In Part 1 of this article, we talked about reaching our goals as largely a matter of following through on desire, vision and action. The difficulty for most of us lies in continuing to believe that our efforts will ever bear fruit when these fruits have not yet begun to materialize.Jonathan Swift said it best. “Vision is
art of seeing things invisible.”
In order to continue to work toward that which we cannot yet see, our motives must be very personal and very compelling, indeed. So, let’s have a closer look at first of necessary components, desire.
Desire, even a fervent one, can easily become clouded by obstacles if we choose to focus on obstacles instead of on our goals. Obstacles are what we see when we take our eyes off goal.
I believe it helps if we accept from outset that obstacles and setbacks will arise. It should come as no surprise or source of irritation when this occurs. This is simply part of natural ebb and flow of business.
If you stop and think about it, it’s ridiculous to expect that it will be clear sailing entire way. And yet, people do become unduly irritated and discouraged when things don’t go according to plan.
Hitting a few bumps and potholes in road only signifies that we are in fact traveling road, and not necessarily that we’re going down wrong one. Viewed in this light, you could say that dealing with a few snags here and there is a good thing. It certainly beats sitting around doing nothing to further our progress, right?
Now granted, in order to endure a ride that isn’t always comfortable, you had better have a really good reason for doing so. So here comes your self-appointed cheerleader to urge you on. GRAB THAT GOAL, HONEY!
That’s right. Reach out and grab it! Take those vague, unformed thoughts that flutter around in your head and solidify them by setting them down in black and white. Grapple with them. Tie them down to paper. Wrap some words around them. You might need to change and rearrange some words. Why, you might even need to think about what it is that you really, really want.
There are mountains of evidence to show that daily ritual of writing down one’s goals is of stupendous importance. Motivational speakers have delivered volumes of goal-setting information. Entire books have been devoted to this topic. Writing down your desires is a recurrent theme in just about every single success book ever published.
And consider this. Harvard studies indicate that of 3% of people who enjoy extreme success, one common link among them was this practice of writing down their goals, a practice NOT shared with other 97% of “also ran.”
So why is it that we resist doing this one little thing that has been proven to have such life-altering consequences? Is it because it is such a small sacrifice that we figure it can be ignored? Do people find such a small chore demeaning? Are we just plain old lazy?
