#41 - Goals

"A goal is just a dream with a deadline" - Harvey Mackay in "Swim With the Sharks Without Being Eaten Alive"

Most of us have heard of that so-extreme-it's hard-to-believe statistical study that was done in 1979 for students in the Harvard MBA program whom were polled to see if they had goals or not. 3% had clear written goals, 13% had goals that weren't in writing and a whopping 84% had no definable goals at all. When they followed-up with those people ten years later, the 13% who had goals, but not written them down, were earning twice as much as those 84% who didn't. The 3% who had written them down? They were earning 10 TIMES as much on average, as the other 97% percent combined! Amazing seems to be an understatement. And these were people going to Harvard Business School, the best of the best, hardly slouches in their field. http://www.lifemastering.com/en/harvard_school.html

No matter how scientific you view such statistics, it's hard to argue with the compelling results they underscore of those who keep and maintain written goals and then stick to achieving them.

All of us at one time fantasize, or day dream, of things we'd love to do, things we'd desire to own, trips we'd long to take, experiences we fantasize of engaging in, and careers we'd love to have. The key difference between the dreamer and the achiever is the dreamer is content enough to visit his desires in the realm of fantasy (the showroom of his/her mind), than return to reality where they don't have to go any further with it. The achiever, in contrast, writes down, in detail, exactly what they want, what steps they plan to take to get there, and proceeds to take massive, consistent action. The difference is easy to see. Sadly, more of us take more times planning a typical vacation than we do to write down goals that would benefit not only our lives, but those whom are impacted by us.

Whatever the mind can conceive and then believe, mixed with curiosity, persistence and faith, combined with a plan can, and will be, achieved. Will it be you? Or someone else? The choice, as it always has been, begins and ends with you!

#40 Fearing Disapproval

"Permitting yourself to be held back from progressing because you fear the disapproval of people you don't admire is madness" - Johnny Soporno When one rationally stops to think about why we care about other's opinions whom really, truly don't care about us, it doesn't make a whole lot of sense. However, we all do it. Okay, I'm exaggerating: only 99.999% (approximately) do that:)!

Theoretically I would venture to guess that it comes hardwired into each of us biologically. In pre-historic times, when humans travelled in bands and lived in nomadic tribes, and the average person didn't venture more than a 100 miles from their birthplace in any direction (and that was being really far from home), their survival, to a huge extent, depended on the support of the village. To be an outcast back then meant certain death. If the proverbial powers-that-be or your neighbors didn't like you or were threatened by your "uniqueness", you were out on your ear, either killed outright, or sent out into the wild to fend for yourself, which was a vertiable death sentence, in-and-of-itself. Not real good options to choose from. So, to generalize, to conform meant to prosper and survive.

Well here in the 21st century in the United States of America where I live, the consequences of dissent have changed considerably. In fact, there's even profit to be made from it if you know how to leverage it. No matter what gender, color, creed, religion, socio-economic group, we all hunger for love and acceptance at a core, biological level, there's always a certain culture or lifestyle somewhere in just about every major city or online (now that the world is virtually connected) where you can have your basic needs of human interaction and companionship met without having fear of being isolated socially. To not be your true self, doing what you want to do because you fear judgment of those of little or no consequence is truly unnecessary and "madness". No one is going to appeal to all demographics anyway. If you even came close you'd have to be a wishy-washy shapeshifter. Simply stated, the most important choice a person can make is being true to their individual and/or collective purpose and letting the rest take care of itself.