“Success is the realization of the estimate
you place upon yourself.”
Elbert Hubbard
Sometimes, people set up goals for
themselves and then find reasons to keep themselves from making any meaningful
progress toward those goals. Perhaps you’ve run into people who have
established “deserve levels” for themselves—levels of income, or happiness, or
career satisfaction that they never go much above or much below, despite the
opportunity to do so.
Think about financial goals. Even
people who have work situations that allow for wide disparities in monthly
income totals—salespeople, say, or home entrepreneurs—somehow manage to keep
themselves from moving much outside of this so-called “comfort level.” Although
people will say that they want to be
able to increase their incomes, they’ll often find some way to link the
attainment of that goal to someone other than themselves, and their small steps
won’t match up with the big goals they’ve set up. The distance between where
they are and where they want to be is measured in excuses: “If only someone
would take over the job of organizing things...” “If only our financial system
were better targeted...” “If only I had the energy I once had...”
There are far too many unfortunate
souls on this earth who think that, once they figure out what life’s all about,
they’ll be able to press the “rewind” button and run themselves back to, say,
age 21—or any other time when “things were better.” Sad to say, people don’t
come equipped with such a button. For these poor folks, life slips by, day by
day, as they wait for someone or something to show them the way.
What they’re waiting for, when you
get right down to it, is the “guy on the white horse”—the person who will
tackle all the mysteries, solve all the problems, ride in and rescue them.
While they’re waiting for this person to show up, they disengage. Let me share
a secret: You have instant access to the “man or woman on the white horse”—the
person on whom our safety and success depends—at any time. All you have to do
is look down, and you’ll see that you’re sitting astride that “white horse.”
You are the guy on the white
horse! You are the only person who’s qualified to change your present and,
thereby, change your future. Don’t wait for great occasions to step forward as
your own hero; don’t assume that someone else is blocking your way. Seize
common occasions for positive personal change, and make them great.
The time to commit yourself to
developing the most efficient plan possible to achieve your goals is right now.
And the person who must carry out that plan is you. As someone once said, “If
it is to be, it is up to me.”
Immediate Action:
Think about how can you take action, today, to address a challenge you had once
believed to be someone else’s responsibility. Waiting for someone else to
achieve a goal for us means abandoning that “molded-in-clay” goal—before it’s
been put into permanent form!
Point to Ponder Before You Go On: Remember: A bad habit—like waiting for the guy on the
white horse—can become so strong that it can be mistaken for destiny. Don’t let
that happen to you!
Excerpted from Danny’s book, There
Are No Limits: Breaking the Barriers in Personal High Performance
