How Can I Achieve The Complete and Happy Life I Deserve? Post 2 of the “MyLife TODAY! on Thursdays” series

So, does this mean that I think that a “goal-setting” philosophy is totally wrong?

No! The principles of goal-setting do work.  They’ve worked for me and they’ve worked for a lot of people I know.  If you apply the techniques of goal-setting; the time-management, the dream building, etc., then you can achieve great results with goal setting. Many people just like you have.

So what’s the problem? As I see it, the problem is simple.

It is how goal-setting is misused and how the underlying approach is taken with the Win/Lose – Succeed/Fail philosophy that can be so damaging to people’s lives. Far too much emphasis is placed on the winning and not enough on simply achieving.

And with far too much emphasis placed on winning, and being a winner, there comes far too much emphasis, to the point of being destructive, on being a loser. Giving it all you have on the day, playing the game and walking away as an achiever, have all given way to “winning at all costs”.

And sometimes that price of winning at all costs is just too high. Individually and for society!

This emphasis on winning or more correctly, on the possibility of being labelled a loser, can only stop people from becoming the best that they can be. Because, when people don’t get the results they set out to achieve then they can start to believe things about themselves that aren’t true. They can start believing that, because they haven’t won, because they didn’t reach their goal, they too are a loser according to the rules of a win/lose, succeed/fail society.

Not true?

Just watch the effect on a child if all the other children think he/she is a loser when it comes to team games. No matter how hard, enthusiastic or willing the child is to have a go, the first time they make a mistake the label of “loser” is reinforced. They are laughed at. They are ridiculed.

And sadly, how often do we see this criticism, this degrading behaviour, being administered every weekend by some “sane”, “rational”, “mature” adult at a child’s sporting event, such is the need for some parents to have a winner as a child?

If it happens often enough then such children may simply give up and not participate at all. They become what other people think they should be. They act the way they are expected to act. They begin to believe that they are truly “losers” or “failures”. Even though they did the very best they could, their perception was that they simply weren’t good enough.

We adults are no different to children in this way. Even though we keep trying, some may never quite make it, according to the rules. Never have the really nice home, luxury car, or overseas holidays or lifestyle we are told winners should have.

And so, every day, millions of dreams die or are never given a chance because someone (we don’t really know who), somewhere (we don’t really know where), said, “Be a winner, succeed in life. Winning is the only thing and if you don’t win then you are a loser.”

Do yourself a favour. Don’t listen to what the world tells you about winning and losing.

Set out the things you want to achieve in life and then just go for it. Give it all that you can. If it works – great! And if you don’t get what you want, well that’s OK too. No-one I know has ever achieved everything that set out to achieve every time. They all have failed. Some more than others on the way to achieving great things!

Don’t give up on your dreams.

As we go forward in this series of blogs we’ll look at how you can make your dreams a reality and how you can work at achieving the magnificent life you truly deserve.

Make Your Dreams A Reality

Colin

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