| Weekly Thought Vol. 17 - Ready, Aim... |
|
|
|
|
Most people have an aim in life, but no ammunition. You're at a picnic and you spot a young man with an archery set, shooting arrows into tree trunks. Every time he hits a tree he goes over and paints a perfect bulls-eye around the arrow. Passersby who only see the results of his work think he is a great archer. You smile, knowing better, of course. Or do you, really? Many choose this style to run their own lives! They end up somewhere, and then decide that's where you wanted to be all along. As a mature individual they may have forgotten the most basic concept of living, which is to "Plan Ahead." Is this you? Here's an example: You'll go over the day-by-day activities for a two-week vacation (perhaps 50 times in your lifetime) as if you were involved in a forcible overthrow of a hostile government. Yet your only once-in-a-lifetime journey is played through without too much rhyme nor reason, usually with no plan beyond today and what it may bring. The Koran says, "If you don't know where you're going, any road will get you there." It's a well-known psychological fact that man, complex animal that he is.. is a goal-striving mechanism. This means that whether he has goals or not, he will reach them. My question is simply this: Would you rather reach goals that are yours, or someone else's? As a child we were given short-range goals to live by. "Eat your food," "Go to bed," "Don't step in the gutter," "Go to college," "Get married," etc., all short-range and long-range plans that someone else wanted us to execute. It's no wonder that we got out of that habit as soon as we could...and usually ended up by throwing the baby out with the bath water. Goals are not simply important to positive living. They are crucial. It’s not a coincidence that the word goal begins with "go." Daily goals give you the best reason to get up and do. Weekly goals make the months fly, and monthly goals renew your enthusiasm for life 12 times per year. Annual goals can guarantee a lifetime of successful happenings, as you maintain full control of your personal destiny…a simple concept that eludes many of us everyday. Just as the captain of a ship does not need to see his destination thousands of miles away to know he will reach it at a certain date and time, so can you plan your life according to your own timetable. Your goals must be realistic and reachable, so that you can reap the rewards of positive reinforcement at timed intervals, and thus have the confidence to know that you're on target for the big plan. There are literally hundreds of self-help books, but very little on the subject of proper goal setting. Profit-oriented companies have discovered the secret. They call it "management by objectives." They make dollars and reach corporate goals by carefully preplanning the direction in which they want the company to go. One last good thought on goals by Henry David Thoreau: "The man who goes alone can start today. But he who travels with another must wait till that other is ready." 'Nuff said… Start by setting goals for yourself. First daily goals, then weekly goals, then monthly, then yearly. Set those goals somewhere that you can always see them when you work. Put them where you can see them at home. Put them in your car. Then, act on them. Make the effort NOW to reap the rewards for the rest of your life. |
| < Prev | Next > |
|---|
