(This is about the steps we can take right now to begin and continue the “journey.”) (This is about answering the “where are we going” question.) Then thinking small by drilling down to what you should be doing right now to create progress toward your big goal. This involves setting big goals for the future. One of the concepts they talk about in the book is the power of Goal Setting to the Now. Gary Keller and Jay Papasan wrote a fantastic book, The ONE Thing: The Surprisingly Simple Truth Behind Extraordinary Results. Here are a few examples of big (aspirational) goals from my career that have been especially inspirational and rewarding for me. Setting “worthy goals”, and thinking about them all the time, is not only fun and engaging… it is a big part of what success is all about… “the progressive realization of a worthy goal”. I have found Nightingale’s statement “We’re successful as long as we’re working towards something we want to bring about in our lives” to be very true in career, business, and life. You have to define “where you are going.” Then monitor and savor your progress along the way. You must have something that is important to you to strive toward in order to begin your journey. But it makes it clear that it all starts by having a worthy goal in the first place. I like this definition of success because it points out that success is as much about the “journey toward the goal” than the actual achievement of the goal. That’s when the human being is at his or her best.”
We’re successful as long as we’re working towards something we want to bring about in our lives. Now, success doesn’t lie in the achievement of a goal, although that is what the world considers success. “It means that anyone who’s on course toward the fulfillment of a goal is successful. Success is the progressive realization of a worthy goal. It’s hard to get where you are going if you don’t know where you are going.Įarl Nightingale, in his audio program Lead the Field, defines success this way: To me, that scene from Alice in Wonderland is a fantastic reminder that defining “where you want to go” is very important in business and in life. That is a short section from Alice’s encounter with the Cheshire Cat in Alice in Wonderland. “Then it doesn’t matter which way you go,” said the Cheshire Cat. “That depends a good deal on where you want to go,” said the Cheshire Cat. “Would you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here?” said Alice.