Setting Goals

You have your wish, you have your plan, and you’re taking the action necessary to make your wish come true. Now all you have to do is to give it time.

There are two kinds of time. The first kind is measured by the number of hours you are willing to devote to a task during a single day. We’ll refer to this as vertical time. The second kind is measured by the number of days you are willing to devote to a task in order to complete it. We’ll call this horizontal time. The maximum vertical time at our command is 24 hours because that’s all the time there is in a day. The maximum horizontal time at our command is an entire lifetime. Which kind of time do you think is more powerful?

Some tasks require vertical time. Others require horizontal time. Choosing the right kind of time for the job is half the battle. Most people approach their wishes as if they are repairing a dam that is about to break in front of their house. But most wishes are more like tending a garden than they are like fixing a dam. Most of what you want to accomplish in life you can accomplish better, and with greater enjoyment, if you do it over time, instead of trying to do it all at once.

Unfortunately, the frantic pace of life points us in the opposite direction. Haste has become an end in itself. We would rather work feverishly on a project for a few days than work steadily for a few weeks. We would rather get rich quickly than get rich slowly. And that’s where we miss the boat.

It’s a lot harder to get rich quickly than it is to get rich slowly. It’s a lot harder to accomplish anything of value in a few days than it is to accomplish the same thing in a few months. When you try to cram too much into a single day, or a few days, time is working against you. But when you spread your efforts over time, time is on your side.

Devote even a few minutes a day to a project, and with enough days, you can accomplish almost anything. Don’t get hung up on how long it will take; that’s just another way to derail your dreams. If you work on your wish over time, over time your wish will come true.

Finding the time

As stated earlier, success takes time, even if it’s just a few minutes a day. You may feel you don’t have a lot of time. You may feel rushed, perhaps even crushed by the pace of life. You may be asking yourself: How will I ever find the time to work on a wish into a schedule like mine?

That’s the wrong question to ask. Instead of starting with your schedule and trying to work in your wish, start with your wish and try to work in the rest of the things on your schedule. If you are going to shortchange something, shortchange the things that are at the bottom of your list of priorities, not the things at the top. Make this one change in how you spend your day - work on what is most important to you before you take care of everything else - and you’ll find that your schedule begins to take on the shape of a life, instead of your life taking on the shape of a schedule.