Monday Motivation 8/28/2000

What do you want?

If you're like most people, you won't have a ready answer to this question. Self-help experts suggest that over 90 percent of the people you meet on the street every day don't have a clue what they want. Many of them don't even know what they don't want.

So...what do you want?

If you're reading the material on this site, you are quite possibly one of the 10 percent or so who understands basically what you want to achieve out of life. You might understand where you want to go, what you want to do, and who you want to do it with. If you're one of those few, you're to be congratulated.

Perhaps you don't quite have it all together, but you're actively on the path to success. (I guess we're all on the path to success, aren't we...it's just that some are going the wrong way.) Or, you might be one of those who doesn't know the answer to any of this...but you're interested in learning how to find out what you really want out of your life.

Whatever stage you might be at, we can all learn from this simple technique, popularized by Earl Nightingale, at getting what you want out of life:

First, pull out a piece of paper. Write at the top: "What do I want from life?" Starting at the top, fill up the paper with at least 15 things you want from life.

If this question appears too difficult, ask yourself these questions first, to narrow it down a bit:

If money was not an object, what would I want to do with my day?

I may not know what I want, but this is what I hate:

If I could upgrade my skill set, what would I undertake?

If I owned my own business, what would I like to do?

Any clearer? Try answering the main question now. "What do I want from life?" Go ahead. I'll wait right here.

Dum dum de dum dum de dum...Oh? Finished already? You didn't just skip it, did you? Did you get at least fifteen things?

You did? Good! Now we can go on.

Next, look at your list. Now is the time to analyze what you've written. Take your list, and number it in order of what thing you want most, down to what you want least. Also look at what things on the list you can do for a living, and make money from. Mark those items with a dollar sign ($).

Analyze your list, looking at the items that bear both a top-ranked spot, and (if this is being done to determine a good vocation) a money indicator. Now is the time to determine those individual items that will gain you the most money. Look at ones where you are already in that line of work, but you could get better with a bit of work or education. These are an easy place to start your quest.

Last, taking the top ranked item of your list, plan out a path to take you from where you are now, to where you want to be. Think of it like planning a trip. You are likely to need to do a bit of study to determine the best plan. It should take you some time and effort to figure out what the best plan may be, although sometimes, it's so obvious, you can achieve it in lightning speed.

Even the highest mountains are climbed one step at a time, but you have to know where you're going in order to reach the summit.

Getting what you want is a matter of deciding what you want, choosing a path to get you there, and then staying on that path, never deviating, until you achieve your desired outcome.

Copyright, 2000, by Daryl R. Gibson and WeekdayWisdom.com. All rights reserved. Permission is hereby granted for the non-commercial use of this document as long as it retains this copyright and all lines and images remain intact. This does not allow the compilation and marketing of this material, whether for commercial or non-commercial use. Join us at http://www.WeekdayWisdom.com.