What is the burning desire of your heart? What is the one thing you would do if money weren’t the object? If you knew you could do something you always wanted to do and that it would be successful, what would you do? The answers to these questions reveal the true deep-seated God-given dreams for your life.
Now, let me ask you something else. What is holding you back? Why aren’t you actively pursuing the dream in your heart?
Great achievers are not those who just have great dreams, they are people that are determined to make them a reality. They aren’t content to have good ideas; they are focused on bringing them to pass. The difference between achievers and non-achievers is not the dreams or ideas, but what they do with them.
I saw a sign once that simply said, “Don’t just dream it, Do it!” There are millions of people with great ideas that never accomplish great things because they never go for it. As Denis Waitly says, “They live on someday I’ll.” Someday I’ll do great things. Someday I’ll start a business. Someday I’ll lose weight. Someday I’ll write a book and so it goes.
To have what you’ve never had, you have to do what you’ve never done. You can live your dreams and bring your ideas to fruition if you will simply begin to do something to make them happen.
How to go for it:
Make a list of your dreams and ideas. If you don’t have a concrete picture of what you want to accomplish chances are you never will. By making a list you not only understand what you want to do but also how to get started.
Start today. Procrastination keeps many from never achieving great things. Good intentions are not good enough. There must be positive action. Don’t put the journey to the fulfillment of your dreams off until tomorrow. Begin to live in the now. It’s what you do now that determines your tomorrow.
Let go of whatever is holding you back. Whatever is holding you back needs to be conquered if you are going to go for it. Face your fears, your insecurities and your excuses, defeat them and go on. Remember, every great achiever has had to face similar obstacles to their success.
Focus on the end result. As author Steven Covey so aptly says, “Begin with the end in mind.” Picture yourself having already accomplished your objectives in life. Get a mental picture of how things are going to be once you’ve gone for the dreams you posses. By staying focused on the end result it makes the effort worth it regardless of the how tough it may get.
Find a role model. Find someone from a similar background as yourself, that has accomplished their dream and model yourself after them. Talk to them. Ask them questions. Learn what they did to get where they are now. Allow them to coach you. Instead of learning from your own mistakes, learn from the successes and failures of others.
Believe in yourself and what you are doing. You can’t accomplish anything if you don’t believe you can. If you believe you can or believe you can’t you’re right. Believe in your talents, abilities, dreams, and potential. When everyone around you is telling you that you can’t do it refuse to listen to them. There will always be naysayers and dream stealers. Winners learn to ignore the negative input of others and believe in their objectives until they are realized.
Make up your mind to finish what you start. Don’t be a great starter. Be a great finisher. Be persistent. Quitters never win, and winners never quit. Don’t quit until you accomplish what you’ve started. A marathon runner doesn’t burst off the starting line to fast or he’ll burn out too soon. He steadily paces himself so he can endure the grueling race set before him. Even when he feels like quitting he refuses to do so until he crosses the finish line. Anyone can start, winners finish.
Believe in the God who believes in you. Realize that God is the source of the dream you have in your heart. He believes in your ability to realize that dream so much that He gave it to you in the first place. Not only does He give you the dream but the Bible says He gives you the power to accomplish it. The Apostle Paul penned these words. “For it is God who works in us, both to will and to do of His good pleasure.” In other words, it is God who gives us the dream and the power to accomplish that dream. When you feel weak, allow His power in you to give you the strength you need to go for it!
How's Your Aim?
Denis Waitley says, “If you don’t know where you’re going, how are you going to know when you get there.” It is important to have a destination in mind when you leave on a trip or you may end up somewhere you don’t want to be.
Anytime I think about having the right aim in life. I am reminded of the hunter that told his friends he had killed a great buck at 1500 yards. His friends told him it was luck that he hit it. His reply has always stuck with me. He said, “It may have been luck that I hit it. But, it wasn’t luck that I was aiming at it!”
