Have you ever wondered how some people seem to achieve the impossible?

You know those people who always seem to have luck on their side. The ones where success comes so easily – without them even trying?

Well I’ve got news for you – those people don’t exist.

While successful people may appear to be lucky or ‘in the right place at the right time’ – this is not really the case.

If you want success, if you want to achieve something truly great with your life, you’ve got to work for it.

I know this for a fact. It doesn’t just happen. There are no overnight success stories.

In-fact pretty much everyone you see who has achieved something great, has put the hard yards in.

Yes there are exceptions to the rule – but let’s be honest with ourselves. Let’s be realistic about what it takes to really make a difference with our lives.

Someone once said to me:

“Luck is where preparation meets opportunity”

And I even used this quote in my CV to help me in my earlier career as an Advertising Exec…but that’s another story. The point is – there’s no such thing as ‘passive luck’ – and what I mean by this is the type of ‘luck’ where you don’t have to do anything to get it – it just happens to you.

In my experience, there’s only focus, hard work and an open-ness to opportunities as they come your way.

It’s not all bad news though – there are some secrets to achieving seemingly impossible things and I’m going to share one of the most important steps with you now.

Because I want you to have success.

The secret to achieving the impossible

One of the most important things you can do to reach a seemingly impossible goal is to take baby steps.

People think that success happens overnight. It doesn’t

Those people who are hailed as overnight success stories – they have been slaving away in the background for years, decades even, to turn their dreams into reality. So it’s really crucial that you take a long-term approach when you’re planning to achieve something really BIG. Or even something small.

The key is to take baby steps each and every day and then suddenly something BIG will happen. And it might feel like an overnight success – but it will actually be a culmination of many, many, consistent, tiny baby steps.

Jill Bolte Taylor is a great example of this in action. Jill is a Harvard Neuroscientist who experienced a stroke that destroyed half of her brain. Jill was left without the ability to walk, talk, understand language, read or write and yet she decided to rehabilitate herself entirely on her own – a seemingly, impossible goal.

One of the most interesting insights from Jill’s experience of teaching herself to talk, read, write, and walk again entirely from scratch is that:

To go through each stage, she had to master that level of ability and then the next step would unfold naturally.

So Jill had to take baby steps. To learn to walk again she had to first master the ability to rock from one side to the other, and it was only once she had mastered this, that she could then consider the next step, which would get her closer to her goal of walking.

Where a lot of people go wrong with huge projects or goals in life is that they spend too much time focusing on the huge, end result. And when we do that – fear kicks in because it all gets too intimidating. The problem is, once fear is involved, our motivation and inspiration disappears and we unintentionally block ourselves from reaching our goals.

In contrast, however, if we focus not on the huge end goal, but on each day-to-day task, each baby step one day at a time, then suddenly one day we wake up and we’ve reached the big goal without even knowing it.

There really is a lot of wisdom in this approach. Why set yourself a huge unattainable goal and then become so intimidated by it that you give up early? Why not instead pull it to pieces and work on each individual mini-goal one day at a time?

Simple Life Strategy:  How to Achieve the Impossible

1. Start by setting yourself a pretty challenging goal (It’s time to get out of your comfort zone! If you’re new to the process of setting goals – you can read my Beginners 7 Step Goal Setting Method)

2. Now – work backwards and identify the small steps you’ll need to take to reach the goal. If you don’t know all the steps required – don’t worry too much. Just make a start by at least planning what needs to be done over the next few weeks to get going.

3. Now it’s time to stop focusing on the big goal for a moment. We want to eliminate any feelings of overwhelm or fear that may block you from getting started.

4. Instead, each day – completely focus on the ONE task you have to complete that day. Don’t worry about tomorrow or the next day or the day after that – just focus on what you need to get done that day.

5. At the end of each week, you can give yourself permission to review your progress and think about the big goal again. But only so you can plan the next week. Remember – it’s the culmination of many, many, tiny steps that will get you to your big goal.

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More Simple Life Strategies:

• How to Stop Procrastinating

• How to Overcome Fear in One Step

• How to Think Yourself to Success

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