Think Your Way to Success: 3 Tools for Manifesting Your Dreams in 2019

I’ve always believed in the power of manifestation: if you put your dreams out into the world, you’re more likely to achieve them. But dreams don’t come true, dreams are made true. You can’t just sit idly by and expect good things to happen; to reach your goals, you have to be an active participant in your own success.

Over the years, I’ve learned that manifesting your dreams takes focus, faith and effort. I’ve developed three strategies that always help me turn my pie-in-the-sky ambitions into reality. Give these techniques a try and manifest your biggest goals for 2019.

1. Focus: Write a Painted Picture

Goal-setting isn’t just about throwing your biggest dreams up in the sky and hoping you land on the moon. There’s actually a science to manifesting your goals, and it has to do with training your brain.

When you continuously visualize that something will happen, it reprograms your brain to believe in that reality. Your thoughts become your actions which, in turn, influence your future. Choosing positive, productive thoughts over negative ones can literally transform your entire life.

A few years ago, I had the pleasure of meeting four-time Olympian Simon Whitfield. He said that every day leading up to his first Olympic performance, he wrote in his journal, “I am the Olympic champion.” Not only did he win the gold — he set the record for fastest Olympic triathlon for 12 years. His intense training obviously played a role, but Whitfield says that thinking like a winner helped him become one.

I use a similar strategy to visualize the future of our business. I call it the Painted Picture: a crystal-clear snapshot of how our company will look, feel and act in the next five years. We wrote the first one in 1997 and we achieved 90% of our big, hairy, audacious goals. Now, it’s a company tradition that brings our team together to make the impossible, possible.

2. Faith: Be “WTF” (Willing to Fail)

One of the biggest reasons people don’t accomplish their goals is because they’re too afraid of failure to try. To achieve your dreams, you need to have faith in yourself and dive into every challenge head first. If you succeed the first time, great — but that’s usually an exception to the rule. When you’re willing to fail, you open yourself up to infinite opportunities.

I started hauling junk as a side hustle (and as a way to pay for school), but soon I got so busy that I had to duck out of class to keep up with demand. I had two options — give up the business to focus on school, or vice versa — but only one would help me reach my goals. So I said “WTF,” took a leap of faith, and dropped out. Being willing to fail helped me set my dreams in motion.

3. Effort: Cultivate the ‘4Hs’

When we’re looking for new franchise partners or employees, we look for people with the ‘4 Hs’: happy, hungry, hardworking and hands-on. If a candidate has all of these attributes, it’s a clear sign that they’ll be a perfect fit for our business.

That’s because they know how much work it takes to fight for your dreams. It doesn’t matter if they own a franchise or work behind the scenes at our headquarters; our people bring positive energy to everything they do. They’re not afraid to roll up their sleeves and do whatever it takes to reach their goals. Most of all, they have an innate desire to succeed, together.

Manifesting your dreams isn’t as simple as saying the words, sitting back and hoping something sticks. You have to be your own engine to drive yourself towards the life you always imagined. Good things might come to those who wait — but great things come to those who put in the effort to make them happen.