Today’s episode is a little different. It’s a very popular topic, but it’s also one that very often doesn’t work for people. It is the area of looking for your goals, defining your goals, and reaching your goals. Sometimes these are called your purpose, your goals, or in some businesses they call it “your why,” that is why are you doing it; what’s going to make you or motivate you to attain something? That is, what is the purpose for you to drive to success, and whatever you call success?

We’re not talking about something small, like your next house or completing something, but rather something that really is your dream and your future that brings you to a new or different life. We’re talking about not just buying a car. We want to talk about defining your future and dreams that you really want to consider, without any restrictions on your dreams or your thoughts.

This is not something that you are forced, or coerced, or motivated by some other outside force. It’s not your parents, it’s not your wife or husband, it’s not your family. It’s something deep down inside you. You know that you want to drive and you know you want to go for it. It must be what you want for yourself.

Sometimes I say this is talked about and thought of as: why? Why is the very existence of purpose that you want to go forth, and it has to drive you. Why I say that it has to be something that you want to do for yourself? It has to be something that when all odds are against you, when things are going down and things are going wrong, you’re still going to make it happen and make it work. That can be defined in terms of a combination of family, financial, location, your reputation, many other things, but it is something you have inside of you, not that somebody’s pushing you into.

Your dream also may change over time. Actually, it probably will. That doesn’t mean you don’t strive for it and shoot for it. For example, when you’re younger, you’re going to have certain dreams as a teen or early 20’s while you’re in college. You still don’t even know what’s out there. As you have those dreams and aspirations, and you start shooting for them as you acquire more information, you may adapt/adopt new ones, change them. There’s nothing wrong with that, because as you learn, you will make changes. There’s nothing that is not only wrong with it, but it’s part of the process of growing up older, etc.

An example: when I was younger I always wanted a huge house, and all sorts of things. Then as I got a little older, I started thinking: “Wait a minute. I really don’t want all those people that I would have to have in that house. I want privacy.” So obviously that dream didn’t fit as I learned more about what was nice for me.

I also used to think about having that house that was way out in the boonies, etc. and trees around and everything else. Then later on, I thought: “Gee, that’s a little too far from all the things I really want.”

You may change them, but that’s okay because in the process you’re learning new things and you might adapt plans. I still may have that big house or nice house, but it’s not the same kind of house that I dreamt of when I was younger. With the skills and things I learned along my path, while I may have changed my dream, I was able to still move very comfortably into the next stage of life.

One way of thinking about this is what is very often talked about as creating a vision board or an idea of a concept as to what you want. You take pictures, and phrases, and other things. There’s different degrees of how wonderful this could be. By “wonderful,” I mean the picture is right and everything is symmetric or whatever. I’m not a designer. At the same time, what is going to have that for you? That will give you something to look at as a reminder of the goals on what you want. At the same time, how many people attain it with that concept or that idea? It is a reminder, it is a motivator,