#marriage #divorce #children #HowLifeShouldBe #dreams #goals
The song came out in 1971.
The lyrics talked of marriage, divorce and how we were all taught about what life “should be.”
Carly Simon’s “That’s the Way I’ve Always Heard It Should Be” had an eerie melody and profound lyrics.
During that decade, most people were told to go to college, get a career, settle down, get married and have children.
The lessons date to when parents of those young people were young themselves. Though they may not have gone to college, their parents taught them to get a good job, settle down, get married and have kids.
Some in the 1970s rebelled at such a life. They went off to “find themselves.” They actually fought, so as not to become like their parents.
Even though their parents likely gave them a good upbringing and a memorable childhood, they did not want to become like them.
They felt such a life was confining, too routine and even prisonlike.
They wanted to be “free.” They wanted to see the world. They wanted to explore new things.
Certainly, some, as Simon’s song points out, did what they were taught. But, the result was lots of fighting, even divorce.
It’s often difficult for some people, young or older, to figure out who they are and what they want.
For others, there was no question.
For some of those indecisive folks, they’ll know who they are and what they want when it comes to them. It’s as if they are waiting for a message from above to guide them.
For the more decisive, it’s a matter of doing what one needs to do to get what one wants. Often, that can take time and lots of effort. Plus, much like for the indecisive, things have to go right along the way. Good fortune comes to those who prepare to receive it.
The lesson here is not to necessarily dismiss what your parents taught you, but to compile those teachings with a body of your own thoughts.
Sometimes, some things will just feel right. Other times, that right feeling has to be created.
Another important lesson is to enjoy the journey of life. You probably won’t remember how you were at the end of the journey, but you will certainly remember the milestones along the way.
A third lesson is to prepare for your entire life. Decisions one makes when he or she is young will benefit – or not – what happens to him or her in later years. Every thought or action should involve thoughts of how that thought or action will impact one’s future.
So, as the Simon song laments, don’t necessarily be what you always heard you should be. Find what pleases you. Create goals and a path to get to them. Things may happen for a reason you don’t know at the time, so react properly to them to stay on, or get back to, your path to success.
Your path always may not be in a straight line. Some of those twists and turns can be beneficial. Regardless, they should always be memorable.
Peter
Tag Archives: goals
DON’T ROLL OVER; KEEP ROLLING
#RollOver #KeepRolling #circumstances #goals #success
Roll over!
You may ask a dog to do that as a “trick.”
You may applaud an infant for doing that, as he or she shows his or her first sign of independence.
But when adults “roll over,” they are seen as giving in or, worse, giving up.
Instead of rolling over, keep rolling.
We are often tempted to roll over. Those who wish to dominate us want us to roll over.
They will frustrate us to the point that we, indeed, want to roll over.
If you must tolerate the frustration others impose on you, tolerate it without rolling over.
If you don’t have to tolerate the frustration, find a situation from which the frustration disappears, and you can do what’s best for you without interference.
Alas, it’s so much easier to just roll over. However, successful people don’t look for the easy thing. Instead, they face the hard thing head on. They may indeed roll with the punches, but they do not roll over.
They may not find success instantly. For some, it may take 40 years or more to become an overnight success. In all that time, they did not roll over. They kept rolling.
Todd Beamer told his fellow airline passengers on Flight 93 Sept. 11, 2001: “let’s roll.” The passengers stood up to the hijackers. The plane crashed in a field in rural Pennsylvania. But their actions prevented the plane from crashing into the Pentagon in Washington, D.C. All those passengers, including Beamer and the flight crew, died. But they did not roll over. They rolled.
Sometimes, circumstances prevail. Sometimes, all the fight and effort we can muster does not get us the results we want. Sometimes, we do not outlive our obstacles.
Still, that does not mean we should PRESUME circumstances will always win. Instead, we keep rolling in the right direction. We roll toward the goal. We don’t stop. We don’t roll over.
Those who want to dominate us – get us to roll over – will insert more obstacles in our way, to the best of their ability.
Some of those obstacles may stop us temporarily. They may tempt us to roll over. But, with every fiber of our beings, we keep rolling.
On some days, we may have to look for the strength to keep rolling. We do that by telling ourselves that every slammed door eventually will take us to an open one. We hope to remain upright to the cause or goal. If we get knocked down, we get up.
To paraphrase an old adage: You will find me either at the top of the mountain, or dead on the side. But I will not go back to the bottom.
In short, don’t roll over. Keep rolling.
Peter
FEAR, WORRY, THOUGHT AND GOALS
#fear #worry #thoughts #goals #IrrationalFear
“The only thing we have to fear is fear itself,” said President Franklin D. Roosevelt.
