Setting Goals

Every wish has its price. You can have anything you want if you are willing to pay that price. The price may be in dollars and cents. Or it may be in effort - the weeks or months or years it will take you to make your wish come true. Or the price may be in sacrifice; what you have to give up in order to get what you want. Whatever the price turns out to be, you have to pay full retail - you can’t bargain with fate.

Your willingness to pay the price is what gives you the power to cause your wish to come true. If you are 100 percent willing to pay the price, then you are 100 percent likely to succeed. If you are only 50 percent willing to pay the price, then you are 50 percent likely to succeed. It’s a simple matter of cause and effect. The price is the cause; the wish is the effect. Pay the price - set in motion the appropriate cause - and the wish will take care of itself.

Take a look at the First Choice from your wish list. How much will it cost you? How much will it cost in dollars and cents? How much will it cost in effort? How many months or weeks or years will you have to work on it? How much will it cost in sacrifice? Will it mean less time with your family, less time with your friends, less time watching TV, less time with your hobby, or playing golf, or puttering around the house? Once you have an idea of what that wish will cost, are you willing to pay the price?

Now here is an interesting question: Why are you willing to pay that price? What reasons do you have to make that wish come true?

The people who are most successful at making their wishes come true are the ones who have the most compelling reasons to do so. Instead of trying to psyche yourself into paying an exorbitant price for a wish, why not choose a wish that is worth the price in the first place? Choose a wish that compels you to make it come true.

If your First Choice doesn’t compel you, choose another wish. Go to your Second Choice or your Third Choice. Redo your wish list if you have to. Brainstorm new ideas and set new priorities until you choose a wish that compels you to pay the price, a wish that makes it more than worth your while to overcome every obstacle that will stand in your way. Choose a wish that is so compelling, you refuse to settle for less. You’re not going to get very far until you do.

While you are looking for a compelling wish, keep this in mind: Choose a wish for what it will make of you to achieve it. The greater the wish, the greater you have to become to make that wish come true. That’s the real payoff. That’s why human beings strive for more than what they have. It’s not what you achieve that brings you joy and fulfillment; it’s the person you must become in order to achieve it. You don’t get what you want from life; you get what you are.

That’s why it takes effort to make your goals succeed and your wishes come true. If all you had to do were to snap your fingers to get anything you want, you would never have to develop your potential. You would never have to become more than what you are. But by insisting that the only way to earn your wish is to become the kind of person for whom such a wish is possible, the universe gives you one of the greatest gifts of all: growth.

Along with this gift comes a warning: Beware of any wish that turns you into someone you don’t want to be. That price is too high. No wish is worth sacrificing your values, your character, or your integrity. No wish is worth losing the only things worth having. If a wish forces you to become less of a person that you want to be, it’s not worth the price.