Goal Setting

Move Beyond Laziness

I recently attended the “Smart Talk” series with Joan and Melissa Rivers. I love to hear about mother-daughter relationships and always look for opportunities to learn about life’s obstacles faced by others.

As I left the event, I was inspired by the womens’ candor. I especially admired how these two women developed their sense of self based on their inherent sense of strength and achievability. Joan believed in herself when no one else would. At the beginning of her career she was told she was not pretty enough, good enough, marketable enough, or funny enough. As she proved them wrong, she experienced an ongoing rise in success. However, as fate can play its part, her husband had a heart attack, became incredibly sick, was put on medication that created severe depression, and then spent all of their money. He later committed suicide.

She found herself surrounded by incredible grief, depression, and conflict with her daughter. This series of events left her emotionally and financially bankrupt and unemployable.

Rebounding from obstacles, she started from the ground up—again—and found notoriety with QVC, became an icon on the Entertainment station and was able to partner with her daughter .She is back on top again.

As I walked out of the theater, I commented on how invigorated I felt and how awestruck I was by their inspirational story. The family member that I was walking with commented that she would never have the stamina to reach her goals. I told that she had everything she needed to actualize her goals despite her 63 years of age. She replied, “No Carol, I am not “driven to meet my goals.” I asked her why she felt that way and she sighed and said, “I have always been too lazy.”

At that moment, I knew she was absolutely right. If she fed herself those thoughts that it was too much work to meet her goals, she would invariably give in to her negativity and never make her life different. When people have that mentality, they will never experience the momentum that energizes the ongoing work it may take to meet an individual goal. What people don’t know is that when you work toward accomplishing a goal that furthers your sense of passion, you become energized by the work that it actually produces.

Setting a goal may seem like an insurmountable task, but as you work on it, the work re-energizes you and feeds the passion inside.

• Do you feel that sense of laziness?
• Do you hold yourself back and limit yourself because you fear the work it will entail?
• Are you resigned to live a life that you see as marginal at best?

Don’t live a life of regret. Don’t cheat yourself out of being the person you were meant to be. Don’t minimize your capabilities. Don’t sell yourself short and give into that sense of laziness. Selling yourself short feeds low self-esteem and creates regret. You can, from today forward, make your life different. As William Jennings Bryant says, “Destiny is not a matter of chance; it is a matter of choice. It is not a thing to be waited for; it is a thing to be achieved.”

I promise that as you put into action what you want to accomplish you will experience a sense of rejuvenation and adrenaline that will feed the hard work. You can do anything if you desire it!

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