Becoming Better Than You Are!

Climb every mountain. Reach for the stars. Do those phrases mean anything to anyone anymore? We live in the greatest nation on earth where you can be anything you want to be and find your own pursuit of happiness. But still, does that mean anything? I believe it does. I have been thinking a lot about goal setting the past month. At the beginning of the month we had a Relief Society (group of women from church) social where we discussed our new year resolutions. A few of the women wrote down some ideas but stated that there wasn't any point in making resolutions because they wouldn't follow through with them. I commented to them that if they set the goal and didn't accomplish it in full they would still be closer to accomplishing it than if they hadn't set the goal in the first place.

I have noticed this in my life. I didn't used to be a goal setter. In fact I used have negative thoughts about goal setting. What goal would I set? Who cared if I set goals? My life was fine I didn't need to revise it. Now I find myself longing to set more and more goals. I am driven by my own motivation to become better and further my ability to serve others. I find sometimes it's not the lack of setting goals that hinders me but rather choosing which goals I want to focus on. The older I get the more I realize how little time there is to accomplish all I want to accomplish. There are so many mountains to climb and if I don't start climbing them I will never be able to climb the ones I want to.

This thought leads me to organizing time. In the past I have let devices and tasks take over my time. I would have much to do in a day and because it all seemed too much I would sit down and waist much of the day away only to get up later and feel guilty that I didn't get anything done. By not making a choice of what to do with my time I had in fact chosen to do nothing. Had I made that choice ahead of time it would have sounded absurd.

The last week I have been writing down a schedule of the things I want to do with my time. I find that it has really helped me to structure myself and choose before hand what I want to do with my time. For example today I knew that I had gone quite a while without blogging as I have wanted to so I scheduled in an hour for doing this. I schedule in cleaning the kitchen right after breakfast, lunch and dinner. I write down what I want to do at what time and for how long. Do I always follow that schedule to a T? No I don't. Is that ok? Yes it is. It's just that if I chose before hand what I want to do with my time then I am less likely to waste time. It's my way of having some control over me.

Just as I have used this schedule to control my time we have to set goals to control the direction of our lives. That is why I deeply believe in following your dreams. My example of that one is my younger brother. He has always wanted to play in the NBA. All four years he would try out for the high school basketball team only to be turned away. Still he never let that get him down and give up on his goal. Currently he is playing basketball at Southern Virginia University. That in itself is a great accomplishment. I don't know what the future holds for my brother. I do know however that if he doesn't make it to the NBA this pursuit will lead him to a place where he will be happy and have no regrets!

We all must live our dreams. Climb every mountain. Reach for the stars. Cliche as the phrases may be they are none the less true. We must push ourselves to become greater than we are. As the quote by Marianne Williamson says, "Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that frightens us...We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It’s not just in some of us, it’s in everyone. And as we let our light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fears, our presence automatically liberates others." It is for that purpose that God has allowed us to dream and so we must pursue those dreams with all we have for that is what brings us true happiness and success!