فصل 12

Chapter 12

USE GOALS TO HELP YOU GROW

EVERY BIT OF HUMAN progress—our inventions big and little, our medical discoveries, our engineering triumphs, our business successes—were first visualized before they became realities. Baby moons circle the earth not because of accidental discoveries but because scientists set “conquer space” as a goal.

A goal is an objective, a purpose. A goal is more than a dream; it’s a dream being acted upon. A goal is more than a hazy “Oh, I wish I could.” A goal is a clear “This is what I’m working toward.” Nothing happens, no forward steps are taken, until a goal is established. Without goals individuals just wander through life. They stumble along, never knowing where they are going, so they never get anywhere.

Goals are as essential to success as air is to life. No one ever stumbles into success without a goal. No one ever lives without air. Get a clear fix on where you want to go.

Dave Mahoney rose from a low-paying job in the mail room of an advertising agency to an agency vice president at twenty-seven, and president of the Good Humor Company at thirty-three. This is what he says about goals: “The important thing is not where you were or where you are but where you want to get.” The important thing is not where you were or where you are but where you want to get.

The progressive corporation plans company goals ten to fifteen years ahead. Executives who manage leading businesses must ask, “Where do we want our company to be ten years from now?” Then they gauge their efforts accordingly. New plant capacity is built not for today’s needs but rather for needs five to ten years in the future. Research is undertaken to develop products that won’t appear for a decade or longer.

The modern corporation does not leave its future to chance. Should you?

Each of us can learn a precious lesson from the forward-looking business. We can and should plan at least ten years ahead. You must form an image now of the person you want to be ten years from now if you are to become that image. This is a critical thought. Just as the business that neglects to plan ahead will be just another business (if it even survives), the individual who fails to set long-range goals will most certainly be just another person lost in life’s shuffle. Without goals we cannot grow.

Let me share with you an example of why we must have long-run goals to achieve real success. Just last week a young man (let me call him F. B.) came to me with a career problem. F. B. looked well mannered and intelligent. He was single and had finished college four years ago.

We talked for a while about what he was doing now, his education, his aptitudes, and general background. Then I said to him, “You came to see me for help on making a job change. What kind of job are you looking for?” “Well,” he said, “that’s what I came to see you about. I don’t know what I want to do.” His problem, of course, was a very common one. But I realized that just to arrange for the young man to have interviews with several possible employers would not help him. Trial and error is a pretty poor way to select a career. With dozens of career possibilities, the odds of stumbling into the right choice are several dozen to one. I knew I had to help F. B. see that before he starts going some place careerwise, he’s got to know where that someplace is.

So I said, “Let’s look at your career plan from this angle. Will you describe for me your image of yourself ten years from now?” F. B., obviously studying the question, finally said, “Well, I guess I want what just about everyone else wants: a good job that pays well and a nice home. Really, though,” he continued, “I haven’t given it too much thought.” This, I assured him, was quite natural. I went on to explain that his approach to selecting a career was like going to an airline ticket counter and saying “Give me a ticket.” The people selling the tickets just can’t help you unless you give them a destination. So I said, “And I can’t help you find a job until I know what your destination is, and only you can tell me that.” This jarred F. B. into thinking. We spent the next two hours not talking about the merits of different kinds of jobs, but rather discussing how to set goals. F. B. learned, I believe, the most important lesson in career planning: Before you start out, know where you want to go.

Like the progressive corporation, plan ahead. You are in a sense a business unit. Your talent, skills, and abilities are your “products,” You want to develop your products so they command the highest possible price. Forward planning will do it.

Here are two steps that will help:

First, visualize your future in terms of three departments: work, home, and social. Dividing your life this way keeps you from becoming confused, prevents conflicts, helps you look at the whole picture.

Second, demand of yourself clear, precise answers to these questions: What do I want to accomplish with my life? What do I want to be? and What does it take to satisfy me?

Use the planning guide below to help.

AN IMAGE OF ME, 10 YEARS FROM NOW: 10 YEARS’ PLANNING GUIDE

Work Department: 10 years from now:

1. What income level do I want to attain?

2. What level of responsibility do I seek?

3. How much authority do I want to command?

4. What prestige do I expect to gain from my work?

Home Department: 10 years from now:

1. What kind of standard of living do I want to provide for my family and myself?

2. What kind of house do I want to live in?

3. What kind of vacations do I want to take?

4. What financial support do I want to give my children in their early adult years?

Social Department: 10 years from now:

1. What kinds of friends do I want to have?

2. What social groups do I want to join?

3. What community leadership positions would I like to hold?

4. What worthwhile causes do I want to champion?

A few years ago, my young son insisted the two of us build a doghouse for Peanut, an intelligent pup of dubious pedigree and my son’s pride and joy. His persistence and enthusiasm won, so we proceeded to build a home Peanut could call her own. Our combined carpentry talent equaled zero, and the end product clearly reflected that fact.

