I love the summer, thats partly due to the fact that I am from a tropical island. As this hemisphere inches closer to the sun I can't help but wonder if we are indeed keeping our new years resolutions. This time of the year for me is a time for reflection. What were the goals that I gave myself at the beginning of the year? Are my daily activities in alignment with my long term and my short term goals?
I too subscribe to the school of thought that if you want something badly enough then you will eventually get it, because you will work hard enough to attain it. I believe the real question is "what do I want and do I really want it badly?" For example, when I lived back in the Caribbean my dream was to be educated in the US, there was nothing that was going to stop me from accomplishing my dream and I did it. As I grew older and got closer to seeing my dream materialize, my confidence began to wane, I became more complacent.
Becoming extraordinary is an art, but it does not come easily. People who are extraordinary are people who are driven, they are confident and they work at their goals in a very aggressive way. People who accomplish their goals, plan the steps needed to be taken to get there. Then their actions reflect their goals. Do not sit, say you want something and not move towards it. You have to move in order to get what you want. Movement is a key component in keeping us alive.
Prioritize, you have to make your goals a priority in your life. You live it daily, you work towards it you put away anything that will thwart you from accomplishing it. One thing that I have noticed is that some people do not set goals. They are uncomfortable and unhappy in their present situation, and often times complain about it, but they are not clear about why they are unhappy so they are not clear about the goals that they want to set and they have nothing to work towards. I do believe that if your purpose is not clear, then you will not know what route to take to get there.
Clean out your physical space. I honestly do not know how some people do it, but it is almost impossible for me to function in clutter. I become so flustered when there is too much going on around me. After cleaning out your physical space you will see the change in how much better you are able to function. Clean out your mental space. I cannot overemphasize how important it is to limit your conversations with people who cannot uplift you. Those negative friends of yours, get rid of them. Surround yourself with positive people, writings, DVDs. In other words, feed yourself.
Get information. So you want to accomplish this dream but you are not sure how you can get to that point. If you know someone who did it, ask them what were the steps they took to get there. The internet is readily available to everyone, research, do your home work. You cannot move forward if you do not have the proper information.
Make a list, get in the habit of writing, write your goals and have them in a place where they are visible. This makes reflection and evaluation that much easier.
Listen. Living in a big city like NYC our thoughts are drowned out by constant noise. Many of us speak but do we really take the time to listen to ourselves. We have ipods that blast music in our ears, but do we really take the time to listen to what our bodies are telling us? Find a quiet place where you can sit and reflect and listen, you will be surprised what God wants to tell you.
Feed yourself. I briefly touched on that earlier but are you really feeding yourself the right things? First take a good look at what is on your ipod. You know you listen to it every single day... Are the songs and the movies uplifting? When you go home and you watch reality TV and daydream about these people's reality, is this helping you to be one step closer to shaping your own reality?
There is no one who is not able to live their dream, fear is what often times hold us back from being magnificent. Get up, stand up and go be magnificent....
One Love
Dan
