Tweet

The Ultimate Goal

Written by: Josephine Gross

Article Overview: This article asks the question: How do goals work? The answer: Realize and live as though nothing separates you from your ultimate destination, then be very present and receptive to what every day has to offer. A path will unfold--and there just is no way you can miss where you were meant to go.

The Ultimate Goal

How do goals work...? You've got me on this one. I have no idea! I haven't heard a single theory on goals that I can see actually working in my life. I grew up in Belgium under a low gray sky; when I was about 10 years old, I would look out the window and gaze at the rainy clouds while dreaming about sunny places with palm trees and beaches. I wanted to live in a place warm enough to have citrus fruits growing in my garden. Today I live in Los Angeles, where we have grapefruits and tangerines all year long in the back yard. I never wrote this goal down, or consciously thought about how to make it happen.

Another rainy day, about 10 years later, in my hometown of Ghent, I happened to run into an American painter from San Francisco, who invited me out to visit. I immediately liked the freedom, the weather, but mostly the space I experienced from being 9000 kilometers away from my family and my roots. After my tourist visa ran out, it became clear that in order to prolong my stay, I had to become a student. I inquired with some community colleges but found the tuition for foreign students prohibitive. (In Belgium, education is free!)

Someone at the Italian cafe where I worked told me about a nearby university called Stanford, where they offer financial aid to people like me. I still remember filling out the forms on a table corner in that same cafe, the afternoon before the deadline; a few months later I was awakened at 8 a.m. by a call from the chair of the French department, letting me know I had been accepted into the Ph.D. program, offering me a $100,000 scholarship--and asking if I would accept it.

Much later I found out that people normally plan years ahead to get themselves or their offspring into Stanford. It is considered a pretty hefty goal and you are supposed to be very well prepared and even then, it is extremely hard to get in. So what happened to me? All I wanted was to find a way to stay in the Bay Area a little longer. I can assure you I never dreamed of a Ph. D. in French or planned for a Stanford degree. Let alone write down any goals that would lead me in that direction. In retrospect, I understand how my time at Stanford was instrumental in what I wanted to accomplish next.

I could list countless examples where I have been offered something I had not asked for, and numerous times where I desperately wanted something I didn't get...only to find out later that instead, I got something even better.

Today, I continue to express my heart's desire--and I make a conscious effort to let go of too many specifics as to precisely what path will lead me there. I welcome surprises as the bigger plan is revealed to me. I have learned that my only real goal is peace of mind, and for that I became a student at the University of "What's happening now?"

How do goals work? Realize and live as though nothing separates you from your ultimate destination, then be very present and receptive to what every day has to offer. A path will unfold--and there just is no way you can miss where you were meant to go.

Related Articles
  Setting Goals
  The Secret - Sales and Marketing Training
  Your personal journey to public speaking confidence
  Goal Setting
  The Ultimate Journey

Article Tags: american painter, back yard, beaches, citrus fruits, community colleges, financial aid, foreign students, french department, gaze, ghent, gray sky, italian cafe, kilometers, nearby university, offspring, palm trees, rainy day, stanford, sunny places, tourist visa



Related Forum Posts
Re: What are your January Goals? - Here's a quick update on mine: Goal #1: Hire New Writer = done - Post job description on oDesk - Set up trial job - Pick top candidate Goal #2: Follow up with Clients = done - Create and send quarterly report - Touch base with last year's clients - Follow up with 4 connectors Goal #3: PERSONAL = about 70% done on the month - Do something nice for my wife each week - Exercise 4 times per week - Daily stretch - want to touch my toes
Re: Bye Bye Vista - [quote="RussellWebb":3q55cgov]I've been cleaning house...Finally rid myself of this atrocious operating system called Windows Vista. Eeeegads! It's good to have a nice clean computer again - all reformatted and shiny new! Windows XP has been reinstalled and Vista is in the trash can. Vista is a bomb... plain and simple. ..[/quote:3q55cgov] Where do I begin... I love Vista Ultimate on my personal laptop, but when I tried to integrate my Vista Ultimate laptop into the local area network here at work... Let's just say Vista couldn't quite take on the challenge of a network log-on and killed itself. I have since formatted Vista and vowed to keep my Vista at home, XP here at work. I have an XP desktop and I'm having an older laptop of mine reformatted into an XP Pro laptop for when I need to VPN in to work (as it turns out, Vista and my office network don't really like to VPN, as it is currently.) Vista is a lot of fun for personal use, but it's an abysmal atrocity for work use.
Good Adwords Books? - I've just purchased "Ultimate Guide to Pay-Per-Click Advertising" by Richard Stokes. Has anyone read it, and if so what do you think? Does anyone have any other recommendations for books relating to Adwords? Thanks,
Re: For-Moderators Forum - Thanks guys. Goal is to help mods communicate better with each other. Let's make some good use of it.
Re: Alexa Ranking Goals - Thanks Jeremy - here is my updated goal: Goal: 10,000 Original Ranking: 14,830


Share this article with your friends. Fund someone's dream.

Leave a comment below or share on the left and you'll help support entrepreneurs in Africa through our partnership with Kiva. Over $50,000 raised and counting - Please keep sharing! Learn more.

Tweet

Newsletter

Get advice & tips from famous business
owners, new articles by entrepreneur
experts, my latest website updates, &
special sneak peaks at what's to come!

Name:
Email:

Popular Articles

How to Set Sales Goals that Work

Qualities of Leadership Part 1

Download a template or see a lawyer?

Suggestions

Email us your ideas on how to make our
website more valuable! Thank you Sharon
from Toronto Salsa Lessons / Classes for
your suggestions to make the newsletter
look like the website and profile younger
entrepreneurs like Jennifer Lopez.