Goal Achievement – Doing It Your(selfie)!

"Gordon Bryan"When Oxford Dictionaries made ‘selfie’ their word of the year for 2013, it caused a bit of a fuss. You may wonder why I’m writing about it a quarter of the way through 2014, but it’s all to do with some goal achievement lessons I got from the story…

There were a lot of negative angles given to the story, the narcissism of the selfie, but since I always like to focus on the positives, I saw a couple beaming out to me.

Firstly, let’s look at doing it yourself. As Jim Rohn says, you can’t hire someone else to do your pushups for you. You can study up about the benefit of exercise all you want, but if you expect that to be enough to produce results, then that’s why you’ve never achieved the results you wanted.

You have to do your own push ups. You have to be the one taking action, and more often than not it will require effort. Once you start, it becomes easier to do more push ups, and your motivation increases as habit and momentum kick in.

Don’t wait for someone else to do it, do it yourself.

It’s not a new idea, nor is it a complicated idea, but it’s something that leaves so many people with unfulfilled lives, when all they had to do was get started.

The second goal achievement idea that sprang to mind regarding the word ‘selfie’ is to with opportunity…

"Mike Hopkins"Here’s a selfie taken by astronaut Mike Hopkins. Man landed on the moon way back in 1969, probably using less computer power than we have in our home technology today! The advance of technology has been so fast in recent years, that communication is at our fingertips 24 hours a day.

Information is at our fingertips 24 hours a day. You can publish to a global audience 24 hours a day, pretty much for free. That’s not an opportunity that was available even a few years ago.

Go back even further and you would be looking at time and effort to find information on how to do things. You’d be looking at time effort and money to publish information.

The digital age we live in gives us that opportunity right now. Don’t look to the past, don’t wait for the future, take advantage of the opportunity you have right now.

I did say I like to look for the positives to outweigh the negatives, but the negatives shouldn’t be ignored, so here’s one negative from the rise of the selfie – hopping on the bandwagon. You do see some pretty ridiculous selfies going around, with people following various crazes on social media simple because everyone else is.

People feel they are not part of the crowd unless they join in. It’s classic herd mentally classic peer pressure. I’ve always written that you should surround yourself with people who have similar interests/goals to you, but that’s different from following crazes just to fit in. Being yourself is the most important thing, and since we live in age which allows us to do it, there is no need to blindly follow others.

Be yourself. Look at ‘selfie’ being the 2013 word of the year, and look at your goals in 2014. Have you taken action, so far this year, or are you expecting results to happen by magic? Are you using enough of the amazing technological opportunities around us today?

If not, then look at your goals again, work out the next step you need to take, and go out and start doing it yourself(ie)!

Do let me know what you think, I love the feedback.

‘Til Next Time,
Health & Happiness,
Gordon
P.S. Don’t forget to take a look at my motivational book ‘Transform Your Life in 21 Days!’

Do leave a comment!

Leave a Reply to gordino X

10 Comments

    • Ha! No, you don’t have to take one 😉
      You do make a good point though – I’m amazed by how many people *do* think they have to, just because everyone else seems to be! Independent thought is a great thing, but missed by huge numbers of people.
      Cheers,
      Gordon

  • I love selfie but not usually doing it. I love being positive always! I love being yourself all the time! 🙂

    • Thanks,
      I also enjoyed Jim Rohn’s push up example – so easy to recognise the lesson. Remember, taking some action puts you ahead of the many that take none at all!
      cheers,
      Gordon

    • Hi Nick,
      I only take them really for humour, it’s the dead serious pouty ones that are classic ‘follow the herd mentality’
      cheers,
      Gordon

  • I always feel really awkward if I take a selfie but I like the fact I can get my writing out there using technology and feel more in control rather than waiting for someone else to do it for me. About to branch out even more by getting Kindle books etc out and expanding my website. But I do get someone to maintain the site – it helps to know when you are out of your depth and you need to ask someone els(ie).