Shortly afterward a good friend stopped by and upon seeing what we had done asked, “What’s that you’ve stuck up there among the trees? That’s not a doghouse, is it?” I replied that it was. Then he pointed out just a few of our mistakes and summed it all up with “Why didn’t you get a plan? Nobody these days builds a doghouse without a blueprint.” And, please, as you visualize your future, don’t be afraid to be blue sky. People these days are measured by the size of their dreams. No one accomplishes more than he sets out to accomplish. So visualize a big future.

Below is a word-for-word excerpt from the life plan of one of my former trainees. Read it. Note how well this fellow visualized his “home” future. As he wrote this, it is obvious he really saw himself in the future.

“My home goal is to own a country estate. The house will be of the typical Southern-manor type, two stories, white columns and all. We will have the grounds fenced in, and probably will have a fishpond or two on the place as my wife and I both enjoy fishing. We will keep our Doberman kennels back of the house somewhere. The thing I have always wanted is a long winding driveway with trees lining each side.

“But a house is not necessarily a home. I am going to do everything I can to make our house more than just a place to eat and sleep. Of course, we do not intend to leave God out of our plans and throughout the years we will spend a certain amount of time in church activities.

“Ten years from now I want to be in a position to take a family cruise around the world. I would like very much to do this before the family gets scattered all over the world by marriages, etc. If we can’t find time to make the cruise all at once, we will put it into four or five separate vacations and visit a different part of the world each year. Naturally, all these plans in ‘home department’ depend on how well things go in my ‘work department,’ so I’ll have to keep on the ball if I’m to accomplish all this.” This plan was written five years ago. The trainee then owned two small dimestores. Now he owns five. And he has purchased seventeen acres for his country estate. He’s thinking and progressing right along toward his goal.

The three departments of your life are closely interrelated. Each depends on the others to some extent. But the one department that has the most influence over the other departments is your work. Thousands of years ago the caveman who had the happiest home life and was most respected by his cavemates was the fellow who was most successful as a hunter. As a generalization, the same point holds true today. The standard of living we provide our families and the social and community respect we attain depends largely on our success in the work department.

Not long ago the McKinsey Foundation for Management Research conducted a large-scale study to determine what it takes to become an executive. Leaders in business, government, science, and religion were questioned. Over and over again in different ways these researchers kept getting one answer: the most important qualification for an executive is the sheer desire to get ahead, Remember this advice of John Wanamaker: “A man is not doing much until the cause he works for possesses all there is of him.” Desire, when harnessed, is power. Failure to follow desire, to do what you want to do most, paves the way to mediocrity.

I recall a conversation with a very promising young writer on a college newspaper. This fellow had ability. If anyone showed promise for a career in journalism, it was he. Shortly before his graduation I asked him, “Well, Dan, what are you going to do, get into some form of journalism?” Dan looked at me and said, “Heck, no! I like writing and reporting very much, and I’ve had a lot of fun working on the college paper. But journalists are a dime a dozen, and I don’t want to starve.” I didn’t see or hear from Dan for five years. Then one evening I chanced to meet him in New Orleans. Dan was working as an assistant personnel director for an electronics company. And he was quick to let me know that he was quite dissatisfied with his work. “Oh, I’m reasonably well paid. I’m with a wonderful company, and I’ve got reasonable security, but you know, my heart isn’t in it. I wish now I’d gone with a publisher or newspaper when I finished school.” Dan’s attitude reflected boredom, uninterest. He was cynical about many things. He will never achieve maximum success until he quits his present job and gets into journalism. Success requires heart-and-soul effort, and you can put your heart and soul only into something you really desire.

Had Dan followed his desire, he could have risen to the very top in some phase of communication. And over the long pull he would have made much more money and achieved far more personal satisfaction than he will find in his present kind of work.

Switching from what you don’t like to do to what you do like to do is like putting a five-hundred-horsepower motor in a ten-year-old car.

All of us have desires. All of us dream of what we really want to do. But few of us actually surrender to desire. Instead of surrendering to desire, we murder it. Five weapons are used to commit success suicide. Destroy them. They’re dangerous.

