How Does Personal Development Help with Achieving Goals?
By: Rory Vaden
Tags: Goal Setting, Success, Goals, Goals In Life, Achievement

If you missed the first part of this series on Conquering Impossible Goals, click here to see Video 1: The First Step to Achieving Anything and here to see Video 2: How to Overcome Self-Doubt when Achieving Your Goals.

Achieving Goals — Part 3

Welcome back to part three of our mini-series on conquering impossible goals. I’m sharing with you a system that has changed the entire trajectory of my life from literally being born into a trailer park to becoming an internationally recognized speaker, a New York Times bestselling author, and selling and exiting an eight-figure business as an entrepreneur.

And just being a part of really amazing teams and organizations, accomplishing several of the dreams that I’ve had, but also coaching other people through achieving their dreams.

And at this point, having now conducted several hundred interviews on my various podcasts that I’ve had, diving in and understanding the secrets of how the world’s ultra-performers, multipliers, and top one-percenters in what they do that is different that helps them conquer impossible goals.

These huge things, for most of us, we would say to ourselves that we couldn’t do it.

And that’s what we’ve been talking about in this series and introducing you to this process.

And in the first training, we talked about the power of the picture.

In the second training, we talked about the power of programming.

And we talked about where programming comes from and why it matters.

But if you can get yourself past those two points, I know for sure something is going to show up.

Here is what’s going to show up.

The problem is going to be, “Okay, Rory, I know what I want. And now I’m working on believing that it’s possible, but what do I actually do?”

How?

At some point, you will literally don’t know how.

I’ve had this problem, right?

I didn’t know how to get a full-ride scholarship.

I didn’t know how to become a black belt.

I didn’t know how to become a World Champion of Public Speaking.

I didn’t know how to become a New York Times bestselling author or an eight-figure entrepreneur.

And guess what, if you have that thought, you’re in good company.

You’re right where you’re supposed to be.

You’re just like every other person who has ever accomplished that same impossible goal or impossible dream that you’re having.

Because guess what? None of us know how when we first start.

Michael Jordan didn’t know how to shoot a basketball.

Tiger Woods didn’t know how to swing a golf club.

Even the greatest of the great of all performers, entertainers, athletes, business people, politicians, lawyers, accountants, and every single profession in the world.

Of course, you don’t know how! You’ve never done it, but that’s a stupid reason to use for why you can’t do it.

None of us know how.

But here’s the thing.

Somebody out there does know how.

Somebody out there has done the thing that you are trying to do.

They have.

If you’re trying to be like Roger Bannister and be the first person to run a four-minute mile, somebody out there knows how to run a four-fifteen mile, right?

Somebody out there knows how to do it.

And this is the third part of breaking through and conquering impossible goals.

It’s so simple, but it’s so profound that so many people miss it.

It’s professional education. Professional education.

That is the third part.

I know it seems kind of obvious. It should be obvious, but it’s not obvious.

What happens to most of us is we have this instinct that I would love to do ________. I would love to break this record or do that goal. Or I’d love to buy a beach house or make enough money to retire. Or send my kids to private school, etc.

Whatever it is, we’re not judging anybody’s dreams.

They’re all great dreams if they’re for you.

Maybe you want to start a foundation. Maybe you want to solve some big problems in the world?

But all of us, it doesn’t matter what industry, sector, profit or non-profit, the immediate thoughts are the same once we set an impossible goal.

The first thought is that you can’t even see it clearly.

So, you got to paint the picture.

The second thought is to immediately dismiss it because you don’t believe that it’s possible.

You got to work on your programming.

The next limiting belief that will show up and it will, I promise. It happens to me every time and to every one of our clients.

Look, we have done one-on-one coaching for thousands of people, between our two companies, okay?

We know this is what happens. We study this; we see it. We walk people through it.

It will happen.

And if you don’t have a plan or if you don’t understand what’s going on, you’ll immediately dismiss this dream or this goal as possible for you.

