At the grand old age of… (nearly 50), I am quite late to the party. I’ve always been pretty ambitious. Probably more ambitious than many people who know me realise. My ambition has been fortunate though. I never seemed to reach my full potential. I always felt I could achieve more. Don’t we all feel like this at times?

I never used to really set goals, I never really had a plan or strategy to get to where I wanted to go. I had a vague idea on the destination but lacked the visualisation. You see a vague idea is fine, I guess. I suppose that is a goal, but it’s not going to drive you.

A dream or a goal is fine, but just having that is not going to get you there. I don’t even mean you have to have a super dream or goal. It might just be ‘to be happy’. That seems simple enough? Is it?

Write it down!

Now be it!

Easy right?

Didn’t think so. So what have I learned on my [nearly] fifty year journey? It’s taken a while, but I’ve learned that to achieve any goal, you need to analyse it, find out more about it. Break it down into bite size chunks and tackle each chunk one at a time. Make a strategy and a time line that you can work towards. Be realistic and have honesty with yourself. Don’t just pick a goal because, well, someone else has it or you think it’s what is expected. Have your own goals, set them, really analyse them. How can you achieve them?

Breaking them down into chunks, is the first step. Now comes the really hard part…

Do them.

As Lao Tzu said, “the journey of a thousand miles starts with one step”, and it’s true. Also some goals will feel more like a thousand mile journey too.