Why is it that some goals have a fire and a passion behind them that creates an almost self-propelled drive towards completion, while other goals are left dead in water before they've hardly even begun? What causes that level of motivation to manifest itself? Can we harness it? Can we predict when and where it will hit? The answers lie in finding out if person setting goal is in touch with his or her own deepest desires. Do they really understand who and what they are? Do they really know what it is that drives them?

Write down a list of goals and dreams you've set for yourself over years. Take a nice long trip down memory lane. Think about kinds of goals and dreams you set for yourself when you were a child, a teenager, a young adult. Look at what kinds of goals you began listing when you became a spouse, a parent, an employee, or a boss. Don't worry if you can't remember every single goal you've ever set for yourself. Don't make assignment into a research project and a headache. But I do want you to spend a bit of time with it.

Now that you have your list of old goals and dreams, make some kind of a checkmark or run a highlighter over ones that had a strong powerful effect on you and you couldn't possibly put them down. These are most likely ones that you accomplished. If you didn't accomplish them, do they still haunt you? Do they still beg to be completed? Don't start counting and keeping score as to how many you followed through to finish and how many you let drop aside. It really doesn't matter at all what kind of a success rate you may or may not have had before today. This isn't about that, I just want you to separate ones that did put a fire in your belly from ones that had no fire or passion behind them.

Now, take your list of positive traits and attributes from Finding Yourself and compare it to your list of old goals and dreams. How many of goals that had you all fired up were somehow connected to wonderful things we found are within you? If for example, you found out that one of your positive traits is that you are intelligent, then how many of goals you were really passionate about involved using your intelligence? How many of them were about developing or enhancing your intelligence? If you found out that you are funny, how many of goals and dreams that you loved were somehow connected to your sense of humor?

Many years ago, my children were raised on various teachings and concepts of "magic" as I was studying different religions and spiritual beliefs. I had come across many metaphysical teachings woven throughout most of different religions. It was very important to me that they stay authentic and real. I didn't want them to ever allow anyone to convince them to be something other than beautiful souls they already were. They took to metaphysical teachings quite easily and naturally. Often they already knew whatever it was I had thought I was going to teach them.

My four-year-old son asked me one morning, "Where did I live before I got into your tummy to be born." He naturally assumed that he'd always existed despite his lack of memory about life before being born. It was just after Valentine's Day and I reminded him of those cupid style angel babies that we had seen in stores. We had both really like all of statues, greeting cards, and pictures of little cherubs. I told him that he was one of those little baby angels up in heaven before I got pregnant with him.

He asked if his younger sister had been a cherub too. "Yes, of course." He then double checked to make sure they had been hanging out up in heaven together waiting to come down. He seemed satisfied with idea that his little sister and him had both played together as little winged babies in up in heaven waiting for their turn to be born.

My son had heard stories of how I had seen visions of his sister for five years before she finally came into our lives. He wanted to know if I'd had visions of him too. "No, just this one dream where you were running around peeing on everything. However just because I didn't see you ahead of time doesn't mean that you aren't a wonderful and amazing gift in my life. It doesn't mean that I don't love you just same as if I had seen you coming ahead of time." He sat there nodding his head with this wise old man's expression on his face as he thought for awhile.

When he spoke next, I almost laughed aloud at his reasoning. So, he wanted to know, didn't this all mean that he was faster than his sister and had bested her in yet another race? After all, he'd beat her by two whole years. "Yeah," I chuckled at where his mind had gone with it all, "I guess you did." With that he ran off to rub it in her face. He always took such pride in being bigger, faster, and older than her. As far as he was concerned, it was proof that yet again, he was faster than her.