Unstoppable determination could be the missing key to achieving your goals.

How determined are you to reach your goals?  Are you so determined that nothing can make you quit?  Or, do seemingly unmovable obstacles cause you to lose heart and let up on your efforts?

A key factor in overcoming obstacles and reaching your goals is having the discipline and determination to not quit when you hit the wall.

A favorite illustration of mine is one I read about an athletic term called, “hitting the wall.”  In the book footnoted below, the author used the illustration to refer to one making good progress through life and then being hit by severe financial trouble, failure, or sickness.  You are stopped cold in your tracks. However,
when faced with seemingly unmovable obstacles, it is not the time
 

to quit in defeat.  Here is the author’s description of “hitting the wall:”

Ask any athlete.  He’s pushed his body to what seems to be the maximum…And just when he felt like he couldn’t go on, he’s heard some coach yell, “Come on!  Move it!”  Athletes call that “hitting the wall.”  It’s a time when the body says, “That’s it.  That’s all I can do…I quit.”  But a seasoned athlete knows that “the wall” isn’t the end.  It’s a signal that he’s on the verge of a breakthrough.  If he’ll toughen up and push himself a little more, he’ll get a second wind.  Suddenly…he’ll reach a level of excellence he couldn’t have reached any other way…It will only take one breakthrough like that to make a never-dying, never quitting champion out of you. (1)

This past week and a half, we were on a long overdue – by about 2 yrs – vacation.  I decided to swim 50 laps in the hotel pool each day.  I noticed each day, particularly noticeable the first day, that the first 20 laps were the most difficult.  My lungs didn’t seem to want to adjust to the change in humidity.  I decided to keep going anyway and then, suddenly, it became easier. 

What appears to be logic is not always the case in reaching your goals.

This thought is not to encourage carelessness or thoughtlessness.  Rather, it seemed logical that the last 30 laps would be the most difficult, the most exhausting.  If I would have gone by logic, I wouldn’t have even tried to meet that goal and go past the first 20 laps.  Yet, just like the illustration in the book, after the struggle of the first 20 laps there came a second wind and the goal became easier.  This realization brought back to mind what I had read a year ago so I wanted to share it with you.

If you feel like you have “hit the wall” in your career or family goals, health, etc., now is not the time to quit.  The wall may be the signal that a breakthrough is near; keep on in your unstoppable determination and get that second wind!

1. Faith to Faith, May 1^st post, K.Copeland

Busyness of life demands a well-thought out plan to achieve your life goals.

During the past year, I found myself pulled in numerous directions by unavoidable responsibilities, such as adding new parts to one of our businesses, another family member in the household, attending to needs of aging relatives. The use of my time was not always a matter of choice. When this year began, I realized that I needed to refocus with a new, clear cut “life plan” if I was going to achieve my own goals instead of just maintaining in the face of these new responsibilities. Calling to memory last year’s posts on Dawna Markova’s book, I knew I needed to make sure I was “living on purpose” and daily creating the environment needed to live out those purposes. (If you missed those 2 posts, use the links here. Living with Purpose and Living Your Purpose and Creating Your Purposeful Life Environment) In the same way, it is essential for each of you to make a clear cut life plan now, early in the year, to ensure that you stay on a progressive track with all of your goals.

Why Bother?

Because a clear cut life plan is a form of taking control of your life! Someone said to me the other day something along the lines of “Why bother? I know what I want.” Here is the reason — without a detailed plan for your life, the stresses of life distract you. Your focus gets pulled to the issues taking place. Your energies get poured into putting out fires. A detailed life plan in writing which you can skim over every morning keeps you focused on what you need to do the present day, week, and month to accomplish your goals for the year. Secondly, as with the Law of Attraction, making yourself see or “visualize” those goals every morning creates a vital alertness in your mind to any options/opportunities that come up in a day are helpful in achieving those goals.

A Sample Plan

Here is a sample of the categories I used to make my life plan. Yours may vary but you can see that the multiple categories help me make thorough progress in all the various aspects of my life. The details under each of my categories are not listed for privacy purposes, but generally I have about a dozen goals under each category:

Business Goals (This included projected statistics as well as desired projects)

Personal Growth

Spiritual Growth

Household Goals

Charitable Goals

I encourage you to go ahead this week and make a life plan. Life goes by too fast to wait! Don’t let another year slip by and your goals be lost in the midst of life’s busyness. With a life plan, you can stay focused, become alert to daily opportunities, and make your dreams realities!