1. Self-deprecation. You have heard dozens of people say, “I would like to be a doctor (or an executive or a commercial artist or in business for myself) but I can’t do it.” “I lack brains.” “I’d fail if I tried.” “I lack the education and/or experience.” Many young folks destroy desire with the old negative self-deprecation.

2. “Security-itis.” Persons who say, “I’ve got security where I am” use the security weapons to murder their dreams.

3. Competition. “The field is already overcrowded,” “People in that field are standing on top of each other” are remarks which kill desire fast.

4. Parental dictation. I’ve heard hundreds of young people explain their career choice with “I’d really like to prepare for something else, but my parents want me to do this so I must.” Most parents, I believe, do not intentionally dictate to their children what they must do. What all intelligent parents want is to see their children live successfully. If the young person will patiently explain why he or she prefers a different career, and if the parent will listen, there will be no friction. The objectives of both the parent and the young person for the young person’s career are identical: success.

5. Family responsibility. The attitude of “It would have been wise for me to change over five years ago, but now I’ve got a family and I can’t change,” illustrates this kind of desire murder weapon.

Throw away those murder weapons! Remember, the only way to get full power, to develop full go force, is to do what you want to do. Surrender to desire and gain energy, enthusiasm, mental zip, and even better health.

And it’s never too late to let desire take over.

The overwhelming majority of really successful people work much longer than forty hours a week. And you don’t hear them complain of overwork. Successful people have their eyes focused on a goal, and this provides energy.

The point is this: energy increases, multiplies, when you set a desired goal and resolve to work toward that goal. Many people, millions of them, can find new energy by selecting a goal and giving all they’ve got to accomplish that goal. Goals cure boredom. Goals even cure many chronic ailments.

Let’s probe a little deeper into the power of goals. When you surrender yourself to your desires, when you let yourself become obsessed with a goal, you receive the physical power, energy, and enthusiasm needed to accomplish your goal. But you receive something else, something equally valuable. You receive the “automatic instrumentation” needed to keep you going straight to your objective.

The most amazing thing about a deeply entrenched goal is that it keeps you on course to reach your target. This isn’t double-talk. What happens is this. When you surrender to your goal, the goal works itself into your subconscious mind. Your subconscious mind is always in balance. Your conscious mind is not, unless it is in tune with what your subconscious mind is thinking. Without full cooperation from the subconscious mind, a person is hesitant, confused, indecisive. Now, with your goal absorbed into your subconscious mind you react the right way automatically. The conscious mind is free for clear, straight thinking.

Let’s illustrate this with two hypothetical persons. As you read on you’ll recognize these characters among the real people you know. We’ll call them Tom and Jack. These fellows are comparable in all respects except one: Tom has a firmly entrenched goal; Jack does not. Tom has a crystal-clear image of what he wants to be. He pictures himself as a corporation vice president ten years hence.

Because Tom has surrendered to his goal, his goal through his subconscious mind signals to him saying “do this” or “don’t do that; it won’t help get you where you want to go.” The goal constantly speaks, “I am the image you want to make real. Here is what you must do to make me real.” Tom’s goal does not pilot him in vague generalities. It gives him specific directions in all his activities. When Tom buys a suit, the goal speaks and shows Tom the wise choice. The goal helps to show Tom what steps to take to move up to the next job, what to say in the business conference, what to do when conflict develops, what to read, what stand to take. Should Tom drift a little off course, his automatic instrumentation, housed securely in his subconscious mind, alerts him and tells him what to do to get back on course.

Tom’s goal has made him supersensitive to all the many forces at work that affect him.

Jack, on the other hand, lacking a goal, also lacks the automatic instrumentation to guide him. He is easily confused. His actions reflect no personal policy. Jack wavers, shifts, guesses at what to do. Lacking consistency of purpose, Jack flounders on the rutty road to mediocrity.

May I suggest you reread the above section, right now. Let this concept soak in. Then look around you. Study the very top echelon of successful persons. Note how they, without exception, are totally devoted to their objective. Observe how the life of a highly successful person is integrated around a purpose.

Surrender to that goal. Really surrender. Let it obsess you and give you the automatic instrumentation you need to reach that goal.

On occasion all of us have woken up on Saturday morning with no plans, no agenda either mental or written that spells out what we’re going to do. On days like that we accomplish next to nothing. We aimlessly drift through the day, glad when it’s finally over. But when we face the day with a plan, we get things done.

