It’s Independence Day.
For most of us, that means that later today, we’ll be cooking out, stuffing our faces with delicious barbecue, and lighting sparklers and snakes with our kids that will forever mark up the driveway.
The Founders would be proud.
But Independence Day always seems to remind me of something else – the year is halfway over.
It reminds me of the goals and dreams that I declared on January 1st would become a reality. And it reminds me of my failures when I compare my goals to what I’ve actually accomplished this year.
Back on New Year’s Day, I wrote about how we should stop making resolutions and start setting goals. I explained how resolutions never work, but setting specific daily goals can make us unstoppable. I wrote it, but I didn’t live it. Sometimes it’s hard to practice what you preach.
You get busy. Life takes over. Our goals and dreams take a backseat to life’s endless demands.
And sometimes we sabotage ourselves with the wrong daily goal to give our dreams a chance.
I had a goal of writing six books this year.
But instead of focusing on a daily word count, my focus was on time spent writing. I still woke up before the rest of the world, but I clocked it in each day instead of reaching for a specific goal.
The reality is that sitting down to write 500 words a day and sitting down to write for a few hours seem like similar goals, but they’re not. One is specific and leads to a destination – 500 words is the exact length of this blog post. It’s enough to write six 30,000 word books in a year.
Sitting in a chair to write each morning wasn’t specific enough. There’s Facebook and cat videos and too many other distractions out there for butt-in-chair time to be a good enough writing goal.
It’s easy to get discouraged but we need to celebrate what we have accomplished so far.
What I keep reminding myself is that I still wrote a book this year, the best one I’ve ever written.
And how many people spend years writing their first book?
Norman Vincent Peale’s advice on success was to, “Shoot for the moon. Even if you miss, you’ll land among the stars.” Set big enough goals so that even if you fail, you don’t really fail.
We like to give up on our goals when we get off to a bad start. It’s easier to give up and decide to try again next year than it is to readjust. Today might not be January 1st, but it doesn’t need to be.
Declare a new goal.
The year may be halfway over, but we still have half a year left. Don’t waste it on cat videos.
Tonight, while you watch the 4th of July Fireworks, take a look at the stars and be reminded that if you focus on the right daily goal, you can accomplish anything. Remember to shoot for the moon.