Each of us desires a long, abundant life with our loved ones. Yet, do your daily decisions work for or against that desire?

These past 2 months have been one of those seasons of life that come to all of us. Tomorrow is a funeral for a friend that died suddenly and unexpectedly. Another friend has been in ICU for weeks. The first person had lived a life that was very abusive to his physical health for years, having just made a change in the recent past. The other friend has lived the more typical unhealthy life of too many sodas and mostly processed foods. She has had many health issues that have drastically affected her family and friends for the whole past year and has now been in ICU for a good part of 2 months. She almost died a couple of weeks ago and still has life-threatening issues going on. Both should have had a good 20 to 30 more years of living an abundant life, loving life and loving family, but the choice of poor daily health habits stole the precious gift of long abundant life not only from them, but from their friends and families.

We need to be reminded of how essential the little daily choices regarding health-food, sleep, exercise-are truly the ultimate decision for a long life.

Every day that you get up, you make seemingly insignificant choices regarding what you eat, whether or not you skip exercise, how you deal with stress, if you get enough sleep. These decisions come so frequently that one usually makes them almost without thinking. Each little decision not to do what is beneficial to your physical health is, in actuality, a decision of whether or not to embrace a long abundant life, with time to live life, enjoying and loving your family and friends, and giving them the gift of that time to love you and enjoy your presence on this earth. Isn’t that what each of us want? Yet it seems so easy to choose otherwise. There is a quote worth remembering,

Teach us to number our days aright, that we may gain a heart of wisdom. Ps. 90:12

Being aware of your daily health choices is an aspect of wisdom. This quote is a prayer to God asking for the ability to be wise in making choices that affect the number of one’s days on this earth, to value each day with its gift of life enough to be wise in how those days are used and how not to unnecessarily shorten them.

Life events such as funerals are moments that cause one to re-evaluate how wisely he or she is living life.

I, myself, this week was again brought to a point of evaluating how fleeting and how fragile the precious gift of life is, and which daily choices I and my family need to change to so that valuable time together living an abundant life is not lost. What does it take to remind you that your little daily health choices are, in effect, the overriding decision of whether or not you want to live a long abundant life with family and friends? Do you really want to deprive yourself of long life with those daily, thoughtless choices? Do you really want to deprive your loved ones of long life with you-your spouse, children, and grandchildren?

After decades of being a great, effective leader of millions of people, knowing he was about to die, Moses spoke to the Jewish nation about the things that were most important to their lives, guidelines for daily living so that they would live long, prosperous lives with their loved ones. The events in my own life brought these words back to mind. I want to share them as a challenge with you:

See, I set before you today life and prosperity, death and destruction.  Now choose life, so that you and your children may live. Deut. 30:15,19

Is your life focus right now on the main problem area of your life?

What is that controlling area? A job, finances, marriage, other personal relationships, health? Though we must give attention to the problem area if it is going to improve, it is healthier and more effective to be focused on completeness or wholeness than give the totality of your attention to a problem.

Since the beginning of creation, God’s desire for mankind is to be complete.

At the beginning of creation, all was in perfection and harmony. Everything mankind needed was readily available. Yes, man’s rebellion brought devastation, but God still desires for your life to return to a state of wholeness or completeness, and so should you.

Look at this greeting out of Scripture:

1Sam. 25:6 And say this, “May all be well for you: peace be to you and your house and all you have.”

We are to speak the desire for all to be well in others’ lives; certainly, we should speak and desire it over our own lives.

Let’s take a more in depth look with this quote:

Jer.33:9 They will be in awe and will tremble at the abundant prosperity and peace I provide.

God speaks here of people being in awe, both mentally and physically at the prosperity and peace He provides for His people. Sounds simple, but, as I’ve mentioned before, much is lost in the translation to English. Look at the depth and expanse of completeness in life (or wholeness — whichever term is easier for you to envision) that is intended to be ours:

The Hebrew for “prosperity” includes: beautiful, best, better, bountiful, cheerful, good, joyful, kindly, loving, pleasure, precious, prosperity, sweet, wealth, well-favored.