This common experience provides an important lesson: to accomplish something, we must plan to accomplish something.

Before World War II our scientists saw the potential power locked in the atom. But relatively little was known about how to split the atom and unleash that tremendous power. When the United States entered the war, forward-looking scientists saw the potential power of an atomic bomb. A crash program was developed to accomplish just one goal: build an atomic bomb. The result is history.

Set goals to get things done.

Our great production system would be hopelessly bogged down if production executives did not establish and adhere to target dates and production schedules. Sales executives know salesmen sell more when they are given a carefully defined quota to sell. Professors know students get term papers written on time when a deadline is set.

Now, as you press forward to success, set goals: deadlines, target dates, self-imposed quotas. You will accomplish only what you plan to accomplish.

According to Dr. George B. Burch of the Tulane University School of Medicine, an expert in the study of human longevity, many things determine how long you will live: weight, heredity, diet, psychic tension, personal habits. But Dr. Burch says, “The quickest way to the end is to retire and do nothing. Every human being must keep an interest in life just to keep living.” Each of us has a choice. Retirement can be the beginning or the end. The “do nothing but eat, sleep, and rock” attitude is the poison-yourself-fast form of retirement. Most folks who regard retirement as the end of purposeful living soon find retirement is the end of life itself. With nothing to live for, no goals, people waste away fast.

The other extreme, the sensible way to retire, is the “I’m going to pitch right in and start fast” method. One of my finest friends, Lew Gordon, has chosen this way to retire. Lew’s retirement several years ago as a vice president of Atlanta’s biggest bank was really Commencement Day for him. He established himself as a business consultant. And his pace is amazing.

Now in his sixties, he serves numerous clients and is in national demand as a speaker. One of his special projects is helping to build Pi Sigma Epsilon, a young but fast-growing fraternity for professional salesmen and sales executives. Every time I see Lew he seems younger. He’s a young thirty in spirit. Few people I know of any age are reaping more from life than this senior citizen who resolved not to go out to pasture.

And the Lew Gordons aren’t the boring old grumps feeling sorry for themselves because they’re old.

Goals, intense goals, can keep a person alive when nothing else will. Mrs. D., the mother of a college friend of mine, contracted cancer when her son was only two. To darken matters, her husband had died only three months before her illness was diagnosed. Her physicians offered little hope. But Mrs. D. would not give up. She was determined that she would see her two-year-old son through college by operating a small retail store left her by her husband. There were numerous surgical operations. Each time the doctors would say, “Just a few more months.” The cancer was never cured. But those “few more months” stretched into twenty years. She saw her son graduated from college. Six weeks later she was gone.

A goal, a burning desire, was powerful enough to stave off sure death for two decades.

Use goals to live longer. No medicine in the world—and your physician will bear this out—is as powerful in bringing about long life as is the desire to do something.

The person determined to achieve maximum success learns the principle that progress is made one step at a time. A house is built a brick at a time. Football games are won a play at a time. A department store grows bigger one new customer at a time. Every big accomplishment is a series of little accomplishments.

Eric Sevareid, the well-known author and correspondent, reported in Reader’s Digest (April 1957) that the best advice he ever received was the principle of the “next mile.” Here’s part of what he said: “During World War II, I and several others had to parachute from a crippled Army transport plane into the mountainous jungle on the Burma-India border. It was several weeks before an armed relief expedition could reach us, and then we began a painful, plodding march. We were faced by a 140-mile trek, over mountains, in August heat and monsoon rains.

“In the first hour of the march I rammed a boot nail deep into one foot; by evening I had bleeding blisters the size of a 50 cent piece on both feet. Could I hobble 140 miles? Could the others, some in worse shape than I, complete such a distance? We were convinced we could not. But we could hobble to that ridge, we could make the next friendly village for the night. And that, of course, was all we had to do….

“When I relinquished my job and income to undertake a book of a quarter of a million words, I could not bear to let my mind dwell on the whole scope of the project. I would surely have abandoned what has become my deepest source of professional pride. I tried to think only of the next paragraph, not the next page and certainly not the next chapter. Thus, for six solid months, I never did anything but set down one paragraph after another. The book ‘wrote itself.’ “Years ago, I took on a daily writing and broadcasting chore that has totaled, now, more than 2,000 scripts. Had I been asked at the time to sign a contract ‘to write 2000 scripts’ I would have refused in despair at the enormousness of such an undertaking. But I was only asked to write one, the next one, and that is all I have ever done.” The principle of the “next mile” works for Eric Seva-reid, and it will work for you.

