Goals

1.         I earn over $100,000 per year.

2.         I am a Grammy-winning songwriter.

3.        I am a New York Times best-selling author.

4.        I am happily and gratefully married.

5.         I weigh 145 pounds, and my body feels amazing.

6.         I meditate for half an hour every day without guidance or distraction.

7.         I spend time with family members and/or friends every day.

8.         I am able to do the splits.

9.         I invest wisely in my service to others.

10.    I tithe half my income to charitable organizations.

     

     These are the top ten goals I made for myself back in September of 2014. I have them all written down in my notebook, and I know I am capable of achieving every single one of them. Some of them may be more challenging than others. I’m not able to control the will or decisions of another person. But I believe that if I remain positively focused on the attainment of my dreams, each will come to fruition of its own accord.

     Nine years ago, after I went through a devastating divorce with the father of my children, I went to a Bible study group that was affiliated with my church. At this group, we were all asked to write down a personal goal with a realistic time frame for achieving the goal. I had no idea what to do. I needed to get a new job, but I was still clueless as to the direction I wanted to go. I was planning to go back to school, but I wasn’t sure what type of degree I wanted or in what program of study. What I ended up writing down surprised me. I wrote: “Run a marathon by the time I’m 40.”

     What would possess me to have any desire to run 26.2 miles, I have no idea. I used to love running as a teenager when I was in the military. I might have thought that running again would help me feel better physically as well as relieve some stress and help me feel better emotionally. Also, I was currently riding my bicycle everywhere as I had no other form of transportation, so I was beginning to get in better shape. It was a goal that would be difficult to attain, but not impossible.

     Over the subsequent years, this goal continued to ruminate in the back of my mind. I would occasionally begin to run on a more regular basis, but after a few weeks, I'd get ill or injured and need to recover. Then, I would have to start up all over again. I was beginning to think my goal was more unrealistic than I had imagined. I never even made it over 5 miles, let alone over 20.

     But as my 40^th birthday approached, everything began to fall into place. I married a man who had experience with running marathons; he gave me a training program I could follow, he encouraged me, and he even ran with me on occasion. He also introduced me to the concept of consuming Gu packets while running, which give your body concentrated amounts of energy fuel, and educated me on the importance of staying hydrated as I ran. I also had a tonsillectomy. I’d needed to have my tonsils removed for years as they were causing me to constantly get sick.

     I trained vigilantly for 9 months. I avoided any and every activity that could possibly injure me in the slightest. I took good care of my health and got plenty of rest. Running this marathon became my primary focus in life; everything else fell to the periphery. And on June 21, 2014, I completed the Seattle Rock and Roll Marathon, one month and one week before my 41^st birthday.

     If I can run a marathon, anything is possible. I know I will achieve these ten goals over the course of the next ten years because they are what I focus on and work toward every day. No dream is too big or too small to accomplish if you put it in writing and allow the universe to cooperate with you toward the fulfillment of your goals.