The Hebrew for “peace” includes: safe, well, happy, friendly; health, prosperity, peace, favor, good health, rest, all is well, wholly. (1)

Now make a serious evaluation:

If the majority of your life focus is on your main problem, how much of the invaluable experiences in this list are missing from your life?

Next, are you envisioning your life as including all these things to reach the state of being complete?

Enlarge your vision by beginning to be aware of the aspects of prosperity and peace that already exist in your life and being focused on the opportunities to experience the rest of them.

Create a mental picture of every area of your life being as it should be, well, sound, healthy, effective. Envision it. Desire it. Meditate on it. Believe to attain it by listening to the wisdom of God and looking for the right opportunities.

Give attention to your problem area when it is effective, when you can make a significant change. However, let your life focus be on the reach to be complete!

1. Hebrew definitions from Strong’s Dictionary of Old Testament Words.

Everyone desires to be in better control of achieving the life they desire.

I recently read a post by one of my favorite bloggers, Susan Hanshaw of Sanctuary for Change. Susan just turned 50 and did some re-evaluation which resulted in the realization that she wanted a different level of control in her life now than what she had experienced during her first 50 years.

Here is an excerpt from her post on “How to Take Control of Your Life” with 5 points to make you more effective in that area.

Use the link below to read Susan’s full post:

I pretty much let the energy of life pull me along for my first 50 years…Now I am feeling a lot more motivated to step in and take control. 

How do you take control of your life?

1. Acknowledge that your life needs the same kind of planning that you give your weekends. We all have a lot more power to create awesome lives than we recognize. It starts with direction.
2. Set aside time to focus on what you want to create with your life. Let dreams be born and believed in.
3. Begin every day focused on your vision. Recognize that your attention fuels whatever you focus on.
4. Uphold the vision throughout the day. Continue to visit your vision in your mind as your reality.
5. Work on believing that your vision will manifest. Get in touch with whatever is holding you back from your vision and work on breaking through limiting thoughts.

Please use this link to Read Susan’s Full Post.

 What emotions do you experience when you think of your future?

Take a look at this self-evaluation quote from “8 Steps to Create the Life You Want:”

Have you ever wondered what your purpose in life is and what your future holds?…Picture your life twenty years from now. Does your current lifestyle predict that you will be happy and fulfilled, or disappointed and frustrated? Think about it. What does your bank account look like? How much retirement money have you set aside? How much debt do you owe? What are you doing to improve your health and well-being? How is your family really doing? The answers to these questions may be an indication that a few changes need to be made.(1)

Were the emotions you experienced from reading these questions positive or negative? Emotions result from the thoughts you’ve been thinking. As a result, those emotions dramatically impact your decisions.

If you are going to improve the quality of your decisions, you must first improve the quality of the words you speak/think about your life.

Controlling the words that you speak and think about your life is a foundational point for improving your life. Much like the Law of Attraction, if you are speaking and thinking negative words about your life, you will attract negative circumstances as well as negative responses from other people because that is what you are putting forth from your own person about your life.

How can you expect to have positive, life-changing ideas to accomplish your goals if your words and thoughts are focused on the negative? How will positive, successful people offer you productive opportunities if you are emanating defeat? It is essential to realize here that, even if your present circumstances are actually negative, speaking and thinking about the negative will only keep you there.

You alone are responsible for making changes to your words, thoughts, emotions, and ultimately-your decisions.

Since getting past the negative emotions that presently form your decisions is overcome by speaking and thinking positively about your needs and goals, it is a change that only you can make. Quit blaming others for holding you back. Start taking in positive input from articles or talks given by life coaches or successful business people that you admire. I’m now reading through the “8 Steps to Create…” by Creflo Dollar as his approach to life of taking control of your life by speaking and thinking positively has already greatly influenced myself and my spouse.

Here are some past posts on Controlling Your Thoughts/Words that will be helpful to you in the move to positive words and thoughts:

Take Charge of Your Thoughts, Take Charge of Your Life
Better Thoughts for a Better Life
Making Real Change to Thoughts, Feelings, or Behavior
Practical Ideas for Overcoming Fear

I challenge you to take responsibility now for improving your decisions until there are no negative emotions forming the decisions you make.

