Be Aggressive when Pursuing Goals

If you want to be a successful goal achiever you must be aggressive in your pursuit. When you begin taking action, you must take aggressive action. While talking about aggressiion, however, I am not suggesting going out and beating up people on the street or yelling at anyone who looks at you funny. What I am talking about is adopting an aggressive attitude towards goal achievement. I can tell you from experience and being exposed to large amounts of material that people who are passive are not achieving goals, at least not many of them or at a high level.

 I read this statement recently: “If I want my life to have new possibilities, I will have to create them.” First of all you have to decide that generally a way does exist to get what you want … if you want it badly enough. Furthermore you have to know that you are the one responsible for working hard and being creative to get there.  You cannot sit back and wait for “it” to happen. You must take action with laser focus, zeroing in on your particular goal.

Next, in most cases, executing your plan may not work exactly as you had envisioned. Flexibility is the key. If one method does not work, then you have to alter it somewhat or try something different altogether. Missiles work this way. They are basically off course much of the time, making small corrections constantly with their inner guidance system until they hit the target. Ultimately, like the missile, you get where you want to be but with some course corrections along the way. 

One more way to be aggressive involves being bold in approaching others. For example, presently I am writing a book on backpacking, entitled Have Backpack – Will Travel: Seeing the World on a Budget with a Backpack. While browsing in a large, chain retail sporting goods/outdoors store, I saw some books and DVDs on golfing and fishing. However, when I visited the area on camping and backpacking, I did not see any similar media. When I arrived home, I looked up the national corporate office on-line, called, got the receptionist, and told her I was looking for the person in charge of the backpack line. She connected me with the department head. I told him that I had visited one of his stores and saw nothing in book form about backpacking. He acknowledged that they had nothing. I told him I was writing a book about the topic. His reply was that he would like me to email him a copy when I finished, explaining he would make no promises but he might be interested in the book.

Of course I have no idea if anything will work out with this chain of stores, but if it does my book may have a national outlet (and I will have more money in my pocket!). But if it does not, I gave it a shot. I was aggressive; I did not wait for this company to call and say they heard I was working on this book and they must see it. Life does not work that way unless you are already famous and established like J.K. Rowlings or Tom Clancy with people waiting excitedly for your next project.  

What does this mean to you? To restate my earlier premise - if you want to achieve goals, you must be aggressive in pursuing them. Approaching people by phone, email or through others, taking a course that will provide more knowledge, joining a group associated with the area you are interested in, researching/reading about your area of interest in depth, taking time to brainstorm about what you need to do, asking for help from others, attending a conference related to your area of interest or engaging in any number of other practical actions that will get you closer to where you want to be has to be pursued. Sitting around, doing nothing but thinking about your goals is not the answer.