What are your dreams? Whether you want to build a Fortune 500 company, remodel an old house, or move to Costa Rica and learn to surf, there is a formula to get you there; a recipe. In fact, there are four secret ingredients to turning any dream you have into reality:

1) Vision

When is the last time you let yourself go in to a delicious, juicy daydream? The kind where you catch yourself smiling as you gaze out the window and, upon waking from your trance, the grass is greener and the sky is bluer? Contrary to what you may have been taught in school, having your head in the clouds is the first key ingredient to achieving the life you deserve.

If it weren’t for imaginations running wild, we wouldn’t have the luxury of hopping the globe by airplane, the pleasure of reading a mystery novel, or the thrill of splashing down a Slip ‘n Slide. After all, some daydreamer invented the Slip ‘n Slide! Anything worth existing was once a spark of a dream. Achieving your goals in life and business starts with visualization, because it paints the picture of where you are going.

2) Plan

Planning is the second ingredient to having your dream on a platter. When you make plans, you are preparing yourself for something to actually happen with your dream. You pull your visualization into the real world, and start to give it a shape. This is when dates go on calendars, blueprints are made, maps are drawn up, and meetings are called.

One of my favorite planning tools for creating the life you desire is this backwards timeline:

* Visualize the highest outcome for your life or business
three to five years from now

* Define your intentions for a winning year
(to bring you toward that inspiring vision)

* Define your targets for a successful quarter
(to bring you toward your winning year)

* Define your goals for a productive month
(to bring you toward your successful quarter)

* Define your objectives for a powerful week
(to bring you toward your productive month)

* Define your actions for a productive day
(to bring you toward your powerful week)

This strategy, when applied to your goals, practically guarantees your success in any undertaking.

3) Action

The third essential ingredient in making things happen in your life and business is action. Without action, the cake will collapse. Visualization and planning are essential, yet they will only take you so far.

You can sit in your house all day and dream up the perfect husband or wife, and you can even plan the wedding down to the pink petunia centerpieces. If you never take the action to leave your house, though, how will you ever meet this person? You won’t unless, of course, you fall in love with your mail carrier or pool boy.

Part of achieving your vision is trusting that your intention will attract the people, resources, and situations you need to make your dreams come true. And then you must take action. Action demonstrates your faith that your goals are attainable.

4) Habit

Our fourth ingredient – the secret spice that makes all the difference – is habit. If action gets the ball rolling, habit keeps the ball rolling. Habit is formed when you take action consistently over time. This is a simple concept, yet don’t confuse simple with easy. It was Samuel Johnson, an author of English literature, who said: “The chains of habit are too weak to be felt until they are too strong to be broken.”

This can be both bad and good, right? It’s bad when the habit is drinking a six-pack of beer and watching hours of television every night. It’s good when the habit is flossing regularly, writing a weekly blog post, or making ten sales calls a day.

Habit with no worthwhile destination leads you… nowhere worthwhile. Intentional habit that is aligned with a big goal, on the other hand, is the single most powerful way to honor and live into your vision. When it comes down to it, your habits create your results.

So yes, there is a formula for achieving anything you set your heart to, and it can be summarized like this:

When you transform a VISION into a PLAN and take relevant ACTION until it’s a HABIT, then your HABITUAL ACTION over time leads to VISION ACHIEVEMENT.

The best part about this recipe is, you can have your cake and eat it too!

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January 2013 Issue