Painting by Belynda Wilson Thomas
Success is steady progress toward one’s personal goals. Jim Rohn
Why do we have such a hard time asking for what we want? Do we want too many things or too few? How often do we think I’d do anything if I could… but often we’ve had many years to accomplish it if we wanted to? Maybe we wish we learned to play the piano. In my den, I have a piano and a guitar beside it, and I can’t play either of them. When we hear someone play we think, I wish I could do that, but if it never becomes more than a wish, without time and effort it won’t become reality.
Developing our talents and abilities will take time and effort, but the time will pass anyway. In ten years what can we accomplish if we start now? How many books could we read, how many instruments could we learn to play, how many speeches could we give, how many miles could we walk, how many hills could we climb, and how many people could we help? We can’t do everything but we can do something, and what is that something we would like to do?
If we read 26 pages of Shakespeare every week we could read the complete works of Shakespeare in a year or any other great work. We can plant seeds of wisdom in our minds if we read the great works.
We can probably do whatever we want to do if we put time and effort into it. Do we need to be the best pianist to play the piano, the best orator to give a speech, the best athlete to be fit and healthy, or the best chef to cook healthy meals? Of course, the answer is no to all of it. We don’t need to be the best we need to do what we can with what we have and see where it takes us. Continual progress toward a goal can take us places we can only imagine until it becomes a reality.
The secret to making progress is to get started. Mark Twain
When we compete with others we might be disappointed when we don’t win, but if the competition was with ourselves to do the best we’ve ever done, and we elevated our performance, we are still moving forward even if we don’t win the prize. When we don’t win the prize we can look at our performance and see how we could improve it for the next time. Success leaves clues, we can look at how other people achieve success, and if we do what they do we too will achieve success. Success is progress toward our goals. We may never reach the pinnacle of success, but if we do we’ll have to set another goal.
No matter how many mistakes you make or how slow your progress, you are still way ahead of everyone who isn’t trying. Tony Robbins
Without continual growth and progress, such words as improvement, achievement, and success have no meaning. Benjamin Franklin
It’s appropriate and praiseworthy to associate with people whose lives would be improved if they saw your life improve. Jordan Peterson
Thank you for reading this post. I hope you enjoyed it. I hope you will come back and read some more. Have a blessed day filled with gratitude, joy, and love.
