Far too often in my career I have observed that people focus exclusively on the “things” they need to do to achieve their goals without giving any consideration to their personal characteristics. In other words, they never ask themselves if they have the traits necessary to accomplish their objectives. And if they don’t, are they willing to do what it takes to become the person they need to be?

Several personal development gurus have written about this concept. Jim Rohn, one of my personal mentors, said, “For your life to get better, you must get better.” Expressed another way by Les Brown, “To achieve something you have never achieved before you must become someone you have never been.”

Darren Hardy, publisher of Success Magazine has also focused on this idea. He truly is a master of doing the little things that matter. Perhaps that’s why we have become friends. I highly recommend reading Darren’s Designing the Best 10 Years of Your Life series in the Success Magazine blog. In Part 6, he provided two examples to illustrate the significance of becoming the person worthy of achieving your goals.

Example #1 By Darren Hardy

“When I was single and ready to find my wife and be married, I made a long list of the qualities of the perfect woman (for me). I filled up more than 40 pages describing my wife to be in great detail—her personality, character, key attributes, attitudes and philosophies about life, tastes, interests, even what kind of family she’d come from, culture, and of course physical makeup down to the texture of her hair, etc. I wrote in depth what our life would be like and what we’d do together.

I then looked back at every aspect on the list and asked if I had those attributes myself. Additionally, I asked myself this question: What kind of a man would a woman like this be looking for? Who do I need to become to be attractive to a woman of this substance?

I made a long list of all the traits, qualities, behaviors, attitudes and characteristics that I assumed a woman of this caliber would be looking for in a man. Then I went to work on becoming this person.

Guess what? It worked! As if she was peeled off the pages of my journal and appeared in front of me, my wife is exactly what I described and asked for, in almost eerie detail. The key for me was getting clear on who I’d have to be to attract and keep a woman of her quality, and doing the work to achieve that (and I’m still working on keeping that part!).”

Example #2 By Darren Hardy

“Let me give you another example to bring this home for you. Let’s say your goal is to earn another $100,000 this year. Now we need to ask the question, ‘Who do you need to become to be an extra $100,000 valuable?’ Your answer might contain some attributes—stated in the positive, ‘I am’—such as:

• I am a disciplined master of time efficiency.
• I focus solely on high-payoff and high-productivity actions.
• I wake up an hour earlier and review my priority objectives each morning.
• I fuel my body properly and exercise four days a week so I am energetic and highly effective each work hour.
• I feed my mind ideas and inspiration that will support and bolster my passion.
• I surround myself with peers and mentors who elevate my expectations and prod me to rise to greater levels of discipline, commitment and achievement.
• I am a smart, confident and effective leader. I seek and cultivate the strength and greatness in everyone around me.
• I deliver excellence to my clients and continually find ways to ‘wow’ them, encouraging repeat transactions and abundant referrals.”

Darren’s example also re-enforces the ideas expressed in What’s Your Value to the Market? In this post, I highlighted the fact that if you want to increase your income, you must first increase your value.

Todd’s Five Challenges:

1. Select one of your most important goals and define it as clearly as possible, just as Darren did in describing his future wife. The more clarity you bring to what you want, the more likely you are to achieve it.
2. Set your sights high. One of the reasons I have enjoyed a rewarding and satisfying career is because 25 years ago I made a list of all the elements I was looking for in a dream business.
3. Determine who you must become to achieve your goal. Make a list of the qualities and attributes that you must have to be a person worthy of achieving that goal. Identify which of those characteristics you currently possess and determine whether improvement is needed. And most importantly, recognize those that you don’t have, so you know where you need to focus your efforts.
4. Believe in yourself. You are an amazing creation capable of achieving anything you desire. Make I CAN DO IT your mantra and repeat it daily.
5. Start today to focus on becoming the person worthy of achieving your goals. Remember that growth comes from the compounding effect of small daily improvements.

Will you accept my challenge? It will define your future!

“When you become a millionaire, it’s not the million dollars that makes you valuable. It’s the person you become in the process.” – Jim Rohn

About the Author: Todd Smith is a successful entrepreneur of 29 years and founder of Little Things Matter.