And that’s such a shame because it’s very systematic and predictable. It’s consistent.

From Professional Education to Personal Development

So, here’s what you do, right?

You have that thought that maybe you could start working on believing it, but you still don’t know how.

Go get professional education.

Now I’m not saying go back to school.

I mean, it might be to go back to school, but typically that’s only going to be the answer if you want to be a doctor, an accountant, a lawyer, or some very specific trade.

For the most part, where it’s going to happen, is you’re going to learn through personal development.

You’re going to learn from somebody else who has done what you’re trying to do.

And there is somebody out there that has done it.

And the people who have done it after they’ve done it, guess what they want to do with their life?

They want to teach other people how to do it.

It’s the natural course.

One of the great pieces of advice I heard was from a friend of mine early in my career. His name is Randy Gage. This is what he said to me. He said, “Rory, you have to always be the number one investor in your own dream.”

You have to be the number one investor in your own dream.

So many times, the problem with entrepreneurs is they want someone else to invest in their dream.

They want someone else to give them the money to do and to do the work of their thing.

That’s not how it works.

You got to be the number one investor and that means whatever money you have is got to go to that thing. Whatever sweat you can put in; it’s got to go to that thing.

But for your dream, you are the number one investor.

And I remember Randy telling me that.

One of the things I realized in my early twenties when I wanted to become the World Champion of Public Speaking, that my dream early on was that I wanted to speak in front of thousands of people.

I’m living my dream in real life today.

But back then, it was impossible. I mean, it was so unrealistic. It was so in the clouds. I had no idea how to do it. I’d never met anyone that did it. I hadn’t been trained on how to do it.

I started to learn, to ask questions and I started to realize that other people have done this.

There’s professional education.

And one of the things I knew I would have to learn was how to be funny. I knew I would have to learn how to be funny on stage because I wasn’t funny. I didn’t understand the psychology of humor.

And there was a guy named Darren LaCroix, who I found, who was teaching this class on how to be funny.

And I think at the time, it was like a thousand bucks for the class with the travel expenses, etc. to get there.

And I’m telling you, I took the last dollars I had in my account to go to this training with Darren LaCroix to learn how to be funny.

And going through that class, I learned he started to teach the system, right?

And that started me on a whole journey of learning the psychology of humor.

By the way, we actually have another class now called World Class Presentation Craft where we teach people the true secrets of being an amazing presenter.

So, Darren was one of the people where I got my professional education.

I had thought you were either born funny or you are not. Darren helped open my eyes to that there are psychological triggers to why people laugh. There are structures and mechanics you can do to deliberately create that cause of laugh to happen.

And it opened my eyes because he had done it.

And that’s what you need.

You need professional education; you need personal development.

You have to be willing to be the number one investor in your own dream.

And the fear is always you are going to get scammed or something.

But that is such a self-limiting belief.

I can tell you one of the reasons that I have earned more money than most of the people that I’ve ever met in my life is because I have spent more money on education, starting with college.

Even though I had a full-ride scholarship for both college and graduate school for my MBA, I still had to pay all my living expenses. I had to pay a lot of money in books, fees, and living expenses to get myself through college.

Top Achievers

As for personal development, I’m in one mastermind that’s $25,000 a year to just be in it. I’ve spoken at masterminds where it’s $60,000 to just be in it.

The thing that blows my mind is that you would think the type of people that come to these events, buy courses, join masterminds, or invest in personal development are the people who are just starting that don’t know anything. They really need this.

But the more I’ve done this, the more I realized the people who go to self-help conferences, in a lot of cases, are not the people who need help.

They are the top producers. They’re the number one performers. They’re the top achievers. They’re the industry leaders.

It’s not the needy people who go to personal development. It’s the successful people.

Which is just crazy.

That’s why they’re successful. That’s how they got to be successful.

They learned. And who did they learn from? They learned from other people who had done what they had done. That’s the power of professional education.

Of course, you don’t know how to do it. It doesn’t mean there’s not a way to do it.