The step-by-step method is the only intelligent way to attain any objective. The best formula I have heard for quitting smoking, the one that has worked for more of my friends than any other, I call the hour-by-hour method. Instead of trying to reach the ultimate goal—freedom from the habit—just by resolving never to smoke again, the person resolves not to smoke for another hour. When the hour is up, the smoker simply renews his resolution not to smoke for another hour. Later, as desire diminishes, the period is extended to two hours, later to a day. Eventually, the goal is won. The person who wants freedom from the habit all at once fails because the psychological pain is more than he can stand. An hour is easy; forever is difficult.

Winning any objective requires a step-by-step method. To the junior executive, each assignment, however insignificant it may appear, should be viewed as an opportunity to take one step forward. A salesman qualifies for management responsibilities one sale at a time.

To the minister each sermon, to the professor each lecture, to the scientist each experiment, to the business executive each conference is an opportunity to take one step forward toward the large goal.

Sometimes it appears that someone achieves success all at once. But if you check the past histories of people who seemed to arrive at the top suddenly, you’ll discover a lot of solid groundwork was previously laid. And those “successful” people who lose fame as fast as they found it simply were phonies who had not built a solid foundation.

Just as a beautiful building is created from pieces of stone, each of which in itself appears insignificant, in like manner the successful life is constructed.

Do this: Start marching toward your ultimate goal by making the next task you perform, regardless of how unimportant it may seem, a step in the right direction. Commit this question to memory and use it to evaluate everything you do: “Will this help take me where I want to go?” If the answer is no, back off; if yes, press ahead.

It’s clear. We do not make one big jump to success. We get there one step at a time. An excellent plan is to set monthly quotas for accomplishment.

Examine yourself. Decide what specific things you should do to make yourself more effective. Use the form below as a guide. Under each of the major headings make notes of the things you will do in the next thirty days. Then, when the thirty-day period is up, check your progress and build a new thirty-day goal. Always keep working on the “little” things to get you in shape for the big things.

THIRTY-DAY IMPROVEMENT GUIDE

Between now and ___ I will

Break these habits: (suggestions)

1. Putting off things.

2. Negative language.

3. Watching TV more than 60 minutes per day.

4. Gossip.

Acquire these habits: (suggestions).

1. A rigid morning examination of the smartness my appearance.

2. Plan each day’s work the night before.

3. Compliment people sincerely at every possible opportunity.

Increase my value to my employer in these ways: (suggestions)

1. Do a better job of developing my subordinates.

2. Learn more about my company, what it does, and the customers it serves.

3. Make three specific suggestions to help my company become more efficient.

Increase my value to my home in these ways: (suggestions)

1. Show more appreciation for the little things my partner does that I’ve been taking for granted.

2. Once each week, do something special with my whole family.

3. Give one hour each day of my undivided attention to my family.

Sharpen my mind in these ways: (suggestions)

1. Invest two hours each week in reading professional magazines in my field.

2. Read one self-help book.

3. Make four new friends.

4. Spend 30 minutes daily in quiet, undisturbed thinking.

Next time you see a particularly well-poised, well-groomed, clear-thinking, effective person, remind yourself that he wasn’t born that way. Lots of conscious effort, invested day by day, made the person what he is. Building new positive habits and destroying old negative habits is a day-by-day process.

Create your first thirty-day improvement guide right now.

Often, when I discuss setting goals, someone comments along these lines: “I see that working toward a purpose is important, but so often things happen that upset my plans.” It’s true that many factors outside your control do affect your destination. There may be serious illness or death in your family, the job you’re gunning for may be dissolved, you may meet with an accident.

So here is a point we must fix firmly in mind: prepare to take detours in your stride. If you are driving down a road and you come to a “road closed” situation, you wouldn’t camp there, nor would you go back home. The road closed simply means you can’t go where you want to go on this road. You’d simply find another road to take you where you want to go.

Observe what military leaders do. When they develop a master plan to take an objective, they also map out alternative plans. If something unforeseen happens that rules out plan A, they switch to plan B. You rest easy in an airplane even though the airport where you planned to land is closed in, because you know the fellow up there driving the plane has alternative landing fields and a reserve fuel supply.

It’s a rare person who has achieved high-level success who has not had to take detours—many of them.

When we detour, we don’t have to change our goals. We just travel a different route.