Or, to paraphrase a Mayo Clinic TV ad, when uncertainty hits, fear replaces thought.
Our thoughts are so cluttered with fear, worry, and stress, that we can’t focus on our goals,” writes Darius Foroux, in a Pocket Worthy article that advocates having a mantra to fight off worry.
Fear and worry are natural phenomena. Some politicians, in their messaging, use it to their advantage.
And, as Foroux writes, we spend lots of time worrying about things that will never happen.
It’s not to say we should fear nothing. But we tend to create fears and worries when bad circumstances befall us.
The best way, as Foroux points out, to combat worry is to have goals and focus on them.
That can be easier said than done, but it’s probably a good way to start to minimize fear and worries in our minds.
When someone we know or love goes on a trip, they often tell us to think good thoughts to make the trip safe and successful.
But, getting back to Foroux’s point, having a goal to focus on can often occupy our minds to the point that there is little, if any, room for worry and fear.
And, as the Mayo Clinic ad continues, answers, in the form of research, eliminate uncertainty, thereby eliminating fear and worry.
What the ad doesn’t say, but may imply, is whether those answers turn out as expected, or whether they ultimately lead to a breakthrough.
But if you focus your thoughts on your goals, you can create certainty when uncertainty tries to creep into your mind.
We all want to live a worry-free, fearless life. That may not be possible. But facing fear by focusing on goals can help mitigate it.
For example, if your goal is to be successful at your job, focus on doing what you need to do to make that happen, rather than focusing on what might happen to you if you fail.
It can be a tall ask for some people whose mind cannot help being fearful, because of a mental illness or deficiency.
Those folks may need professional help to overcome what they fear – often irrationally.
But those of sound mind can create thoughts that fill the mind so there is no room for fear or worry.
So, are you too often fearful or filled with worry? If so, what do you worry about? Is it something that may never, or is very unlikely to, happen?
What would make you so happy that you would become fearless or worry-free?
Can you acquire or achieve such happiness? What do you have to do to acquire or achieve it?
Happiness doesn’t always come quickly, naturally or promptly. It often requires us to do something that may not pay us off immediately, but will pay off over time with consistent action.
Fear and worry are much like foods for which we do not have a taste. Eating, or thinking, something more pleasant is the best solution.
Peter
HOLD YOUR HEAD UP; OR, KEEP YOUR HEAD LOW
#HoldYourHeadUp #KeepYourHeadLow #ambition #survival #jobs #goals
Hold your head up.
Keep your head low.
The first concept, the title of a 1972 song by Argent, tells you to put your head up, get noticed and go after it.
The second concept, taken from a 1974 song titled, “Billy, Don’t Be a Hero,” by Bo Donaldson and the Heywoods, tells a soldier to keep his head low, avoid getting shot and come back to his fiancée.
In a workplace, do you hold your head up, do something unusual to draw recognition with the intention of attracting the boss’ attention? Or, you keep your head low, blend into the woodwork, thinking, perhaps, that you are less likely to get your head cut off – lose your job, or otherwise get punished.
Different types of people keep their heads in different places. Ambitious people hold their heads up. Those who just want to survive keep their heads low.
If you are in survival mode, stop. Think about what you want and where you want to be. Survival should not be a goal. It may require you to think about what you want your life to look like. EVERYONE has life goals. You can try to survive as a temporary status, but you should have a goal to do something that will get you want you want.
A job is a job, but a life goal may help you convert a “job” into a means to an end.
You may not want to keep your head low forever. You may want to raise your head slowly, and, eventually, keep it up.
A raised head is always better than a lowered one.
Then, you may have to find something to help you keep it up. Your current job or situation may not be it.
For no other reason, keeping your head up will help you help others. Others will respond to people whose heads are up. They may not see, or recognize, someone whose head is low.
“Billy,” the soldier, did not take his fiancee’s advice, according to the song. He volunteered for a risky mission and was killed. The fiancée was told she should be proud, but she threw the notification letter away, the song says.
The fiancée wanted Billy to come home alive, for her own, understandably selfish reasons, Yet, Billy was unselfish.
In short, goals can create ambition. Those who keep their heads low and blend in may never get the life they want. They learn to settle for contentment – or just plain survival.
If you don’t have natural ambition, you have to generate it yourself – and you can. You have to know what you want, why you want it and where you want to go. If you determine all of those things, you can find how to get them.
That is how ambition is created.
Peter
GOALS, DEADLINES AND LIFE
#goals #deadlines #life #SteadyWork #entrepreneurs
We are all encouraged to set goals.
Placing a deadline on those goals can be tricky.
