Keep Setting New Goals

I read a story many years ago about a young Olympic gymnast. As a child growing up, she had one goal. She started in gymnastics at a very early age and her dream was to compete in the Olympics and win a gold medal.

Everybody, including her coach, told her that this is a big dream and it would be incredibly difficult to achieve. She didn’t listen to any of the naysayers. She worked hard every day for years constantly knowing that it was going to take years of practice and training to make that dream come true.

As she moved into her teenage years, everyone saw that she was a special young lady with loads of talent and a big dream. Her dedication and commitment was paying off. She made the Olympic team and became one of the favorites in the world to win the gold medal.

Finally, that special day had come. She competed and wowed all the judges and she was awarded the number one gymnast in the entire world. She won the gold medal! Her dream had come true.

As she stood upon the podium with the national anthem playing and the gold medal around her neck, she had tears streaming down her face reflecting on how all her hard work had paid off.

It was the proudest moment of her entire life.

When she arrived back home, all the festivities and congratulations came pouring in. They were parades, TV endorsements, and national TV show interviews. What an incredible time to be able to celebrate her dream coming true.

As time went on and all the celebrations began to stop, her emotions started changing. She actually found herself becoming sad. As months went on, she started becoming very depressed. She was at the point where she needed to see a counselor.

She met with the counselor and she told the whole wonderful story about how she achieved her dream and now she couldn’t understand why she was so depressed. The counselor listened to her story and congratulated her on this wonderful accomplishment. He shared with her that although this was an incredible accomplishment, life is constantly about setting new goals and new dreams. Some will be bigger than others. The reason why she was depressed is because she no longer had a dream or a purpose. He encouraged her to start writing out new goals and new dreams and to do that for the rest of her life. This made absolute sense and she went on to become successful in many other areas in her life. She learned to have joy in her journey. Most importantly, she learned that life is all about constantly setting new goals.

As I reflected on the story many years ago, I realized even though we may not win a gold medal, we all need to have goals and dreams for our entire lifetime. Whenever you reach a goal, let me encourage you to celebrate. Most importantly after that, start setting another goal.

If you woke up this morning and you are breathing, you still have life in you. You still have things to accomplish. You have dreams inside of you and it’s time to make them come true.

No matter what level you reach in life, keep setting new goals. I have studied and observed many people throughout my life. Here’s what I have found…. People that are not growing have the least amount of joy. Growth and progress equals happiness. If you want to have joy in life, keep aspiring for new dreams.

All of us have achieved some wonderful goals in life. Celebrate them and keep setting more goals. Don’t let anyone ever tell you that you are too old to achieve great things. Write out your new dreams and goals and put together a plan on what it’s going to take to achieve those goals. Surround yourself with winners who are going to encourage you and help you accomplish your goals. Once you accomplish each goal, celebrate and move onto the next one. Today is the beginning of the rest of your amazing life! Go out and make it happen!

Happy Selling,

David