Some of the world’s greatest feats were accomplished by people not smart enough to know they were impossible. ~Doug Larson
Like many of us, I have my collection of unaccomplished goals in life. Several dreams and ideas I once had and set about to achieving them but never stayed the course and accomplished the goals that seems to be all important to me at one time. Loosing weight, getting healthy, starting my own business, getting a better job, adopting a healthier lifestyle, earning more money, buying a fancy car and the list goes on endlessly. Some of them I did manage to achieve, some I worked very hard towards but gave up along the way, some I continue to work towards periodically, and some I shamelessly blame the circumstances or have managed to find an excuse to justify my failure. The series of these unaccomplished goals at times are overbearing on my motivational levels and setting newer goals in life. As we all know, we each have our set of several small and big life goals in life and we spend our life trying to achieving them. The dreams and ambitions are never ending and a continuous process where we pick up newer ones as we go along. Some we set to achieve, and some we let fizzle away sooner than we spent time coming up with the idea. So, what does drive such ambitions in life? What makes those other winners, and achievers in life different from us and why can’t we achieve our goals in life? After all, if we think about it, we realize that we too can do the same things many of these successful people have done and become successful. We are able, smart and hardworking people too who carry several or more of the skill sets displayed by many of these achievers. What truly differentiates us from others in achieving our goals and becoming successful and feeling great with the positive sense of accomplishment?
Obstacles are those frightful things you see when you take your eyes off your goal. ~Henry Ford
Playing a game on the Xbox or Playstation is simply an almost profound experience. The thrill of beating the opponents and getting to the next higher level keeps the player glued to game until all stages are won and have been totally satisfied that you have finished the game and achieved the ultimate score or level. If you put in a little more thought into it, you will realize that the amount of effort and skills punt into the relentless pursuit of achieving the ultimate score or beating the toughest level is par excellence. The player looses several times over and gets back into the game to cross that stage to the next. Then the perseverance and will continues from one higher and tougher level to another. From one maze and set of hurdles to another tougher obstacle the player consistently sets and relentlessly tries and beats the goals each time to eventually win the game. Night or day, sometimes all through the night and without break for food the game goes on. I find this whole process and the level of commitment to be fascinating. The process of choosing the goal, the level of focus towards attaining the goal, the strategic planning, execution and the perseverance brought to the game is nothing short of some excellent behaviors displayed by several world class achievers. But what amuses me more is that why don’t people put in the same level of efforts, persistence, skills, and self induced motivation into achieving greater things in life. Where does the never say die attitude, the will, the level of endurance, the drive to face any obstacle and over come them regardless of number of times they have to go at it, the highest level of persistent until the game is won go when it comes to setting and achieving life goals? After all, it takes the same exact process that ones already endure to win at a video game to achieve greater and much more rewarding successes in life.
It is never too late to be who you might have been. ~George Eliot
When it comes to setting real life goals and achieving them, there are several theories and strategically developed points that help one go about becoming successful. But there is little said about the purpose of life goals in comparison. Often it is the “purpose” of every life goal that drives an individual to stay the course and relentlessly pursue the goal to success or it lets them to deviate and eventually loose its value and interest in attaining them. The true driving factor towards any success in life, is the true value of the goal you set yourself to achieve. The value of this goal can only be defined by the purpose, the need, and what the end result will mean to you in your personal life. For example: If you aim to get a better paying job. It is more important to think of this goal through with the focus on why do you need this and what will you specifically achieve by attainting this goal. If the next job pays more, what will the pay increase accomplish and why is that important for you. You need a higher pay to afford a more comfortable living, buy an expensive car, save more for frequent holidays, buy more things for your children or family etc.? And why is this important? Is there any other way you can derive the same level of satisfaction with other things in life as opposed to being able to buy more things, or have you considered cutting down from your current list of expenses and save the amount of money you need to achieve these objectives? These are the kinds of questions one needs to truly ask and spend some time before choosing a life goal. The answers to such questions helps develop and realize the intensity of your particular need. The higher the need the more persistent you will be to achieve this goal and face any hurdles you may face along the way towards achieving this. If this need or choice of goal is not high on your need list, you will most likely be inclined towards giving up pursuing this goal at some point along the way. It could be your first major obstacle, the time it consumes, or you may find another way of attaining the same end results and you will soon lose steam. Before you realize you will soon have left behind a trail of such half initiated dreams and objectives that never got completed.
“What you get by achieving your goals is not as important as what you become by achieving your goals.”
~ Zig Ziglar
The trouble of such unaccomplished goals and objectives is that it soon becomes a habit and would have taken the best of your time and skills. A sense of being a failure will begin to creep upon you and you will soon begin to be judged by your series of unaccomplished goals rather than your efforts or purpose in life. Several of us have such unaccomplished goals in life. For some reason to other, we all are guilty of doing this. We dream up an end result, get all excited towards achieving them, list up a rough idea on how we will go about achieving them, drum up some support, and begin to share our dreams and ambitions with everyone we can. But later, we lose focus and let other priorities and challenges take precedence before we realize we are dreaming up or chasing another goal we have chosen. This happens because the need to achieve the goal and the true end results of achieving them was not really high up on our “needs” list. We find ways or learn of another means of achieving the same objective or often find other more interesting dreams to pursue.
I don’t care how much power, brilliance or energy you have, if you don’t harness it and focus it on a specific target, and hold it there you’re never going to accomplish as much as your ability warrants. ~Zig Ziglar
You will find several processes and methods developed by many lifestyle and motivational coaches at the book store or on the web. But all of these processes are only meaningful if and only if your have chosen a goal which holds a very high value in terms of your needs. Once the need to achieve this goal is very well defined and understood with all your mind body and soul, you will develop a strong sense of focus towards achieving it and will set forth towards accomplishing your objective regardless of the obstacles, difficulties, challenges or time. Whether it is loosing weight, winning someone’s love, getting a better job, getting a promotion, making more money, buying a bigger house, it is worth spending considerable time on thinking through your choice of life goals and what it truly means to you and gets you in your life. It is imperative to ask why this goal is important for you, and what impacts will the end result have in your life and more so, if the end result of achieving this goal is truly what you desire and if that is worth the time and trouble you are willing to put into achieving this goal in life. Imagine the surge of positivity and energy we can experience by being successful in life by accomplishing and achieving the meaningful goals we set for ourselves in our lives. Remember: The only thing that stops you from being successful is you!
Shoot for the moon. Even if you miss, you’ll land among the stars. ~Les Brown
PARADOXICAL WISDOM 