By Alek S.

It’s probably safe to say that few people are exactly who they want to be in life. People would like to be more successful, live healthier, or have better personal relationships. In all, many of our goals are incredibly universal, and yet, we want to be singular as an individual. Because of this simple truth, it can be useful to think of our lives as our own story, and we are able to control the outcome (although not all of the factors). When you think of life like this, you begin to see that you want a theme that defines your life and all that you do. At the end of it all, what will it have meant to be you? Here are some tips on how to set a theme to help you accomplish your goals…

Consider what success means to you

The first important thing to do is really nail down exactly what it is that you are expecting from yourself. This could be incredibly difficult, or the easiest part of the whole process, depending on how well you know what you want. Take some time to sit down and think about what success means to you. In order to be the best version of yourself, you need to know what it is you are striving for. This is an important step that businesses take to measure their own internal efficiency, as the end goal must be determined to see how you are really progressing.

Give yourself a mantra

While this step might seem a little cosmetic, setting a mantra for yourself to live by can be an effective way to quantify your goals and piece together a distilled version of the theme for your journey. Mantras work because words are highly effective. If someone gives you words of encouragement or discouragement, those are going to have a profound impact on you. A mantra is your way of telling yourself what you need to do to accomplish your goals. Mantras are a powerful tool for many industries, including everything from business management to addiction recovery.

Find a role model that fits you

A role model should be someone who exemplifies the traits that you want to see in your own life. For this reason, picking the right role model is an integral part of success, as it helps define your own goals. This is why it is also important to pick a role model that doesn’t have a tremendous amount of baggage that will taint their successes and what you want to see in yourself, although it is also important to recognize that they are human, and will have made mistakes. This is why the right role model can have such an impact on children growing up.

Be realistic (and dream big)

There is a precarious tightrope that must be walked, when it comes to setting the right theme to accomplish the goals in our life. First of all, it’s important to be realistic with ourselves. When we expect too much of ourselves, or fail to set clearly defined goals for success, then we are only setting ourselves up for failure. However, it’s also important to remember that nobody ever became highly successful without ambition. When we think of who we want to be, we must find the right balance between dreaming big, but still being realistic about what we can become in a reasonable amount of time.

Learn to quantify failure

If you can’t handle failure, then you’ll never be able to handle the road to success, which is all about learning how to fail. You can tell a lot about a person from how they handle failure. If you are able to have the right amount of introspection that helps you recognize your own mistakes, and apply them to your future plans, then failure is the perfect ingredient to help you reach the goals you set for yourself. When setting a theme for yourself, don’t expect that you won’t fail on the way to becoming who you really want to become. Allowing failure to define your exploits will entrench you further in behavior that will only contribute to further failure, while quantifying that failure can help you grow and become successful.