I did it. I achieved an important goal this week and thought about the journey. I want to share some ideas about what`s important to achieve your goal.I made yesterday finally the interview with an important publisher for my thesis and thought about the things I did to get this interview. It was not easy but finally I got it and want to share some ideas with you:
1. Be patient: It took me about one month to get this interview and all together eight calls to the company. If I quit after the seventh call I couldn't make this happen. So be patient and most importantly don't take it personal. In the eight calls I spoke with the PA of the publisher and she always said, that she would call me back - but never did it. In my next call I mentioned our last call and she laughed and said several times "Ohhh... yes sorry I forgot you." I never took it too serious and also laughed and said no problem. Companies get hundreds of calls every day! I was one of them and I was always aim oriented. I wasn`t angry I just wanted the interview with this publisher.
2. Preparation: Prepare yourself and be ready for getting your chance. It is better being prepared and having no opportunity, instead of getting an opportunity and not being prepared (this is from Les Brown - hope you like it). I was sure that I could make the interview so I prepared several questions for the publisher and printed them out. I worked on them again and showed them to my professor. She gave me some advices and things to work on and so I did my homework. After I got the permission to make the interview with the publisher I immediately sent it to their E-Mail address. In my weekly planning I always wrote at our whiteboard the interview with the publisher. If your committed to make this extra work and prepare yourself, you will make extraordinary things happen in your life. So prepare yourself.
3. Be thankful: It is not so much about the goals we have, it is about what we become in order to get to the goal. It was a great experience to speak with this publisher because some of his thoughts touched me. We spoke about voluntary work, because he is very active in many organizations. He said "volunteering is something which moves nations to the peek. Everybody should be engaged in voluntary work because that makes you more happy than all the money you earn. When I`m honest, it makes me much happier to volunteer than to earn more money in my own company, because voluntary work is much more interesting than money."
It was a great opportunity for me and I feel that this conversation will be very important for the coming things in my life. If you also have something you think about achieving don't forget that nobody else can achieve these goals for you. Only you can achieve them for yourself. So be patient, prepare yourself and be thankful for all the things you have in your life. You will create a vacuum in your life so something new - your goal your aiming- will come to you. Good luck with it.