Dear Grandchildren:

I hope you are thinking of setting goals for your life. I’d call it, “Designing Your Future”. Yes, we need motivation to accomplish our dreams and sometimes we need inspiration to spur us to achieve those goals.

Maybe a better word for setting goals is having a plan. Think about it for a minute.

What is your plan for living out your life?

Here are some questions to help you clarify and put your plan or goals on paper.

• What do you want to do with your life?

• Do you want to go to college or a trade school?

• What do you want to learn as a profession?

• What do you want to spend your time doing for the rest of your life?

• How much do you want to earn, save, and invest?

• Where do you want to live for the rest of your life?

These questions should help you create your ideas for your plan. At least, they can help you get started. The biggest reason people don’t write their goals is because they don’t know how to get started.

In the last chapter, I talked about Gavin as an example of setting and accomplishing his goals. When he showed up for his first practice, he discovered his coach changed his position to running back from quarterback which he’d been playing since the seventh grade.

Boy, this news is a great example that in life, unexpected and often unwanted, changes happen. 

Gavin had a choice to make for himself and his team. It didn’t matter how bad he wanted to play quarterback because his coach made that decision for him. Gavin had three choices:

• Quit football.

• Play football but carry a “poor me” attitude.

• Embrace his new opportunity and give his best effort.

In Gavin’s first game as running back, he scored the first touchdown, and he was amazing! 

Realize life changes, but it’s up to us to make adjustments and give our best effort.

Getting back to your goals or your plan, start by writing key points you want to accomplish tomorrow. You may start with a “to-do list” and let it grow into your plan for tomorrow, and eventually for a week, and a month.

If I had a golf match against Tiger Woods, I could beat him every time we played. What? How so?

Well, provided that someone blindfolded Tiger and turned him around a few times. I know what you’re thinking: How could Tiger hit a golf ball he can’t see? Good question!

Here’s another good question:

How can you accomplish a plan you don’t have?

So let’s take the first steps in establishing a plan:

1. Look at some questions I’ve suggested above.

2. Write a “to do” list for tomorrow.

Always remember, action is the key to accomplishing big and small goals. Taking decisive action separates us from the masses. I’ll end with words from an ancient Greek philosopher: 

It’s not what happens to you, but how you react to it that matters. —Epictetus

I love you,

Grandpa