Life is an obstacle course. It is normal to encounter obstacles in the pursuit of a goal. Actually, it is expected to pop up once in a while, causing delays or revisions to your plans.

However, when obstacles start to become a nuisance to the point of almost putting a stop to your goal; or worse, making you completely abandon your goal, time to think things over becomes a necessity.

Here are some helpful, tested pointers to keep your attention focused on achieving a goal:

1. First and foremost: “ Think positive.” This means: “Do not quit.” Especially when you are midway thru accomplishing a goal, there should be no room for quitting. To quit is tantamount to going back to the starting line of goal accomplishment. That is time, energy, money, and a whole lot of things wasted and lost. It is more costly to quit than to find a solution to the problem, not to mention the frustration you feel.

2. Keep a clear, open, and tense-free mind, ready to receive new ideas. Focus and concentrate. Think on a wide scale manner, open for options (even unconventional ones) to eliminate the obstacle.

3. Persist and persevere. Exhaust every possibility even to the point of trial and error (if doubtful), just to test a solution to correct the problem.

4. Simulate. Try to picture in your mind a possible solution to solve the obstacle.

5. Get assistance from other people who may be more knowledgeable on the work being done. They may be able to help. Their suggestions might not necessarily be the right or exact ones, but they may trigger new ideas in finding the right solution.

Consider this scenario: Let’s say you thought of a new product and you are confident this product will be sellable once it hits the market. You tell a friend about it, but your friend says otherwise that it will be a flop. Your friend tells you why it will be a flop and his/her reason is: “if the product will be a success, how come nobody’s doing it?” So you decide to forget about your new product because of your friend’s comment. This scene is repeated many times all over the world.

The lesson: Be firm in your belief. Follow your heart’s desire.

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