The fact is you can’t hit your target (goals) if you don’t have any or if you aren’t aimed at them. When Nasa sends a spacecraft into outer space they constantly have to make adjustments to the flight plan in order to get it to the destination they want it to go. In other words they have to keep adjusting their aim.
So it is with all of life. If you are going to hit your goals, fulfill your dreams, and live on purpose you must be careful to have the right aim. When you notice you are off line, take the time to refocus. Get your aim straightened out, and you will hit your target.
The Apostle Paul wrote these words, “Forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forward to those things which are ahead, I press towards the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.” (Philippians 3:13, 14) Several things come to mind when I read this passage.
One, you can’t go forward looking in the rear view mirror! You can’t undo anything in your past. If you are constantly focusing on past failures or mistakes you are sabotaging your present and your future. In order to go forward you must forget the past. Let it go. Someone once said, “Don’t look back unless that’s the direction you want to go!
Two, you’ve got to reach forward to what’s before you. You must become focused on going forward. Of making progress. Of accomplishing what you were created to accomplish. Focus on what is possible not what is impossible. There will always be naysayers and dream stealers that will try to tell you that you can’t do it. Ignore them. Keep reaching!
Three, if you are going to hit your target you have to put forth diligent effort. The word press means to bear down on, to push, to give it your all. Just like a runner in a race you have to strain yourself using all the energy you have to cross the finish line. Success always requires effort on your part. There is no such thing as a free lunch. The only place success comes before work is in the dictionary.
Four, without a goal to aim at you will wander through life never maximizing the potential inside you. Goals give us direction, focus, and a reason for getting up in the morning. They keep us on track. They help us to identify the distractions from our objectives and to ignore them.
Five, the prize or reward keeps us motivated to action. People work long hours because of the prize of a paycheck at the end of the week. Athletes put in long hours of training for the prize of winning the game or the championship trophy. When I was attempting to play professional golf I practice 6-8 hours per day to hone my skills and prepare myself for competition. The prize of not only the competition but also the tournament trophies (and potential payday) motivated me to spend the time necessary to do what it took to prepare.
Six, Paul said his prize was the upward call of God. God’s call to us is always an upward call. In other words it is a call to a higher level. It is rising to new levels of success, accomplishment, and productivity. Contrary to what a lot of people think, God desires for you to succeed in life. You were born to win in life. You were born with a purpose to fulfill. You were born to make a positive difference in the world around you. New levels of productivity and success afford you the ability to accomplish great things in the lives of others.
My challenge to you today is to check your aim. Do you have clear goals and objectives that you are presently working towards? Are you stretching your faith, your abilities, and your efforts? Are you being held back by past failures and mistakes? Are you putting forth diligent effort to reach your goals? Do you have a prize you are trying to attain? Do your goals lead you to a higher level and a better life?
Remember what I said earlier, “If you don’t know where you are going you may end up somewhere you don’t want to be!
You’re Not A Failure!
Motivational speaker and author Van Crouch says, “You’re not finished when you’re defeated, you’re finished when you quit.” Winners in life understand that failing is part of success. You can’t know victory if you don’t have a battle. There is nothing like the joy of something good happening for you like you do after you’ve experienced something negative.
The truth is “Bad things happen to good people.” Jesus once said, “In this world you shall have tribulation.” (John 16:33) In other words, you are going to have some bumps on the road to success. Things aren’t always going to be rosy. People that see themselves as winners simply pick themselves up after a setback and move on. If you have a dream, and you are actively pursuing it, you are going to fall short from time to time. It’s not what happens to you that is most important; it’s what happens in you!
Failure is not an event, it is an opinion. You are not a failure until you say you are. Every time you fail you simply learn how not to do something! We learn a lot from trial and error. Jay Leno, host of the Tonight Show, spends his Sunday evenings going to comedy clubs and practicing his jokes for upcoming monologues. Some go over well and some bomb. But he is not deterred. Just because a joke fails doesn’t mean he is a failure. He learns from his mistakes and continues to hone his craft. The result is success when he performs his monologue on a nightly basis.
