No one, no matter how intelligent you are, starts out knowing how to crawl, walk, talk, chew, understand language, read or control our bladders. As we grow, we all learn these things (hopefully) and we all learned them in the same way: one step at a time. We learned to communicate, we learned to be mobile, we learned to send e-mails, we learned to cook microwave popcorn, we learned to drive. . . there’s no end to what we can learn.

It all started out with baby steps.

And we continue to learn -- anything that we set our minds to, in fact. We can parse anything into smaller chunks learning a musical instrument, learning a computer program, learning a new language (which, incidentally, is something that I’m experiencing at my ripe age and through techniques like the light and sound machine I can achieve the brainwaves associated with early childhood development and learning, I’m excelling in Spanish at an incredible rate)

We can even learn how to have total congruity and living honestly with ourselves and everyone around us.

If this sounds appealing to you, here’s what I want you to do. Pick something that you can absolutely be 100 percent in control of and commit to doing it.

Let me give you an example. I like this one because I can be in total control of doing it. Let’s say today I tell myself I’m going to go out at 3:00 today to the mailbox. Then let’s say that 3:00 is 10 minutes away from now. I’m going to go check the mailbox and come back. No matter what, I’m going to keep that commitment to myself.

I have absolute faith that you can do that.

Or try this one: Tell yourself you’re going to go home from work today on a different route than usual. You'll have to force yourself, be vigilant and alert because your normal reflexes will take over and you’ll do it the same way you always did unless you pay close attention.

Or maybe you decide you’re going to clean up your desk by 5:00 o’clock. Then at 5:00 o’clock, you simply clean your desk. Do it.
I don’t care how little it is, but whatever it is, pick something little and do it.

Then when you want to go a little further, extend the time frame. Tell yourself, I’m going to check the mail today at 4:00, so that’s three hours from now. The key is that you do not allow anything, no matter what, to get in your way of doing what you committed to do.

The next step is to increase the magnitude of the task. For example, maybe it's something you don’t really want to do -- like yard work, exercise, or making an appointment for the dentist -- once you’ve established within yourself that you can go get the mail when you say you're going to do it, or drive a different route home, you'll be primed to conquer the larger tasks.

Here's the thing: this may sound silly, like, of course I can go get the mail or drive a different route home, but the reality is, what you might find in doing this exercise is that you make all kinds of commitments to yourself and others that you have no intention of keeping. Is it any wonder you’re not getting ahead faster than you are right now?

To see how fast you are or are not getting ahead, look into your environment because that will show you really quickly how powerful your will is.

Kenrick Cleveland teaches techniques to sell to affluent clients using persuasion strategies. He runs unique public and private seminars and offers home study courses, audio/visual learning tools, and coaching programs in persuasion techniques. Find more free articles at www.MAXpersuasion.com/blog. Be sure to sign up for his free report entitled "Yes! Persuasion."