Yes, deadlines encourage urgency, and urgency will help you reach goals more quickly.
Timeline might be a better word than deadline.
Timeline sounds less urgent. But timeline implies flexibility. Deadlines are more firm.
This discussion is designed to allow people to go for whatever goal(s) they seek, without beating oneself up.
After all, reaching the goal, in most cases, is the most important thing. When it happens, in most cases, is less important. Ask yourself this: if I get to Level X, which I am shooting for, in five years instead of two, am I going to be upset that it took so long, or thrilled that I actually got there?
Indeed, most rewards know no deadline. But, no matter how badly you may want your rewards, deadlines may not necessarily produce them, even with your maximum effort.
Some deadlines are part of your goal. For example, if your goal is to beat your best time ever in a road race, that makes deadlines automatic, since you are shooting for a race time. What becomes less significant is in which race you beat your best time. Perhaps it won’t happen in THIS race, but that should not stop you from going for it in your NEXT race.
Parents, teachers or others may have taught or coached you to aim for “realistic” goals. Usually, they defined “realistic” in terms of, say, getting married, having a family, having “steady” work etc. As an adult, those things certainly can be part of your goals, but they aren’t for everyone.
In fact, real success is rarely spawned from “steady.” Real success is often created by thinking less about traditional life and more about the life ahead.
Also, “steady” not only may not exist everywhere, it may exist nowhere, in real terms.
If “steady” is what you seek, you may not be considering all horizons open to you.
For example, one can have a relatively steady job, while pursuing more entrepreneurial goals part time in his or her off-work hours.
Setting goals, working toward them and ultimately achieving them is a relatively simple process. It’s not necessarily an easy process, but the process itself may be simple. The “not easy” part may come with the person’s attitude and ambition toward getting it.
For others, knowing what one wants does not come easily. It requires thought. It requires cultivating an open mind. It requires creating a different attitude toward life, from the one that may have been ingrained in you as a child.
In short, knowing what you want may require effort in itself. But once you find out what that is, you have to compound that effort toward achieving it.
Creating goals, achieving them, then creating more goals is a lifelong process. In traditional “steady” work, that process usually stopped at retirement. When seeking things that are less steady, but potentially more lucrative, one never stops going for it (them).
Peter
UNFULFILLED AMBITIONS
#ambition #UnfulfilledAmbition #goals #achievement #HardWork
Harry Chapin’s song “Taxi,” talks about unfulfilled ambition.
Or, it talks about fulfilling ambition in a different, less desirable way.
The Chapin character in the song wanted to be a pilot. Instead, he’s driving a cab.
His passenger, an old friend from childhood he hadn’t seen in years, wanted to be an actress. Instead, she married someone rich and is a homemaker.
The two ended up fulfilling their ambitions, sort of, the song says. She is “acting happy inside her handsome home. “ (If you don’t know the song, she did leave him a nice tip). He’s flying high, on drugs, presumably when he’s not driving a cab, the song says.
The song came out in 1972, but its lessons may apply today.
Do you have a worthy ambition? Are there things in the way of you fulfilling that ambition?
Ambitions come in all shapes and sizes. They also come with many pathways, some difficult or expensive, to get there.
In the Chapin song, the cab rider who wanted to be an actress might have found a difficult path to get there. She may have found stiff competition – how many folks want to act as a career? Given those pathways, one has to admire anyone who slogs through the pathway and becomes successful.
Perhaps the cab rider found true love, or just found a “sugar daddy,” and abandoned the path. Perhaps she tried acting and didn’t break through. The song never says.
The Chapin character would have had a rigorous path to becoming a pilot. Not everyone can do it. The song never says how far he’d gotten toward that goal.
The point is that ambition is all well and good. But if you are unwilling to do what it takes, or you don’t get the breaks you need to become successful, you may not achieve them.
So, what if there was a way to achieve your ambitions, just by your effort alone? What if your ambition involves an extensive and expensive education, that may or may not pay off for you, financially, in the end?
Some such ambitions are certainly noble, and would do the world some good. They just may not personally enrich you.
But there are programs out there that, by investing a few, part-time, off-work hours a week to start, can potentially help you over some financial hurdles.
These programs don’t require specific education, experience or background. They merely require an open mind to check them out (they may or may not be for you), and a willingness to be coached.
To learn about one of the best such programs, message me.
Meanwhile, having an ambition, or a goal, is better than having none at all. Be mindful of the pitfalls of pursuit, but don’t necessarily let those pitfalls deter you.
You shouldn’t have to settle for something less, if you don’t want to. Try not to rationalize settling as achievement.
