Hum­ble Begin­nings

I’ll nev­er for­get it as long as I live…I must have been about 12 years old.  I was work­ing for a fam­i­ly, iron­ing clothes for $5 per hour—which would have been great for a kid my age if I actu­al­ly got to keep it; my earn­ings went into the fam­i­ly “pot” —when I had my first aha moment.

I was in their basement/laundry room iron­ing my lit­tle brown hands away, day dream­ing about a day when I could have a big house like the one I worked in and mon­ey, lots of it.  I enjoyed being left alone with my thoughts and most days this was the case.

On this par­tic­u­lar Sat­ur­day morn­ing, the door to the base­ment swung open and there stood in front of me three kids about my age.  They were look­ing for either a skate­board or bas­ket­ball to play with.  I was mor­ti­fied.  They were either blind or I was invis­i­ble because they com­plete­ly ignored me.  Either way, I was grate­ful.

I knew right then that I want­ed a bet­ter life.  I began the art of set­ting and accom­plish­ing goals.  I must admit that I took the longest freak­ing route to get to where I am today.  And I’m cer­tain­ly not where I want to be, but I am close and I know like I know, like I know that I’ll get there very soon because, (like in the movie, My Best Friend’s Wed­ding-Julia Robert’s voice) “I’ve changed.” I fol­low through now and I’m nev­er going back!

Get­ting Start­ed

If you’ve been fol­low­ing my lat­est post, by now, you should have a bet­ter idea of the area you’re going to focus on for the next 12 weeks.  If you’re hav­ing trou­ble choos­ing a goal, this post is for you.

Your inter­est in goal-set­ting should be about more than accom­plish­ing goals.  We want to tie val­ues to goals.

• Where are you try­ing to go?
• What are you try­ing to accom­plish?”

Think about what is need­ed out there; think about your unique strength.

“Many were achiev­ing more and more goals…and feel­ing less and less hap­py and ful­filled.” Stephen R. Cov­ey

Think about how your life would change if you worked on your goals every sin­gle day.  What would be dif­fer­ent in six months, a year or five years down the road if you gave them your absolute best every sin­gle day?

“If we did the things we are capa­ble of doing, we would lit­er­al­ly astound our­selves.” Thomas Edi­son

Stephen Press­field, author of The War of Art, believes that most of us have two lives: the lives we live and the lives we are capa­ble of liv­ing.  I believe we all want to live a life of sig­nif­i­cance.  I came to that con­clu­sion at the age of 12, maybe even younger.

Lis­ten, if you don’t decide, some­one else will decide for you.

“As long as you are alive, you will accom­plish your own goals and dreams or be used as a resource to accom­plish the goals and dreams of some­one else.” Grant Car­done

Tak­ing Action

Every­thing worth­while in life requires action.  It’s not ideas that we lack; it’s exe­cut­ing, imple­ment­ing and apply­ing those ideas where most of us fall short.  Read­ing books and arti­cles and attain­ing knowl­edge is only pow­er­ful if you use and act on it.

So now that you’re clear about your goals, are you ready to exe­cute them?  Are you ready to take action?  Are you ready to put in dai­ly, con­sis­tent effort?

Doc­u­ment­ing my Jour­ney

From here on out, to keep myself account­able, I’ll be doc­u­ment­ing my jour­ney on my YouTube chan­nel.  Make sure to tune in.  I’m new to video film­ing and edit­ing, so please be kind.

As always, thank you for allow­ing me to be a small part of your life.  And if you would, please leave me a com­ment, like and share.  See you next week!

Xoxo,

Irís