Cultivate GREATNESS | Personal Development

by CG.com Contributor - Josh Bickford

Notice this question is not, “Are you worthy of your goal?”

I had the great pleasure to sit down with a member of my family this week and we got into a discussion about the goals we had for our lives. These goals are not, lose five pounds by February 1, or that we wanted to see more money in our bank accounts. We were talking about life goals, and what we really wanted with our lives.

That’s when I got this bomb dropped on me. My family member (who shall remain nameless to protect him, and more importantly me), informed me that what he wanted to do with his life was:

Hit the jackpot on the slot machines at the casino. Take the winnings of $1,500 and go straight to a hardware store and put a John Deere riding lawn mower on layaway.

I was totally dumbfounded by this response. Not only could I not believe what I was hearing, I didn’t even realize that layaway still existed!

I spent several days thinking about this conversation, still amazed by the fact that this was viewed as a worthy goal. And that I come from this bloodline……jeesh! I came to this realization: This poor guy is aiming for lack and limitation and not abundance and a life of fulfillment. He is selling his life short, way shorter than he, or anyone should ever aim. This ideal that he is chasing is doing nothing but taking his life.

Why do I bother to bring this up to you? It’s simple, I do not want to see you make the same mistake.

Now I’ll be the first to admit that my example here, as unfortunately true as it is, tends to be on the extreme side. The idea of winning a puny $1,500 jackpot so that you can put something on layaway is not far off of crazy. BUT–the idea that a person sells themselves short on their life goal is an all too common mistake.

How many times have you heard someone tell you, “you should set more ‘realistic’ or ‘obtainable’ goals.” I know that I’ve heard that too many times. This is the common response of everyone, to lower your sights and shoot for something easy. People will tell you this on easy goals, like losing a few pounds of tub, or waking up earlier, or breaking bad habits. Most people don’t even think about having a life goal. People get so busy in the day to day, and making ends meet that they don’t even spend time thinking about what they want to do with their life. They don’t think about it, so they can’t plan for it, which means they’ll never achieve it. It’s a vicious cycle that has ruined far too many people.

It must stop here.

We must make goals that are worthy of us. We must not sell ourselves short for anything, whether it’s a piece of metal on layaway, or a safe a secure existence that is forgotten as quickly as we are.

Since you are worthy of any goal that you will ever have, what makes a goal worthy of you?

Would you trade everything you have, including your very life, for that goal?
If you can answer yes to that question then you have found a goal that is worthy of you. If no is the answer you come up with I’m afraid you are selling yourself short.