“It’s not what we do once in a while that counts, but our consistent actions…More than anything else, I believe our decisions – not the conditions of our lives – determine our destiny.” – Tony Robbins, Giant Steps Series (Day 2 of our series. View day 1 here).

You might be trying to lose an extra 10 lbs of fat, build up 12 pounds of muscle, cut down your debt to 0, or grow your personal income to a staggering six figures per year, consistency is the main determinate as to whether you will be successful or fail.

Don’t get me wrong, there will be bumps in the road. You might have to alter your strategy, re-align your expectations, or dust yourself off after a public failure and start again, but as long as you keep trekking up that mountain, you’re going to eventually going to get to the top.

We’ve already discussed in a previous post how to be more consistent in your life. In addition, I recently conducted an interview with two college graduates who, managed to raise a bunch of money for their business after months and months of hard work put into the project. A lot of you said that this was even more inspiring regarding the need to be consistent than the post I wrote!

Instead of beating a dead horse regarding consistency, with this post, I’m going to explore a few ways that you can make better decisions, which will eventually shape your life’s destiny.

1) If you want to take the island, you have to burn the bridges.

If you’re the general of an army and are trying to take over an island, you have two options:

1. Succeed and take the island.

2. Retreat back to your boats and go home.

Rather than even allowing there to be a second option, I’ve found it helpful to focus so much on the first option that the second falls by the wayside. Don’t underestimate the power of a human being backed into a corner. It’s during the times that we have no other options that the greatest amount of energy and cunning arises.

By cutting off the possibility of failure, you are giving whatever it is your all, which could be dieting or going full time on your business. It might seem harsh, but sometimes this is what is required to motivate someone to really make a change in their life for the better.

 2) Write down your decisions, tell your friends, and make them public.

There are few things that humans fear more than public failure. By making your dreams public, it ensures that others in your social network will hold you accountable to your goals and also, give you that extra bit of energy at the end of the day, when you are exhausted and don’t want to work on your business plan or new fiction novel.

In fact, having a support network is one of the vital pillars behind individuals who have experienced success through programs like weight watchers, mastermind groups, and even alcoholics anonymous. This support network could be the public network of your friends and acquaintances or a private group.

However, it’s not enough to just broadcast your goals publicly or to tell your friends. You also need to write them down, whether that’s in your journal, on a paper that you stick to the bedroom wall, or on a whiteboard. For me, writing down my goals crystalizes them and makes them more real in some ways. It also forces me to clarify what I want.

As Peter Drucker says, who pioneered the management by objectives concept, the goals should be SMART or specific, measurable, assignable, realistic, and time-related.

3) Lean towards an emotional rationale, not an intellectual one.

It’s tempting to build the foundation of your goals on an intellectual rationale, but in my experience, it’s not sustainable.

For example, you could say, “I need to contribute to my retirement fund each month by $500 so that I can take advantage of compound interest, invest in stocks and bonds, and retire wealthy.”

Well, yeah everyone knows that, but chooses to get the next best TV or iPhone instead. Everyone also knows that cookies make you fat, but they still eat them.

Rational reasons are not compelling enough for emotionally driven creatures like human beings to make big life-altering changes. They need emotional reasons.

For example, it’s better to say, “I’m going to invest X amount this month and every month after because I want to live the life of my dreams. I want to give my kids the best education possible. I want to be able to take care of my significant other when I retire. I can picture and feel the happiness of not worrying about money already!”

Okay, maybe I took that description a little bit overboard, but you get the point. Emotional reasons behind setting a goal are far more powerful than rational reasons. Emotional reasons sink into our bones and meld to the very fiber of the being. They take a goal from a wish to being a strong piece of our identity.

You are not meant to exist in life. You are meant to shape it, mold it, and improve it.

If you haven’t watched this Steve Jobs video, I highly recommend checking it out below.

It’s easy to chalk up desires as dreams that won’t happen. I hear this all the time when I’m pitching someone about a crazy new idea that I think would be successful.

“Yea, that would be nice,” they say. I had quite a few people tell me things like “This blogging thing is cool, but you know it’s never going to be a real job, right?”

You can either live life passively, or take ahold of the boat’s boat steering wheel and drive straight through the choppy waters.

You can either sell someone on your dream for the future, or be sold on why it won’t happen.

No matter what, the choice is yours. I just hope you find happiness in whatever route you choose! That being said, I’d love to hear about some of your dreams in a comment down below!