Winners are not people that never get knocked down; they are people who refuse to stay down. There is something in the heart of a champion that won’t let them give up regardless of what they are going through. We’ve all witnessed it watching sporting events. Just when you think there is no way a team or an individual has a chance to win, they find a way to win anyways. They understand that they aren’t finished as long as they don’t quit. Failure is not in the falling down but in the giving up!
Two of my favorite people from history are Thomas Edison and Abraham Lincoln. It is reported that Thomas Edison did 10,000 experiments before he found a filament for the light bulb. Someone once said to him, “so you’ve failed 10,000 times.” His response, “No I found 10,000 things that didn’t work!” Abraham Lincoln failed at business and numerous forays into the political arena before he was elected the sixteenth President of the United States of America. He goes down as perhaps the greatest or at least one of the greatest Presidents of all time. The common denominator between both of these great men of history is they never viewed themselves as failures.
Here are some questions to ponder in your pursuit of accomplishment.
How do you see yourself?
Do you see yourself as a success or a failure? What do you do when what you are attempting doesn’t seem to be working?
Do you give up and quit?
Or do you get up and find a way to do it anyways?
My challenge to you today is that you begin to see yourself as the winner God says you are. Refuse to let setbacks hold you back from fulfilling your life purpose and accomplishing what you are capable of. Choose to use failures and setbacks as stepping stones to reaching your goals and enjoying a successful life! Say like the Apostle Paul of old, “I can do all things through Christ which gives me strength. (Philippians 4:13) You are not a failure!
The truth is “Bad things happen to good people.” Jesus once said, “In this world you shall have tribulation.” (John 16:33) In other words, you are going to have some bumps on the road to success. Things aren’t always going to be rosy. People that see themselves as winners simply pick themselves up after a setback and move on. If you have a dream, and you are actively pursuing it, you are going to fall short from time to time. It’s not what happens to you that is most important; it’s what happens in you!
Failure is not an event, it is an opinion. You are not a failure until you say you are. Every time you fail you simply learn how not to do something! We learn a lot from trial and error. Jay Leno, host of the Tonight Show, spends his Sunday evenings going to comedy clubs and practicing his jokes for upcoming monologues. Some go over well and some bomb. But he is not deterred. Just because a joke fails doesn’t mean he is a failure. He learns from his mistakes and continues to hone his craft. The result is success when he performs his monologue on a nightly basis.
Winners are not people that never get knocked down; they are people who refuse to stay down. There is something in the heart of a champion that won’t let them give up regardless of what they are going through. We’ve all witnessed it watching sporting events. Just when you think there is no way a team or an individual has a chance to win, they find a way to win anyways. They understand that they aren’t finished as long as they don’t quit. Failure is not in the falling down but in the giving up!
Two of my favorite people from history are Thomas Edison and Abraham Lincoln. It is reported that Thomas Edison did 10,000 experiments before he found a filament for the light bulb. Someone once said to him, “so you’ve failed 10,000 times.” His response, “No I found 10,000 things that didn’t work!” Abraham Lincoln failed at business and numerous forays into the political arena before he was elected the sixteenth President of the United States of America. He goes down as perhaps the greatest or at least one of the greatest Presidents of all time. The common denominator between both of these great men of history is they never viewed themselves as failures.
Here are some questions to ponder in your pursuit of accomplishment.
How do you see yourself?
Do you see yourself as a success or a failure? What do you do when what you are attempting doesn’t seem to be working?
Do you give up and quit?
Or do you get up and find a way to do it anyways?
My challenge to you today is that you begin to see yourself as the winner God says you are. Refuse to let setbacks hold you back from fulfilling your life purpose and accomplishing what you are capable of. Choose to use failures and setbacks as stepping stones to reaching your goals and enjoying a successful life! Say like the Apostle Paul of old, “I can do all things through Christ which gives me strength. (Philippians 4:13) You are not a failure!
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