Time is Running Out to Achieve Your Goals
Summary
This week our 14-year-old beagle, Homie, lost his battle with cancer. Every dream we had was planned around Homie. I never dreamed he would not be around to enjoy my sailboat. It reminded me to have a sense of urgency about accomplishing my dreams.
Here’s the action steps to getting your dreams.
1. Set a date and obsess about it.
2. Create a Vision board.
3. Take deliberate action to achieve it
Full transcript
Night before last our 14-and-a-half-year-old beagle lost his fight with cancer, and we had to let him go. My wife had him ever since she was a puppy. We’ve been together for eight-and-a-half years, so he’s been my dog for the last eight-and-a-half years, and we lost him. And he had been fighting cancer for the last several months. We did everything we could. He went through chemo. He went through all the stuff. We had a great oncologist, animal cancer doctor, cancer vet that just … We did everything we could, and he got really, really sick, and we let him go. And that’s tough. It’s really tough.
And so for the last two days, my wife and I have been spending a lot of time crying and reminiscing about Homie and about what a great dog he was, the best dog ever. He was our child. And last night at dinner we were talking about our dreams and how our dreams always just revolved around Homie. It’s like you’re going to have him forever, and now he’s gone. And I was talking to my wife last night at dinner about my sailboat. One of my biggest dreams ever since I moved to California, one of my big dreams was to get a sailboat, to have yacht. Not a little boat, a nice boat, a big boat. And I haven’t got one. I could, I just haven’t. And every boat that I’ve ever looked at, as I’ve looked at boats and all that, one of the things I was always evaluating the boat on was how well would it work for Homie.
So, I’m always looking at the cockpit and the deck and the stairs that go down … the steps that go down into the … that go below deck through the hatch, and I was just always evaluating, would Homie be able to go up and down these steps easily, and is this safe for him, and can he move around this deck well when we’re at anchor and … I just, that was the way I always looked at boats, and I never in my life dreamed that Homie would not be there for my boat. And as I’m thinking about that last night, I’m like, this is not okay that I have been way too casual about accomplishing some of my dreams. And I think for all of us, one of the things that happens is, we just … There’s always plenty of time. There’s always plenty of time.
And so there’s good news and there’s bad news. The good news is there’s still plenty of time. If you have life left in you, there’s plenty of time. But the bad news is, time is always running out. It’s always passing us by every single day. As the old soap opera used to say, as sands through the hourglass, so are the days of our life. They’re just constantly running out. It’s constantly running out. So you have to seize the day. But even more significant, I believe you have to seize the dream, because it’s not just about living one day at a time. It’s about looking at your life and saying, what are the dreams and the goals that I want to accomplish and am I going to accomplish them or as time going to run out before I get my dreams accomplished? And I as I’m thinking about that, I’m just like, I have got, personally, to get a greater sense of urgency about the goals and dreams that I have set and that my wife and I have set together, and just like, we got to get serious about them.
And so I just wanted to share this with you today ’cause I think this is so powerful and so important that you look at your life, and sometimes we have these things happen in her life, we have these moments of loss, like losing our pet that make us go like, okay, we got to get serious about … It makes us look at our life and go, okay, what changes do we need to make? And so I’m like, I’m going to get serious about some of my dreams that I’ve put off. And when I first moved out here, I couldn’t get a boat. I couldn’t afford a boat, but I can afford a boat today. And now it’s like, okay, we got other goals. You get other dreams, you’ve got to kind of prioritize, and all that’s true, but if you’re going to ever accomplish your dreams, when are you going to start?
When are you going to do it? And so I just kind of wrote down three things that for me are like, this is how I’m going to do it, and here’s how I want to encourage you to do it, getting a sense of urgency about accomplishing your goals and your dreams in your life. Number one is set a date and obsess about it. In other words, you’ve got to pick your goals. What are your big goals? What are your big dreams in your life? Financial freedom or maybe it’s to get a certain house in a certain location or whatever it is. Again, it can also be a little or dreams, too. It can be little dreams along the way. Whatever they are is … If you want to dream, if you’ve got a goal, and you want it, you’ve got to go for it.
And the way you go for it, first you’ve got to set a date, and then you have to obsess about it. Now, some people get freaked out when we talk about obsessing about something. You got to obsess about it. And the reason I know you have to do this is because Napoleon Hill, who is the father of the philosophy of achievement, wrote the book Think and Grow Rich and many other books, including a great book that he wrote later in his life called How to Raise Your Own Salary, which is really, the title is very unfortunate ’cause this book is one of the most powerful books I’ve ever read about how to accomplish your goals. It’s called How to Raise Your Own Salary by Napoleon Hill. Unbelievably powerful book. But he said he, in all of his training with Andrew Carnegie and his other mentors in his life, who were the most successful, some of the most successful business people in the world, one of the things that he said they all had in common is their dreams, their passion became … They had a burning desire for them to the point of an obsession. It was all they could think about. It was all the talk about. And when they had that obsession, that’s how they accomplished it.
So you got to set a date, which means you make it concrete, and then obsess about it. You’ve got to visualize it, think about it, talk about it, pursue it so passionately every day that it becomes real to you here so that it can become real to you in the outer world.
Number two, then, is you’ve got a vision board. And what I mean by that is, now I want to have a visual representation of it in front of me every single day. And frankly, you also should go touch it. If it’s a house, if it’s a car, if it’s a boat, if it’s a jet, private jet or helicopter, travel or whatever, is you got to see that stuff, touch it, get your hands on it, and a vision board is very powerful for keeping it in front of you. It should be in front of you all the time.
And then number three is, go for it. You’ve got to act … Number three, just go get it. You got to start … You got to have a plan and take action on it every single day. That plan has to move you toward your goals and your dreams. Now, is this anything profound? Only the wake up call. That’s what, if this video does anything for you today, I hope it’s a wake up call that says, stop treating your dreams as if they’re not urgent. Stop treating your goals as if they’re like, someday I’ll make it happen. As … I can’t remember who it was. I think it was Jack Canfield who said this. He said, “Most people end up living their life on Someday Isle.” And he says, “The problem with Someday Isle is that island does not exist.”
Someday I’ll start doing this. Someday I’ll get this. Someday I’ll accomplish this goal. Someday I’ll do this. You cannot live your life on Someday Isle. That island does not exist. At least, if it does exist, it doesn’t exist in the realm of you accomplishing your goals. If you get stranded on that island, your dreams are dead. Don’t let it happen. Get serious about your goals. Get serious about your dreams. Get urgent about them. Set a date, obsess about it, vision board it, and then go for it. Let me know what you think. If this makes sense, if you’re ready to go for it, make sure you give this video a thumbs up. Comment. I’d like to hear what your dreams are. Let me know what your commitment is to getting it. Let me know your story. And in the comments, share that with us. Share this video with others you think may need it. Make sure you subscribe to my channel. And I’ll talk to you on the next video. Go for your dreams. Now.