To start changing your life, you must mentally prepare yourself to take this path. Benjamin Franklin’s Three Principles of Success can help us begin to prepare for this change. The first principle is that great results that can make you happy do not come suddenly but are the result of small daily successes. The second principle is that your life and the environment in which you live are not rigid—they can be shaped as you wish. To do this, however, it is necessary to set a goal toward which all your efforts should be directed. The third principle is perhaps the most important: success is a pleasure. And so is the way to go about achieving it.

Another fundamental point to keep in mind when starting this process of change is that not exploiting your full potential risks damaging the way you think and, consequently, act. Doing less than your talent allows lowers your self-esteem and, in the long run, completely resets it, plunging you into a vicious cycle of inaction. For this reason, it is necessary to always aim for the maximum, fueled by positive ambition that leads you toward ever more challenging goals.

There are two types of goals: short-term ones and long-term ones. The latter can be tackled like a long journey—when you reach your destination, you will no longer be the same person you were at the start. To define these long-term goals, it is essential to ask the right questions and understand what you want to do, who you want to be, what you want to have in life, and where you want to go. The second step is to make a list with all these answers and try to distinguish between aspirations and frivolities.

Finally, you have to choose four annual, four three-year, four five-year, and four 10-year goals and visualize them in detail so that reading this list can inspire and motivate you, especially when you go off course due to an unexpected event. In defining your goals, be careful not to choose goals that are too easy—otherwise, there will be no opportunities for growth—and do not compromise, that is, do not betray your values.

by Federico Coppini
https://www.coppinifedericoacademy.com/