It seems harder than it is. It seems more complicated than it is when you don’t know it.

But once somebody who’s done it teaches it to you, you realize the reason they were able to do it is that conquering anything, achieving anything, doing anything is based on a set of fundamental principles.

It is set on fundamental principles, but you have to be willing to learn them.

That means you’re going to have to invest to do that.

I have never invested into a book, a course, an event, a conference, a mastermind, or any personal development that I didn’t get at least my money’s worth back in one great idea.

In most cases, I got 10 times to 100 times back because it would’ve taken me 30 years to figure out something that somebody who has already done it that can teach you in a few hours.

It changes the course of your life and the more you do it, it compounds on itself.

The first thing I want you to just realize and know right now is that it’s okay to not know how to do it.

Of course, you don’t.

That doesn’t mean you’re not capable of doing it. It just means you don’t know yet.

And number two, everyone who’s ever done it felt the same way as you do right now. They all started by not knowing how to do it.

Number three, for everyone who’s done it. it wasn’t an accident. It wasn’t luck. And it wasn’t just talent. I promise you.

Even the most talented people in the world learned from coaches, trainers, people who had been there, a set of principles and skills and tactics that they could develop. It applies to everything.

You just have to give yourself permission to do it.

Then you have to be willing to be the number one investor in your own dream.

And again, this is one of the reasons why we have put together a 2-day experience with me and our team called Conquering Impossible Goals because we’re going to walk you through this whole process.

The process that we teach is the process of success in anything. That’s what we’ve done. We’ve tested this in all different industries, environments, places around the globe and talked about it. We spoke about it and researched it.

And we know something about the systematic process. The general process that anybody can use to help them achieve whatever matters to them.

Because just like there are specific trade skills, you have to learn. There’s a general set of skills. There’s a general process for achievement and success in anything.

This is something I’ve spent my entire life studying, experimenting with, learning about, and researching.

And we’ve packaged it up. If you go to roryvaden.com/cig, you can read about this whole 2-day experience because we’re going to be with you at the event.

We’re going to take you through the process. We’re going to do the exercises.

There’s no getting out of it, which by the way, leads me to what I want to talk about in the next video training. I got another free video for you coming up which is part four of this free mini-series about conquering impossible goals.

This is what’s going to come up:

I don’t know what I want so I create the picture. I don’t believe that it’s possible so I got to work on my programming. I don’t know how to do it so I have to get a professional education.

Once you do those things, the next thing that’s going to show up is going to be the problem.

The problem is going to be consistency.

The problem is going to be getting yourself to actually do the things that you’ve learned to do, getting yourself to follow through and keep going.

That’s going to be the problem.

And if you could solve that problem, you’re done.

I know what I want. I can get myself to believe it’s possible. I can learn what to do. And then I can get myself to do it.

You can do anything right?

It’s that simple.

You can conquer the impossible, but in this next video, it’s really important because you need to know this is coming for you.

You probably have already experienced this in some part of your life.

You get excited about some vision, goal, plan, new year’s resolution, etc.

You start out and then it breaks down. Why does it break down.

Why am I so excited about something but then I can’t follow through?

What’s wrong with me?

What is wrong with the process?

I’ll tell you, there’s nothing wrong with you, but there is something wrong with your process.

and the people who follow through there is something that they do consistently. That makes all the difference.

In the next blog post, we’re going to talk about what it is.

If you’re interested in checking out this Conquering Impossible Goals live event experience, go to roryvaden.com/cig. You can read about it. We’d love to have you there.

For part four of this training, we’re going to talk about what is the missing ingredient to get yourself to follow through on doing the things that you’ve learned to do, but you can’t seem to get consistent with.

Make sure you stay tuned and watch out for the fourth part.

If you missed the first part of this series on Conquering Impossible Goals, click here to see Video 1: The First Step to Achieving Anything and here to see Video 2: How to Overcome Self-Doubt when Achieving Your Goals.