Setting Goals

The people who are most successful at making their wishes come true are the people who know who they are and what they want. They choose wishes that help them fulfill their purpose in life. To make the most of your astonishing power to make your wishes come true, the first thing you need to do is to choose a purpose, and then choose wishes that will help you fulfill that purpose.

Earl Nightingale, one of the great modern philosophers of human achievement, used to distinguish between river people and goal people. He said that river people are those lucky few who seem to be born for a particular purpose. From the time they are children they seem to know what they are meant to do with their lives. They find themselves in the middle of a great river of interest, and they flow with that river all the days of their lives.

Then there are the rest of us. We are the goal people or, the wish people. We aren’t born with an all-consuming interest. We aren’t born into our purpose in life. Instead, we have to define it.

For years, I wondered what I was supposed to do with my life. I envied people who knew what they were about, people who seemed to have been born with a sense of mission, people who were fortunate enough to pursue their river of interest. If only that could happen to me, I used to tell myself. And then one afternoon, it did.

I was walking down the street wondering what I was going to do with my life. Suddenly, I had the answer. As clearly as if it had been engraved on my forehead, I understood that my great purpose in life was to define my purpose. That was my mission. That was my river of interest. And it always had been. For years, I had been pursing the same mission - to define my purpose. But I had never realized it and had never accepted it as a valid purpose. Once I did, I understood with absolute certainty what it was that I was supposed to do with my life: I was put on earth to define my purpose.

For the first time in my life, I felt like a river person. I knew what my life was about. I had a reason to get out of bed in the morning. My days were filled with meaning because I had suddenly filled them with meaningful work. I had something vitally important to accomplish - a purpose - and I couldn’t wait to get started on it each day.

What I learned that day is that it doesn’t matter what purpose you have. It simply matters that you have one. And if you don’t have one, then your purpose is to define one. That becomes your river of interest.

Once you adopt this frame of mind, you will find that everything else falls into place. You will embark on a journey of self-discovery. You will open yourself to new thoughts, activities, and interests that you would never have considered before. Everything you do from that moment on will become part of your newly discovered purpose, your newly discovered mission in life: to define - to invent - yourself.

To find your purpose, start with what interests you. It’s rare to find someone who doesn’t have an interest in something. But there are many people who have never allowed themselves to acknowledge their interests. They feel that the things they like to do are unimportant in the great scheme of things, so they look elsewhere for meaning and purpose. Meanwhile, what they are looking for is right under their nose.

Finding your purpose in life doesn’t have to be some complicated quest. Instead of asking, “What do I want to do with my life?” why not make it easy on yourself? Instead, ask “What do I enjoy doing?” Then listen to all of your answers. Write them on paper. Write everything on paper - even the trivial or silly things. If what interests you doesn’t seem important enough to put on paper, that’s only because you’re trying to judge your interests instead of trying to live them. Try living the, instead, and you’ll take your first great step toward making your wishes come true.

If you enjoy doing something do it. Do you like to listen to music, go to the movies, read, watch TV, cook, fix cars, clean house, watch birds, teach, build furniture, surf the Net, or build sand castles? As long as your activity or hobby is not self-destructive (like substance abuse), hurtful to someone else, or damaging to the environment, why not allow yourself to enjoy it for all it’s worth?

If you enjoy something, pursue it. You don’t have to make it your official purpose in life - but what if you did? What if you decided to spend your life doing what you enjoy? That’s what river people do. Sometimes they’re called eccentric, or absentminded, or obsessive. Sometimes they’re called geniuses. But whatever they’re called, all they do is flow with their river of interest and allow themselves to enjoy the journey. They don’t care if what they’re doing is important to the rest of the world; they care if it’s important to them. They aren’t out to save mankind; they’re out to save themselves - from a life without joy or meaning.

If you want to maximize your contribution to society, you owe it to them, and to yourself, to follow your dreams, to follow your purpose, to follow your bliss.

Do what you think you’re meant to do, not what you think you’re supposed to do. If you’re worried that you’ll never amount to much unless your purpose is “worthy,” don’t waste your time. You already amount to something. Your achievements in life are not the source of your worth as a human being; they are the result of it. Self-worth comes before purpose, not the other way around. Once you accept your value as a person, once you accept that you already amount to something, then you free yourself to make the most of your life. You free yourself to define your purpose. And that’s where the fun begins.

Finding your purpose is a matter of asking yourself what you enjoy doing, and then doing it. That’s what river people do. They aren’t making a huge sacrifice to follow their dreams. They don’t have to practice iron-willed self-discipline to keep themselves on track. They simply do what they enjoy doing. That’s their payoff. That’s why they do it. Their achievements are simply a byproduct of that enjoyment.

Once you define a purpose - even if that purpose is simply to define a purpose - the rest will take care of itself. Your life will take on a focus and intensity of which you’ve never dreamed. One by one you will begin to make your wishes come true. Day by day you’ll find yourself growing, contributing more to those around you, and making the most of yourself as a human being. That is the noblest purpose of all.