Raj has been gaining too much weight over the past few months. He was 46 years with a loving family earning a decent salary. Stress at work and long hours of sitting was giving him terrible back pains and high blood pressure.

He experienced bouts of pain at work and while sleeping. On his last visit to his regular orthopedic doctor, tests were carried out and reports showed cholestrol levels slightly higher than normal. He was weighing over 200 pounds. He had set a goal to bring down his weight at the earliest.

Upon the doctor's advise he enrolled himeslf to an exercise regime in a gym and was regular every evening after work. Following weekend he took a break and involved into sumptous eating and felt lazy to go to the gym that day. Next day he had work overload. Weekend bashing and work load left him tired. He started skipping the excercise programme every alternate day. In the next three weeks he gradually increased his absence to the gym and eventually gave up.

Roselyn was having challenging moments in her life. Her job was not paying enough to take care of her needs and also support her family. Her kids were good at school work, but she wanted to send them to a better school. Her job was makimg her work 10 hours a day. To meet her expenses she had to borrow from friends and relatives. She was not happy and worried all the time. She had a close friend Tina, who happened to be a career counsellor and trainer. She advised Rose to work on her passion little by little. Rose was an expert cook and loved to teach children on academic subjects owing to her good grades at school. Tina advised her to start reading and writing and watching cookery shows. But this involves a lot of efforts after a tiring day. Tina gifted her a self help book to build her determination.
To do more than her job and home she had to stretch harder by waking up early and going to sleep late. She committed to do it , so that in few months she will be able to learn and earn a lot of extra income and slowly make it her main work which would obviously earn her more. Being highly determined Rose listed down her goals and worked on it with full enthusiasm. A week passed, she felt good although it was tiring. Being a high season, her work had increased in office leaving her exhausted. Slowly her focus on her goals reduced and in a month she was back to complaining and lamenting about her life. She did not even read the book Tina had gifted her.

There is so much discussions happening about goals and dreams these days,but how many of them declare that goals are very hard and painstaking to achieve?

A goal is tool by which a person can reach higher levels in life within a given time period. Sometimes no one will understand your need to achive your goals. No one can see what you see for yourself.

While chasing goals, the person is going to experience a lot of setbacks and defeats. Going form one level to another will throw up lots of challenges. It is like, when the plane takes off, it will go through a lot of turbulences until it reaches a comfortable altitude.

It is human nature to keep changing thoughts as per situations that arise time to time. When we start doing something new, we feel the initial excitement that keep us engaged for a limited period of time. When we are faced with lack of time or a bit of failure there is an inner conversation that will tell us that we are not in the right direction. When we listen more often to that inner dialogue we tend to go aginst our initial belief. This is when the conflict arise. We all know that in life we need goals.
A ship that has no pre-determined destination will be lost in the high seas. Many keep complaining and doing the smae thing everyday expecting life to change. As per reasearch only 8 to 10% of people who set goals actually go on to achieve them. When I was faced with series of hardships and wanted to give up time to time, my life was getting more complicated and hard. When I could not take it any more, one day I dropped my buckets and decided that I was going to do something about it. I began to write down the reasons why I wanted to come out of my problems and chaneg my life. When I read those reasons it made me strong internally. Some of my reasons were to give the best to my family, to have freedom to choose, to make a difference in the world, to prove that we have the power to change our lives etc.
On one side of the sheet, I had the reasons and on the other I had the goals listed with deadlines. I would read this every day three to four times everyday and was getting attached to my goals emotionally. Over a period of two weeks it became a strong part of my life and I grew to a level where goals became my oxygen. This made me read, write, listen and watch videos and brought lots of ideas and methods that helped me achieve my goals. In the process I learnt about NLP, self devlopment, increased my network, attended many seminars, workshops etc. I had to recondition my mind from problems to winning solutions. It was Eistein who said, "The thinking that has brought me so far has created some problems that this thinking cannot solve." I started reading about the life of successful people.
These days internet is a big blessing unlike earlier days of libraries. Most of the self help book has plenty of methods to achieve success. Some are mind related and some are physical. I have benefitted. from all of them. However if a person gets stuck in comfort zone even if it bites, he will not look for anything different. A mother will stay up all night amidst all hardships just to make her baby sleep out of the unconditional love. The question we need to ask ourselves is , how far are we ready for that kind of sacrifice and face hardships to achive goals without quitting.
A soldier marching towards the enemy lines cannot come back alive if he does not use up all his energy to kill his enemies. So as humans if we put ourselves in a position where there is no escape we will be able to unleash incredible powers to succeed. To achieve goals we need to have commitment of a soldier and the will power of a mother to push hard to make things happen. "To achieve success, be in a perpetual state of discomfort and preparation" - Les Brown
Also Read: To initiate action right after setting goals: https://www.iuemag.com/march2016/di/i-bet-you-shall-take-action.php

When I wanted to write my book and start conducting seminars, my inner conversation came up with thousand reasons as to why I cannot do it. So I would give up every time. Till I could find the right reasons I was not able to make any progress on my dreams. By staying strong and determined I understood that golas should have strong emotions, trust, faith and commitmment attached to it.

So the driving force was "REASONS". "He who has a why to live for can bear almost any how" - Nietzche

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The lessons I learnt by facing my life setbacks and reading voraciously made me come up with winning formula called "GARA".
I have conducted seminars on this method and received several positive feedbacks. Many are following this method and find it working to achieve their goals.

GARA stands for Goals, Action, Reasons and Affirmations. 
A sample GARA sheet would look something like illustrated here:

Goals

• Reduce weight by 5 kg by ........
• To start business by ........
• To earn xxx dollars by .......
  
  

Actions

This is short term and has to change as we progress. Can be monthly.

• Wake up at 5am to exercise
• Read 15 pages everyday
• Watch videos on your interest for 30 minutes everyday
• Listen to positive messages everyday for one hour
• Attend seminars and workshops
• 20 minutes mediation and visulaization of having succeeded
  
  

Reasons

• Want to live longer to enjoy life
• My family desrves better
• Dont want to lead a mediocre life
• By succeeding I can help many
• Live a life of contribution
• Stand tall in front of collegues, friends, relatives
• My purpose is .........
  
  

Affirmations

(Prepares the subconscious to succeed)

• Iam born to win
• I will not quit until I win
• Good things are supposed to happen to me
• Im highly committed to success
• My family believes in me.
  
  

This sheet has to be put up above the bed and other visible places where you can read often.
By doing this for a week, GARA will help in the following 

• Help in fine tuning and setting of real goals
• Will put a person in a position where he cannot retreat without success
• Will make the person create situations to challenge and go forward closer to achieving
• Will put the person in constant pressure to keep chasing the goals
• Will make the person aim high in life
• Will make the person resonate with energy and success
• Will bring create ideas and thoughts that will help in working the goals faster.
• Will attract people and situations to succeed.
  
  

We have the power to aim high and achieve by having the right reasons to keep us in the game.
How badly you want to change your life determines the drive to achieve your goals!