Some ambitions take longer than others. You may have to redesign ambitions to suit circumstances, but if you really want something, go for it, no matter what it may take.
Peter
FOCUS LIKE A DOG ON A SQUIRREL
#dogs #squirrels #focus #goals
When you walk a dog, and it sees something it wants to chase, say, a squirrel, it will focus on the squirrel.
If you want the dog to keep walking, you have to somehow distract it from said squirrel.
Unlike dogs, most humans are more easily distracted, and linger in – even enjoy – the distraction.
We would actually see said squirrel as a distraction, and, had we been focusing on something else, would glance at the squirrel for a moment of distraction, perhaps just for a break.
The point here is that animals can focus more easily if they want something badly enough.
People, by contrast, may want something badly, but often find focusing on what to do to get it difficult. Distractions gleefully multiply.
Perhaps we can learn a lesson from dogs, or other animals.
It all starts with wanting something badly enough.
Many of us go through life as a grind — work, home and back to work again. Psychologists sometimes call folks like that carousel riders — going round and round, but going nowhere.
.
Some of us opt for contentment rather than prosperity.
Contentment can be achieved with relatively minimal effort. Those seeking contentment can be easily distracted from more difficult tasks that may get them a much better life.
If you ask such a person how he or she is doing, they may say “OK,” or “I’m getting by.” They take the life they were “given,” and make the best from it.
However, the person who aims for prosperity, or some other lofty goal, figures out what he or she has to do to get it, and focuses on those things. He or she may vary his or her course based on circumstances, but he or she will never stray from the goal.
He or she will focus, like the dog on a squirrel, on that goal.
He or she may be dealt some bad hands in life, but that person never stops focusing on the goal.
If you are that type of person, and may be looking for something that will help you achieve what you want, know that there are many such vehicles out there.
To check out one of the best such programs, message me.
Meanwhile, if you are drifting, or even if you are just content, know that you don’t have to stay there. YOU can get yourself out, if you choose.
You just have to keep your mind open, your heart full and your focus keen.
Peter
BOOK THE UNREALISTIC
#dream #TheUnrealistic #ReturnTheRealYou
Book the unrealistic, and return as the real you.
This statement’s meaning may not be obvious on its face, so let’s break it down.
Book the unrealistic means to prepare for your dream as if you were booking a trip.
The unrealistic part comes from all those dreams your parents, teachers and other influences on you as a child told you were out of reach for you. After all, you had to think practically, aim for the secure and go for the known, tried and true, quantity.
You may have been told you were silly to think you could be, say, an actor, musician, star athlete etc., or even be wealthy. You had to think in terms of getting a good job, with good benefits and stay there until you retire. You were expected to eventually have a spouse, children and other obligations that such security will help take care of.
Today, much of that secure reality is gone. So, why not book the unrealistic? What have you got to lose?
It may take a while to get to your unrealistic goal, so take pleasure in the journey. You’ve booked it, but you may not know exactly when you’ll get on the dream vehicle. You can reserve a date, but you may have to cancel and rebook if your date arrives, but your dream has not yet.
The great motivator Jim Rohn defines success as “a progressive realization of a worthy goal.” Progressive may be the key word here. The journey may take you steps toward your goal, and may even force you to step backward away from your goal for a time. Those may be the failures you will encounter on your journey.
The second part of the statement calls for a return as the real you. That means you’ve taken the journey, after booking your unrealistic goal, reached your goal and now must return.
The variable here is that you may not return to the home, security etc. that you left. You may return to a different home. To borrow from a John Denver lyric, you might be coming home, to a place you’ve never been before.
Hence, we use the word “return” to mean to come back from the journey to the unrealistic that you’d booked a while ago. Some journeys are so good, you may never come back from them.
Bottom line is that it’s OK to dream. It’s OK to have goals that others did not wish for you. As long as your goals are worthwhile, as Rohn says, don’t let anyone stand in your way.
Perhaps you are looking for a method, or a vehicle, to get you to your goal. That might mean being open for something to come into your life that may be totally different from the kind of good things that your influencers may have wanted for you. If you are looking for such a vehicle, message me.
Life journeys are not always smooth, and not always pleasant. There can be rough roads, turbulent air, flat tires etc. If you understand that mishaps can befall you, but you can still have your eyes on the unrealistic goals you have booked, you are at least halfway there.
You can take pleasure in the journey, overcome the rough patches, and return with a sense of accomplishment. Remember, too, that such journeys are better when you take others with you. Trips are usually better when taken with friends or family.
So book the unrealistic, and return as the real you. Don’t go it alone, bring others. Return with the sense that the journey, however long, was worthy.
Peter