November 19, 2007

Goals, Goals, Goals

Think about the present versus the future. All we ever have is the present; that’s where we are. You and I have different presents – There’s the time gap of when I write and when you read. There are the circumstances of my life and those of yours; there are the different environments we live in. But we each have a present.

And given all those things, we each have a preordained future, as if the stream of life has a current and we’re carried from present to present on that stream. What do we have to say about it? Anything?

When we look back on it, every step will be seen as inevitable. Once I did this, that happened – and when that happened, the next thing occurred … But before that happened, nothing was inevitable. Nothing.

That’s why goals. They’re like ruts in the sand that cause the water to move in a particular direction, but after the water passes, the ruts are gone. So put a marker in every area if your life. Put several different kinds of markers.

Here’s one kind of goal: This will happen by a specific date. That will serve as an impetus for immediate action - develop your strategy, plans, support structures, gathering of resources, specific conversations, …

Here’s the other: This will happen, but I won’t yet say by when. Visualize the result; see it; speak it. Plan on when you will put that date on it.

This is the difference between being pregnant and intending to have a child.

Useful Quotations

The value of achievement lies in the achieving.
Albert Einstein

 A human being is happiest and most successful when dedicated to a cause outside his own individual, selfish satisfaction.
Benjamin Spock

 Nothing can stop the man with the right mental attitude from achieving his goal; nothing on earth can help the man with the wrong mental attitude.
Thomas Jefferson

 Whatever we are waiting for - peace of mind, contentment, grace, the inner awareness of simple abundance - it will surely come to us, but only when we are ready to receive it with an open and grateful heart.
Sarah Ban Breathnach

You're never going to get to any final place. And so, we want to remind you to relax and start having fun on the way.
Abraham-Hicks

Creative Corner

“The hour is striking so close above me,
so clear and sharp,
that all my senses ring with it.
I feel it now: there's a power in me
to grasp and give shape to my world.

I know that nothing has ever been real
without my beholding it.
All becoming has needed me.
My looking ripens things
And they come toward me, to meet and be met."

Rilke, Book of Hours
(from Levey wisdomatwork)

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