Know Your Why; Plan Your How…….
We are being inundated by social media, newspaper editorials and comics, radio and tv commercials, coaches, managers, friends, neighbors, and family imploring us to set our New Year’s goals. There is not passion in goals. They will leave you unsatisfied if too low, disillusioned if too high, and/or are rendered meaningless and summarily dismissed if too much of your environment changes. Let’s not spend any time on something we’re going dismiss; so, just say NO to goals. What, no goals?….that’s right; NO goals.
Rather than goals; know your why and plan your how. We’ve been taught and browbeat to establish ‘SMART’ goals. However, nothing in a ‘SMART’ goal is from your soul, no commitment, no understanding of WHY that’s your pursuit, your dream. Look deep inside and clearly determine why you want to commit to accomplish anything. Without a clear WHY, you can’t really focus, will miss your mark and fail.
Keep asking yourself why until your motivations and aspirations are clear. Once you articulate WHY, plan your HOW. Your plan should acknowledge your strengths, weaknesses, fears, and confidences. Bolster your strengths and focus on your weaknesses. Include regular opportunities to benchmark your progress. Strive for constant improvement, ok, maybe that’s your goal; but not your end. With a WHY and a PLAN there is no end. There is a cycle Plan-Do-Check, repeat. You can adjust your plan to account for changing circumstance, as long as it squarely addresses your dream.
Don’t limit yourself by setting goals. Dig deep; know your why and plan your how and get better and better and better…..
#NeverFeartheDream
willing to engage in conversation to pass the time in line. It was the guy wearing the unbelievable holiday sweater who caught my eye and then my ear. He was pontificating, to anyone who would listen, on his knowledge of domestic and international politics and his disgruntlement with recent cabinet selections. A demure woman commented about how worldly his knowledge was and that obviously he had traveled extensively. To her surprise, he told her he had never been outside of the state.
I paused on an overpass viewing the highway traffic coming and going. When I noticed a few on the right had made poor choices resulting in an unfortunate altercation. The right lanes almost immediately came to a halt as their sudden loss of momentum caused subsequent accidents. Backing up and in the ditch, the masses stymied and stopped by those decisions. It’s hard to tell if it’s a major accident or a series of minor incidents, nevertheless traffic stacked up. 
Every election, every opportunity to vote, is important. The health of our representative republic is at risk with every election. It isn’t your civic responsibility to vote, it’s a privilege and one which shouldn’t be abused. Our country is based on the principle of an electorate selecting people who best represent their opinions and aspirations. Those representatives are then empowered to make laws in concert with the majority of their constituents, while protecting the rights of the minority.
