• Process is important, but it is not the key to success. Attitude is the key, but only if it is first class.

• Motivation and willpower are very necessary, but they are overrated. The secret lies in the conviction for the goal.

• If you work hard, you will have an easy life. If you go easy, you will have a hard life.

To advance and improve in life, it is key to set goals, and there you have to try not to fail, because they are yours, it is your essence, it is your life.

To achieve the goals you set for yourself, at any level, be it personal or professional, you will always need to follow a process, but the key is not there.  Following a system, a method or advice is very important, but we cannot rely on it. It is only a tool at the service of our goal, but to use it reliably, the key will always be in our attitude.

But be careful with the word ‘Attitude’. It’s very cool, and it’s always nice to mention it (often to the point of abuse), but there are first division attitudes, second division attitudes, third division attitudes and fifth division attitudes.

So first you have to be clear about whether you want to live your life in the first division or in the fifth regional division. If you give the utmost importance to your personal leadership or if you prefer to let yourself go and see what happens. If you consider your life to be of first division importance to you, then you will have to adopt a first division attitude towards the goals you set for yourself.

The key will always be the degree of ambition and commitment you have to this goal. And I will explain where is, from my point of view, the main secret to maximising your chances of success in any goal you set yourself:

The first factor that usually comes to mind on this subject is MOTIVATION. But we must understand that it is necessary and very positive, but it is overrated. It is a 3rd division attitude.  It lasts as long as it lasts, comes and goes, and will depend on many environmental factors, emotions, priorities or distractions at any given moment.

Then we have the WILLPOWER. A much more powerful attitude than motivation, but also overrated. It would be in the 2nd division. Important goals require long-term work, and while it is very important to have willpower, it requires a lot of effort and perseverance, which will be very difficult to maintain for a long time. At some point it will be very easy to fail and let it go, if the obstacle or stress along the way is too strong.

The very first division of the attitudes to achieve our goals is CONVICTION. This means doing a serious, sincere, authentic and deep work of reflection in your whole being, to determine whether that goal is something that you would simply like, or whether it is really a priority for you, in your life, in your moment, in your habits, in your work, in your relationships, etc. You have to be fully convinced of what that goal means in your life; and if you are, you will know that you can no longer give it up.

If you reach this conviction about any objective, logically you will have to make a strategy and a plan, following a process, using motivation and willpower; but you will hardly fail in everything that depends on you, because you are totally convinced that this is what you want and what is right for you.

I give a very basic (and all too common) example: the goal of quitting smoking. I will have to see which method works best for me (process). Maybe I choke a bit, or I have had a health problem, or I have been told that I have bad breath, or it seems absurd to spend money on something that intoxicates me, and I decide on this goal. This is motivation. But it tends to be quickly forgotten if one is very used to smoking and any distraction or change of priorities arises. But then there can be the willpower that will drive me to do my best to achieve my goal. If we have it, it will facilitate the process, but we only need something significant to happen to us, such as an argument with our partner, a problem at work or any other problem, for us to let our guard down and make that exception that will take us back to square one, and all the effort made based on our willpower will vanish, without achieving our goal. But if we convince ourselves that our body is our temple, that we are ultimately responsible for our health, that we are and want to be a healthy person, and that our self-esteem does not allow us to fail ourselves, there will no longer be room in our lives to accept a bad habit such as smoking. We will simply not be able to afford it any more. And with a little motivation, some willpower and a certain method, we will surely succeed… and we will feel full, happy, confident, healthy and connected to our sense of life in a fabulous way.

Now take your next goal as an example, and do a similar reasoning to arrive at what it will bring you to have full conviction about it.

You know: in life we have to make a great effort of analysis and personal reflection in order to simplify things and have an easy life. And if we do not make this effort and we go for the easy things in our conceptual and strategic reflection on personal leadership, then things will certainly become more complicated and we will have a difficult life.