There is a famous quote by Eleanor Roosevelt regarding taking responsibility for your own decisions. It says,

One’s philosophy is not best expressed in words; it is expressed in the choices one makes. In the long run, we shape our lives and we shape ourselves. The process never ends until we die. And, the choices we make are ultimately our own responsibility.(2)

1. Creflo Dollar, 8 Steps to Create the Life You Want, p. 28
2. Eleanor Roosevelt Quote, QuotationsBook.com http://quotationsbook.com/quote/6544/

Table of contents for Living with Purpose

1. Living with Purpose and Living Your Purpose
2. Creating Your Purposeful Life Environment

Reading Level: Leisurely

Take a few moments to look at this example and write out the activities, people, and environment that will enable you to live your life with purpose.

This is Part 2 of this post. In Part 1, we talked about author Dawna Markova’s insight on Living with Purpose and looked at her “No Matter Whats” list which she developed as an example to help each of us write our own list of how to live lives with passion and purpose. If you did not read Part 1, please click here to read it.

Here is my “No Matter Whats” List:

What are the influences, activities, and people that cause me to live life with energy, fulfillment, and purpose?

No matter what, I need to be living and working in a spacious environment that encourages my creativity and visionary side.

No matter what, I need to be living and working in an environment with garden and ocean views that fill my body with pleasure, health, and energy.

No matter what, I need to live a lifestyle that provides times for prayer, meditation, healthy eating, exercise, relaxation, and friendship so that my mind, spirit, and body are all equally healthy.

No matter what, I need to work privately as an author, but also outwardly, impacting the world, so that all nations of the earth are blessed through me. (Gen.12:3)

No matter what, I need healthy relationship time with extended family members.

No matter what, I need interaction with people who enjoy nature, music, architecture, and find pleasure in the simple joys of life.

No matter what, I need a human atmosphere that is consistently pleasant, supportive in actions, and positive and constructive in attitudes.

No matter what, I need human atmosphere with people who enjoy thinking deep thoughts about life and spiritual matters and challenge the depth of my thinking.

No matter what, I, too, need to live and work in a climate that is interdependent, where the norm is people who feel equal responsibility for our environment, and are purpose driven to be live in the same loving, giving manner that I focus on living toward them.

And lastly, no matter what, I need to live and work in an environment that does not squelch creativity, but believes that even greater than what we dream of can be accomplished.

If you want to participate online, feel free to use the “Leave a Reply” or “Submit Your Comment” button to post the “No Matter Whats” list for your life. If your list is too personal, still make a working list that will help you break out of a habitual life to live a passionate, fulfilling, purposeful one!

Table of contents for Living with Purpose

1. Living with Purpose and Living Your Purpose
2. Creating Your Purposeful Life Environment

Reading Level: Leisurely

Do you feel that you are living the purpose for which your life exists and enjoying achieving it with passion?   Or do you feel that you are powerless, caught in a habitual life that you do not want?

This past week my brother mentioned to me a book by Dawna Markova. He said she is known for encouraging people to surround themselves with the environment, people, and activities that bring energy into their lives, rather than drain energy from their lives. I have read articles by other authors on that topic, but none by Dawna, so I decided to Google her and find out more. Dawna Markova, Ph.D, is an internationally known speaker and author who encourages people to” learn from our wounds, find our gifts, celebrate our values, and live our dreams to live on purpose and with passion.” One of her most popular books is, “Wide Open: On Living With Purpose and Passion.” She has many other great sounding books, as well as a blog, which you can find at DawnaMarkova.com  .

I also came across an article of Ms. Markova’s called, “Landscape of the Soul.”  She has a great illustration of how one can be trapped in an unfulfilling life of habit. She tells of a science experiment in which baby fish were raised in a small glass tank that was inside a larger glass tank of adult fish. Once the baby fish were grown, the small tank was removed, but the baby fish still would not swim beyond the place where the walls of the small tank had once been. The habit was more real than reality, even though reality provided them with more freedom.

Are you living in a way that develops that best of who you are?

Ms Markova wisely instructs to give thought to the kind of environment you need to bring out the best of the person that you are so that, when you are in a needy, demanding environment, you will not lose your sense of self or purpose. Rather than accept the environment you have been given, or the habitual lifestyle you are in, contemplate and decide what environment, people, and activities you need so that you are living your life’s purpose and, thus, able to live life passionately because your life is purposeful.

Develop a standard for your life by asking yourself what conditions bring out the best in you and free you to be you.

