Goals

Remember the old story of the tortoise and the hare? The hare had more speed and ability than the tortoise could ever hope to have. His body was built for swiftness. Many of us find ourselves in a similar situation as the tortoise. Competitors, customers, or co-workers might be smarter, faster, or endowed with natural talents that you don't possess. You may have personal burdens that you have to carry. Yet, you can still come out on top with consistent, steady effort.

We all have opportunities that come our way. The question is whether you and I will be prepared to take advantage of those opportunities when they arise, or whether we will say, "I wish I had prepared better." Here are four areas of preparation you can begin now.

Natural laws like inertia apply everywhere in the physical world. But the laws of inertia apply to our emotional and intellectual life as well.  The trick is to exert enough consistent emotional effort to be able to overcome inertia and create lasting change.

Do you ever feel like Alice, in Lewis Carroll's classic story, Alice in Wonderland? Do you feel like you are trying to get somewhere, but just don't know exactly how to get there?  Perhaps you have never actually harnessed the full power of goals. True goals, the ones that change your life, have six essential components. Leave one out, and the framework falls apart with it. Follow through on all six, and you can't fail. Here they are . . .

William Ernest Henley who wrote the poem "Invictus" which means unconquered. The essence of the message is that no matter what happens to you, you get to decide how you will respond and react. You get to decide what you will do tomorrow and the next day. You get to choose your attitude; you decide what your goals will be and whether you will continue to strive or give up. You are the master of your own fate.

The question is not whether we will be knocked down, pushed aside, or treated unfairly -- that happens to all of us, it's life. The question is whether or not we will have the courage to get up and fight on. The old saying is still true "the race is not always to the swift . . . but to those who keep on trying."