by Napoleon Hill
Available in 122 free installments
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Another requirement to attract wealth is to learn how to set your goal. It is important for you to understand this. Few people, even when they realize its importance, really understand how to set a goal.
Learn how to set your goals. There are four important things to keep in mind.
(a) Write down your goal. You will then begin to crystallize your thinking. The very act of thinking as you write will have a tendency to create an indelible impression in your memory.
(b) Give yourself a deadline. Specify a time for achieving your objective. This is important in motivating you: set out in the direction of your goal and keep moving towards it.
(c) Set your standards high. Now there seems to be a direct relationship between ease in achieving a goal and the strength of your motives. You have discovered for yourself in Chapter Nine how to motivate yourself at will and in Chapter Ten how to motivate others.
And the higher you set your major goal, generally speaking, the more concentrated will be the effort you
make to achieve it. The reason: logic will make it mandatory that you at least aim at an intermediate objective as well as an immediate one. So aim higher. And then have immediate and intermediate steps leading towards its achievement.
The following question should stimulate your thinking: Where will you be and what will you be doing ten years from today if you keep doing what you are doing now?
(d) Aim high. It is a peculiar thing that no more effort is required to aim high in life, to demand prosperity and abundance, than is required to accept misery and poverty.
I bargained with life for a penny, And life would pay no more, However, I begged at evening when I counted my scanty store.
For life is a just employer, it gives you what
you ask, But once you have set the wages, Why, you must bear the task.
I worked for a menial's hire, only to learn,
dismayed, That any wage I had asked of life, Life would have willingly paid.
You have to be bold enough to ask of life more than you may, right now, feel you are worth because it is an observable fact that people tend to rise to meet demands that are put upon them.
While it is exceedingly desirable that you blueprint your program from beginning to end, this is not always
feasible. One doesn't always know all the answers between the beginning of a great enterprise or journey and its ending. But if you know where you are and where you want to be and you start from where you are to get to where you want to be, you will, if you keep properly motivated, move forward step by step until you get there.
Take that first step. The important thing after setting a goal is taking action. A sixty-three-year-old grandmother, Mrs. Charles Philipia, decided that she was going to walk from New York City to Miami, Florida. She reached Miami and, while there, was interviewed by newspapermen. They wanted to know if the idea of such a long journey on foot hadn't frightened her. How did she ever summon courage to make such a journey with her feet as her only mode of travel?
"It doesn't take courage to take one step," replied Mrs. Philipia. "And that's all I did really. I just took one step. And then I took another step. And then another and another and here I am."
Yes, you must take that first step. It makes no difference how much thinking and study time you spend, it will avail you little unless you also act.
One of the authors was introduced to a man in Phoenix, Arizona, by a friend. It was a rather odd introduction.
"Meet the man who received a million dollars cash for a gold mine and now has the million dollars and also owns the mine."
"How in the world did you manage such a thing?" came the question, asked with considerable awe.
"Oh, I had an idea, but I didn't have any money. I did have a pick and a shovel. So I took my pick and my shovel and went out to make my idea a reality," he responded.
"And then it occurred to me: if I would search for a gold mine and dig around the vein, should I find a mine, one of the large mining corporations could afford to work the mine whereas I wouldn't have the necessary capital You know, mining machinery costs money today.
