OK, we’ve all done it. We’ve all set goals to improve our health, exercise more, or lose weight. Sure, we start out with a lot of enthusiasm but after a couple of weeks, what happens? We’re usually right back where we started. At this point, we usually feel like a failure and tell ourselves that since we can’t lose the weight anyway, we might as well go ahead and pig out.

So how do you break out of this cycle? How do you set goals that will increase your chances of success, instead of setting you up for failure? Well, let me share with you what I’ve found. It’s called the “3 P’s.”

The 3 P’s

Take out your journal (you do have one, don’t you?) and write down these three words: Purpose, Passion, and Performance. Behind these three words are the secret to achieving whatever goal you set. Here’s how they work and support each other.

Purpose

There are a lot of words that are used to describe purpose. Other authors might talk about setting a goal, picking a direction, creating a dream or vision. These all essentially mean the same thing and attempt to answer the same basic question: exactly why do you want to do (or have) this? What is your purpose in pursuing this? Is it better health? To look better in your clothes? To have more energy? What is your true purpose in achieving this?

Now here’s the key. Make sure you state your reason, your purpose, in the most specific and descriptive way you possibly can. Make sure you use positive terms that excite and encourage. Why? Because you want your purpose to create plenty of passion, the second of the 3 P’s.

Passion

Passion is the energy, the drive, that’s going to get you up early, keep you up late, and keep you going all day long. It’s what’s going to keep you moving when everything (and everyone) else is trying to stop you dead in your tracks. Need more energy, more drive? Easy. Go back and re-read your purpose. Remind yourself why you’re doing this. If you stated your purpose in descriptive enough terms, you’ll feel the passion, excitement, and determination beginning to build. Getting passion to build inside of you is like increasing the amount of steam in a boiler. After a while, the pressure builds to the point that it simply has to be put to work or else it will explode. Having ample reserves of passion will drive you to the next of the 3 P’s: performance.

Performance

Getting yourself so excited that you simply have to go out and do something about it creates physical action, or performance. This is the step where you are actually out there making your dream come true. You are accomplishing your purpose, your goal. Your performance is physical, something you can see, something you can measure, and because you can measure it, it’s easy to tell how close (or how far) you are from accomplishing your goal.

Now here’s the neat part. Once you see that you’ve made even a little bit of progress, your passion will flare up and you’ll be driven to even better performance. This cycle of passion driving performance which creates more passion continues to repeat itself until you’ve reached your goal. Isn’t that neat? What’s even better is that now that you know how this cycle works, you can control it, you can use it, you can put it to work in order to accomplish whatever you want to achieve.

Getting Your Performance Engine Started

It really is like an engine. Your passion creates energy and your performance translates that energy into work. After a very short while, that work turns into progress and when you see progress, you get excited and create more passion. That passion fuels the next cycle of performance and off you go headed towards accomplishing your purpose.

So how do you get your engine started? Clearly define your purpose and make sure it’s stated in a way that inspires, that motivates, that creates passion. Then use that passion to get moving in the direction you want to go. If your “engine” coughs and quits, go back and review your purpose and get inspired all over again. If it doesn’t inspire you then re-write it until it does. Only then will you create enough “fuel,” enough passion, to get your performance engine started.

So what are you waiting for? Get started right now!

Hiram

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