relevant to us. Setting unrealistic goals will just lead us to failure. It will also result in a great loss of time and effort.

Time-bound - a critical factor to consider in setting our goals is the element of time. We have to set a target date, timeline or a deadline when we want to achieve those goals. This is important so that we can assess what actions we should prioritize and carefully plan our set of actions.

5. Make a Commitment

After making SMART goals, the next step is making a personal commitment to achieving those goals. This is where most people fail. Some are very good in making plans or setting goals but are very poor in taking action or implementing the plans they've set. Making your first step is crucial but being consistent in doing it is also a critical factor to consider. Most people tend to be very good at first but eventually deteriorates and loses the drive to take action. As most successful people say: Consistency is the key! Consistent action towards the right direction will guarantee success.

There you have it, folks. That's our first step in the "Success Roadmap". I hope this gives you valuable insights on why contemplating is important for success. Our second topic will be out tomorrow.  I'll see you in my next blog. :)

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