Painting by Belynda Wilson Thomas
To achieve, you need thought. You have to know what you are doing and that’s real power. Ayn Rand
School is out, and summer is here. Two months of freedom, relaxed schedules, and plans to make to fill up days no longer filled. I remember those days. It may seem we have all the time in the world to make decisions about the direction our life will take. Some people can’t wait to get out into the real world and shoulder adult responsibilities, others take longer but finally take on a load, and some seem to falter throughout their life to find their way.
Hitting milestones in our life is important. We set a goal and work hard to achieve it. School is now out, goals have been met, and for two months the pressure is off before new goals need to be set again. It is nice to have a break between reaching a goal and setting a new one, but we have to be careful we don’t wait too long.
When I hit a goal with my writing I have a new project in the wings because I am afraid of losing momentum. One of the areas where I think I’ve fallen down in life is setting goals. Everywhere there is wisdom and instruction on how to live a good life, we think forty years is a long time until we watch them go by in a flash. We had plans and goals even if they were nebulous at best. We knew investing early was the answer, or at least most of us have been told this, those who listened are reaping an abundant harvest and those who didn’t listen are wondering how to manage in retirement.
Most of us are somewhere in the middle, we aren’t where we could have been if every good piece of advice that came our way was followed.
It is easy to beat ourselves up for decisions we didn’t make and paths we didn’t follow. We may think if only we’d had the guts to do whatever it is we think we should have done. We are looking at life from this point and we can never again look at it through the lens we saw it when we were making the decision. One of the good things about keeping a journal is we can go back and see what we were thinking about at certain points in our life. We get a glimpse of who we were at that point in time before we learned what we now know that would have made us make a different decision.
A little more persistence, a little more effort, and what seemed hopeless failure may turn to glorious success. Elbert Hubbard
Wherever we are we take ourselves with us. We may think it is too late to do things, change things, and accomplish things. Sometimes our biggest challenge is to decide what we want and make the changes to start working in the direction of our goals. It would have been great if instead of buying a car at eighteen I put that money into an investment that grew all these years. I can’t change that, but what can I do?
There may be things we wished we did over the course of our lives but if our life is not over how much is still possible? How much of it do we still want to do? What is holding us back?
Summer is here and it is a good time to ask ourselves some questions about what we want out of the rest of our life and let that percolate in our minds. We can’t hit a target we don’t aim for. Jordan Peterson tells us to imagine who we could become and then single-mindedly aim for that and don’t allow ourselves to become resentful, deceitful, or arrogant. We don’t know what is possible if we put our mind to something and work toward it.
This fall wouldn’t it be nice to have a new goal, or know how to work harder toward a present goal? Wouldn’t it be nice to find out what is possible if we put our mind, heart, and effort toward that purpose?
Perseverance is not a long race; it is many short races one after another. Walter Elliot
I accumulated small but consistent habits that ultimately led to results that were unimaginable when I started. James Clear
Being persistent may lead you to the door but constancy is the key which unlocks it. Kenny Dasinger
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