Whenever
I watch the athletes being interviewed, before the Olympic Games I can quickly
tell who the winners and who the participants will be. The most reliable way of
doing this is by simply listening, to their answers, during sports interviews.
Those that say “I am just glad to be here” are not going to be wearing the champion’s
rings, when the games are over. They have achieved their goals before the games
even started.
As
you move through the different phases in your life and you get to achieve your
goals. You have to continually set more, new and ambitious ones, which will
constantly stretch and challenge you. Real great, long term, sustainable
success is the result of not only setting and achieving big goals, but is about
constantly getting and creating new goals along the way. Super achievement is
not about “goal setting”, it is the result of a constant hunger, for consistent
growth, in other words, you must be a new goal getter.
Vision
and success is a direction, never a destination. The secret to living a life of
meaning and fulfilment is to know that, yes, we must achieve a few milestones
along our journey towards the success, we have envisioned. But they are merely
milestones, not the reason we started the journey in the first place. A young
man may set a goal to mow 100 people’s lawns during his summer vacation, so
that he can buy an old jalopy to impress his girlfriend. Once he has earned
sufficient money and actually bought the car, the real lesson and purpose of
setting the goal in the first place, was never to impress his girlfriend. It
was to learn the crucial lesson of solid work habits and experiencing the joy of
setting and achieving a goal.
Accumulating
sufficient money to actually buy the car is of course a wonderful reason to
celebrate. He has after all reached a really fantastic milestone on his journey
toward meaning and fulfilment. The secret to sustain this success and to keep
moving in the direction of the success he desires, is to immediately set an
even more ambitious goal, which will keep stretching him and moving him down
the path of growing and becoming. Remember that “As you become more, you will
constantly keep attracting more”.
The
lessons learned by the young boy, that setting goals, applying daily discipline
and hard work to anything, he wants to achieve, will result in a desirable outcome.
Has most certainly allowed him to grow expand and become more. As the universal
law say, “As you become more, so you will attract more” This young man has thus
started his sustainable success journey through life. To live a life of meaning
and fulfilment and where he can achieve true success. He must keep moving the
goal posts and keep setting and getting more and more ambitious goals as he
reaches each milestone.
There
are so many companies, which were really amazing blue-chip companies at one
time, but have faded into just memories today. Companies like Studebaker, W.T
Grant and Triumph Motor cycles. These companies had a goal of reaching the top,
which they did, but they allowed themselves to falter, because, they never
moved the goal posts and expanded their game. I am sure that you have seen it
happen to people around you. The sales guru, who topped the charts for years
and then overnight, everything just falls apart and they tumble off the no. one
slot, all the way to the bottom. Tiger Woods is a perfect example of this. Yes
there was infidelity and too many women involved in his life to count, but the
real reason he fell from the number one slot and is finding it difficult to get
back on top, has nothing to do with infidelity. It has everything to do with
reaching the pinnacle of success and then not moving the goal posts.
As
you set and achieve goals, always stretch yourself, by setting more and more
ambitious ones. Never allow yourself to lose your way and think you have
reached your destination. Don’t lose your hunger, desire and your need to keep
growing, innovating and expanding. It is extremely unlikely that you will ever
exceed your own expectations. So dare to dream big, set big hairy audacious
goals and as you get close to crossing the line and achieving any goal you have
set, keep moving the goals posts and becoming more.
No comments:
Post a Comment