This year I’ve been on a number of different trips out of the country, most of them for work purposes. While I seldom go to different places for the purpose of looking at things or ‘vacationing’, I do enjoy the getaway in a foreign place once in a while just to chill.
For some people, though, this vacationing is like an obsession. It’s planned several times a year and given deadlines as though there were a profit margin to be earned from it. It must mean that they will end up “musting” their desires into reality.
I thought about it a while and wondered at the concept of obsession. Yes, it’s an emotional state, but how often can we control it and get into this obsessive state so that no matter what happens, we will turn up at our destination?
I remember times when I was literally obsessed with things, getting things done. It was because of a greater purpose. For example, there was a time when I had difficulty understanding the new area of study that I was involved with in the past – internet marketing – and I literally grew to be so obsessed with it, I could clock 14 hour days just watching the screen, testing things out and making things happen.
For some others, this obsession comes from the absolute need to stay trim and fit. I have a friend who spends 6 hours a day in the gym, and you can tell that this kind of effort really can sculpt a body.
The secret ingredient for this is a catalyst. You need a big push forward, which is like a propulsion mechanism. It’s placing all your forward thrusters and boosters toward the direction you want, and often requiring you to just stop thinking so much.
A lot of time, we are obsessed with inner thoughts – what if this… what if that… and by the time we are done with these inner thoughts, the desire is ‘talked away’. You end up not doing anything. Reverse that sequence. Talk yourself ‘up’. Get yourself excited and intensify the reality of the goal and outcome that you are striving toward.
By seeing it everyday, you get a chance to live in the moment of your emotions, which then drive the specific behaviors required to reach your goal, and turn that goal into your only solution with no other way out. Sometimes, choices do spoil the ability for someone to take action!
Here’s an example. You’ve been telling yourself you need a vacation, but in your head, that goal is blurred by you saying that you don’t have time, you’re too tired and so on. Now instead of doing that, take the goal, and give yourself all the reasons why you need to reach that goal, and the consequences of not going there. Everything that detracts from that direction is now considered a distraction – use the excuses you are good at giving and put off those distractions! You don’t have time to rest. You can’t afford to waste time. 
As you build up the intensity of this, dive in and get your things done, because the emotional state has been geared up to get you going, so, use that to move along with the flow of energy you’ve built up.
Oh, and once you achieve your goal, list it. It’s always good to give yourself a pat on the back for having achieved the things you’ve accomplished… then use this as your springboard to even more goals you wish to accomplish.
Tuesday, December 8th, 2009, 5:40 am | 
Goals, Personal Development, Reflections | 
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