Ms. Markova developed this list that she describes as her “No Matter Whats” for her life as an example for you to write your own and start living your life with purpose. Again, this is just an excerpt from the article footnoted below. Please read the full article as well as take a look at Dawna’s site and books. Her challenges are beneficial to everyone.

It is my hope that reading my “no matter whats” will help you tap into your own:

No matter what, I need to be living and working in a spacious natural environment that encourages me to expand.
No matter what, I need to be living and working in an environment that stimulates, pleases, and enlivens my physical being.
No matter what, I need to be moving at a rhythm that allows my body, soul, and heart to be in alignment.
No matter what, I need to work both as a part of and apart from the larger community. I need to work with my family. Work has meant dividing me from them for so many years.
No matter what, I need a human atmosphere that constantly challenges me to be sane, thoughtful, wholesome, and present in the moment.
No matter what, I need to work in a climate that is interdependent, where the norm encourages us to use each other’s strengths so no one of us has to carry more than our part.
And lastly, no matter what, I need to work in a creative atmosphere that encourages us to let die what is finished and foster new life that is trying to emerge.

Now it’s your turn, dear reader. What are the influences, activities, and people that cause you to shine?
Describe the environment that fosters your wisdom, and helps you to bring the best that is in you out to the rest of us who are waiting.(1)

In Part 2 of this post, I’m going to use Dawna’s list as a springboard for my own list of “No Matter Whats” for living my life with purpose. I trust both these examples will encourage you to write your own list and change your environment to one that enables a fulfilling life.

1. Excerpts from Landscape of the Soul, Dawna Markova. http://www.soulfulliving.com/landscapesofsoul.htm
2. See Dawna Markova’s books and blog at DawnaMarkova.com http://www.dawnamarkova.com/

How firmly do you hold to the vision of your destiny when circumstances appear to be working against you?

We each want a clear path to our destinies; do you succumb to discouragement and doubt when you are unable to see the full path, or when people and situations keep saying, “It won’t happen!”?

First, it is necessary to be clear about your destiny.

Know your life’s purpose. Along life’s journey to fulfill that destiny, you have a wide variety of needs or goals you desire to reach, such as better health, more successful relationships or communication, freedom from debt, or career changes. These goals are important steps in fulfilling your destiny and the person you are meant to be. To avoid being swayed by doubts or opposition, you must first “know that you know” in your heart what your purpose for being is.

Second, you must determine to believe in your destiny.

No one else can believe it for you – a spouse or a parent – if you are going to withstand disappointments or setbacks. If you believe that this certain path or accomplishment truly is your destiny, then keep in mind during setbacks or opposition that you will get there! It was meant to be; it was destined or planned before you were born.

In the spiritual realm, the truth is similar. In Psalm 139, God says that all of your days (and those of every other person) were planned out and written about before you lived a single day. You have a destiny. And, it is a matter of believing or of “faith” in God’s promises and His power to overcome obstacles or opposition to your destiny, as well as to provide wisdom and opportunities to fulfill the goals along the way. Because you know your destiny is His plan, because you have faith that He keeps His promise to help you, you are unwavering and unmovable in your journey to your destiny. Now back to our opening title.

Here are two illustrations on why you do not let what you see destroy what you believe with regard to your destiny.

Oxygen is necessary for your every breath, but you do not see it at all. You do not go around in a panic every moment of the day, fearing that you are going to suffocate, just because you do not have scientific proof in front of you that there is enough oxygen in the air to sustain your life. You go about your day in “faith” that all the oxygen you need and more is there to sustain you.

In the same way, though you may not see the full path to your destiny or see the results of the promises of God in your life yet, it does not mean that the path to your dreams is a product of your imagination; nor does it mean that the power of God is not working behind the scenes in your behalf just because you do not yet see the proof. Continue to go about your day in “faith,” listening for wisdom and looking for opportunities.

The next illustration is not my own. I read it in the book footnoted below, but it is such an incredible illustration that I wanted to share it with you. He says to picture watching a magician saw someone in half. You see the person’s head out one end of the box and her feet out of the other. You see the magician cut her in half and separate the boxes, yet her head and feet are still moving. You did not believe for a moment that she was really cut it half, even though you saw it with your own eyes. It appeared to be reality but you knew it was not. You could not explain it, but you still refused to believe what you saw with your own eyes. (1)

When it appears that you will not reach your destiny, that God has failed you, that He is not keeping His promises to help you — when you are tempted to put your faith in what you see – do not do it! You know your purpose! Be determined to believe in your destiny and refuse to believe your eyes if necessary.