You’ve probably heard many persons say something like “Oh, how I wish I had bought XX stock back in 19—. I’d have a pile of money today.” Normally, people think of investing in terms of stocks or bonds, real estate, or some other type of property. But the biggest and most rewarding kind of investment is self-investment, purchasing things that build mental power and proficiency.

The progressive business knows that how strong it will be five years from now depends not on what it does five years in the future but rather on what it does, invests, this year. Profit comes from only one source: investment.

There’s a lesson for each of us. To profit, to get the extra reward above a “normal” income in the years ahead, we must invest in ourselves. We must invest to achieve our goals.

Here are two sound self-investments that will pay handsome profits in the years ahead: 1. Invest in education. True education is the soundest investment you can make in yourself. But let’s be sure we understand what education really is. Some folks measure education by the number of years spent in school or the number of diplomas, certificates, and degrees earned. But this quantitative approach to education doesn’t necessarily produce a successful person. Ralph J. Cordiner, chairman of General Electric, expressed the attitude of top business management toward education this way: “Two of our most outstanding presidents, Mr. Wilson and Mr. Coffin, never had an opportunity to attend college. Although some of our present officers have doctor’s degrees, twelve out of forty-one have no college degrees. We are interested in competency, not diplomas.” A diploma or degree may help you get a job, but it will not guarantee your progress on the job. “Business is interested in competency, not diplomas.” To others, education means the quantity of information a person has stashed away in his brain. But the soak-up-facts method of education won’t get you where you want to go. More and more we depend on books, files, and machines to warehouse information. If we can do only what a machine can do, we’re in a real fix.

Real education, the kind worth investing in, is that which develops and cultivates your mind. How well educated a person is, is measured by how well his mind is developed—in brief, by how well he thinks.

Anything that improves thinking ability is education. And you can obtain education in many ways. But the most efficient sources of education for most people are nearby colleges and universities. Education is their business.

If you haven’t been to college lately, you’re in for some wonderful surprises. You’ll be pleased at the wide course offerings available. You’ll be even more pleased to discover who goes to school after work. Not the phonies, but rather really promising persons, many of whom already hold very responsible positions.

In one evening class of twenty-five persons I conducted recently, there were an owner of a retail chain of twelve stores, two buyers for a national food chain, four graduate engineers, an Air Force colonel, and several others of similar status.

Many people earn degrees in evening programs these days, but the degree, which in the final analysis is only a piece of paper, is not their primary motivation. They are going to school to build their minds, which is a sure way to invest in a better future.

And make no mistake about this. Education is a real bargain. A moderate investment will keep you in school one night each week for a full year. Compute the cost as a percentage of your gross income and then ask yourself, “Isn’t my future worth this small investment?” Why not make an investment decision right now? Call it School: One Night a Week for Life. It will keep you progressive, young, alert. It will keep you abreast of your areas of interest. And it will surround you with other people who also are going places.

1. Invest in idea starters. Education helps you mold your mind, stretch it, train it to meet new situations and solve problems. Idea starters serve a related purpose. They feed your mind, give you constructive material to think about.

Where are the best sources of idea starters? There are many, but to get a steady supply of high-quality idea material, why not do this: resolve to purchase at least one stimulating book each month and subscribe to two magazines or journals that stress ideas. For only a minor sum and a minimum of time, you can be tuned in to some of the best thinkers available anywhere.

At a luncheon one day I overheard one fellow say, “But it costs too much. I can’t afford to take The Wall Street Journal.” His companion, obviously a much more success-minded person, replied, “Well, I’ve found that I can’t afford not to take it.” Again, take your cue from the successful people. Invest in yourself.

LET’S TAKE ACTION

Now in a quick recap, put these success-building principles to work:

1. Get a clear fix on where you want to go. Create an image of yourself ten years from now.

2. Write out your ten-year plan. Your life is too important to be left to chance. Put down on paper what you want to accomplish in your work, your home, and your social departments.

3. Surrender yourself to your desires. Set goals to get more energy. Set goals to get things done. Set goals and discover the real enjoyment of living.

4. Let your major goal be your automatic pilot. When you let your goal absorb you, you’ll find yourself making the right decisions to reach your goal.

5. Achieve your goal one step at a time. Regard each task you perform, regardless of how small it may seem, as a step toward your goal.

6. Build thirty-day goals. Day-by-day effort pays off.

7. Take detours in your stride. A detour simply means another route. It should never mean surrendering the goal.

8. Invest in yourself. Purchase those things that build mental power and efficiency. Invest in education. Invest in idea starters.