1. Faith to Faith, Kenneth Copeland, April 29 post.

An important principle of success is staying more focused on the goal than the present obstacles or even the steps to reaching it.

I was reminded of this principle while working toward the completion of all the necessary seasonal responsibilities in my garden. I have quite extensive gardens with a large variety of plants, including over 30 antique rose bushes. Though I have always enjoyed gardening, this time of year’s seasonal requirements get very overwhelming as it takes about 3 months to complete due to other life responsibilities. The care and upkeep is probably too extensive for this time in life, but, when we designed and planted it 15 years ago, it was not possible to foresee the changes in career, family responsibilities, and physical energy in the future. It is a temptation to cause myself continual displeasure by solely viewing all the tasks yet undone rather than staying focused on the forthcoming end result and enjoying the present pleasures my garden during the process of the oiling, fertilizing, pruning, and mulching to reach the goal; it will become a healthy, lush garden that is a delight to the eyes and a joy to share with friends and family.

Here are some results of staying more focused on the end goal than the present obstacles or process:

1. You will maintain a level emotional state of joy and fulfillment, knowing the end of the process will come; you will live the fulfillment of that goal.

2. A clearer focus of your future goals/objectives allows you to be more effective in your present decisions with regard to the future goal.

3. You will maintain a higher energy level when focused daily on the final goal rather than the overall process to achieve it.

Many realms of practical life prove the benefit of staying focused on the goal or end result.

Life coaches, motivational speakers, and business instructors all tell us to “write out” the goals we want to achieve, write out the plan we envision, even the restoration that we need. Writing develops a clear mental picture of the desired end. In turn, this process enables one to notice relevant, beneficial opportunities related to the goal and make wiser decisions to reach the goal all due to staying daily focused on the end picture. It is the Law of Attraction in action.

The benefits of this principle of focusing on the goal flow into more aspects of one’s life than we are usually aware of–personal goals, financial goals, career changes, restoration–but even in the little things. Remember drivers’ education class? When teaching Interstate driving, they instruct you to focus on where the road meets the horizon; if, instead, you only look at the few cars in front of you or a short distance of the open road in front of you, your driving will be unsteady and erratic. You will weave back and forth unknowingly and overcompensate in decisions. It is the same in every aspect of one’s life. Staying focused on the goal will keep you from being unsteady and erratic, wavering from the desired goal, and overcompensating in decisions.

Instruction on one’s spiritual journey also involves a clear, constant focus on the goals.

This principle should be added to your daily spiritual life. Do not settle for where you are. There are greater, unknown aspects waiting to be discovered with your spiritual life and communication levels with God. Grow and benefit by setting goals and keeping them in focus. Here are quotes from Scripture instructing you to approach spiritual life and growth like a runner in a race, free from distractions and hindrances, focused on the clear goal:

But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus. All of us who are mature should take such a view of things. Phil 3:13-15

Do you not know that in a race all the runners run, but only one gets the prize? Run in such a way as to get the prize. Everyone who competes in the games goes into strict training…Therefore I do not run like a man running aimlessly…so that I myself will not be disqualified for the prize. 1 Cor. 9:24-27

Let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles, and let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us. Heb. 12:1

Famous literary authors have encouraged people through generations to “focus on the goal.”

Though Ralph Waldo Emerson is well-known for his quote, “Life is a journey, not a destination,” encouraging people to enjoy each day of life as opposed to only allowing oneself to enjoy achievements, he also promoted keeping one’s destination in view.

To finish the moment, to find the journey’s end in every step of the road, to live the greatest number of good hours, is wisdom.  Ralph Waldo Emerson

Orison Swett Marden, known for his philosophies on one’s thoughts influencing his life and circumstances, pointed out the determining factor in the success of focusing on the goal:

We advance on our journey only when we face our goal, when we are confident and believe we are going to win out.  Orison Swett Marden

Believe that you will reach your goals, spiritually, financially, relationally, or otherwise. Then keep daily focus on those goals. Rather than feeling overwhelmed by the trip or any apparent lack of progress, you can live effectively and experience greater joy knowing that each day is a day closer to your heart’s desires.