Fearless for Life

Sometimes in life, you just have to take a risk.

You have to put it all on the line and face the fact that you might fail. But in failure is not the worst thing. To me, the worst thing is not trying at all.

Fearless for Life: Thinking Backwards

What are Your Goals?

What do you want to do? Think of this as the adult version of “What do I want to be when I grow up?” If you’re anything like me, this question seems to pop up all too often. It happens a lot when we face challenges that make us stop and take some time to reflect. These can be the most difficult times, but they’re usually also the most rewarding. You are not alone.

Once we have the answer to the previous question, the hardest part is knowing what to do next. This exercise will help.

Start Thinking Backwards

Start at the end of your life. That’s right, your death. After that nothing else will change in your life, so that will be the starting point. Thinking backwards, run through how you think things should turn out. Once you get to where your goal comes in, work backwards from there, finding each step that came before.

Let’s say your goal was to run a marathon by age 35. Starting at age 35, having run the marathon, what did you likely do before that. A marathon is 26.2 miles, so chances are you ran 25 miles successfully before that, and 20 before that and so on. So now, when you go out and run half a mile, you know where it will lead, and just how it will take you there. Little by little you add on, and before you know it, you’ve run 10 miles. At 13.1 you’re halfway there.

Looking backwards it is very clear what steps need to be taken to achieve your goals. It works not only for long term lofty goals, but short term problems as well. See the solution first, and work backwards from there to solve the problem.

A Great Quote from Theodore Roosevelt

“It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly; who errs and comes short again and again; because there is not effort without error and shortcomings; but who does actually strive to do the deed; who knows the great enthusiasm, the great devotion, who spends himself in a worthy cause, who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement and who at the worst, if he fails, at least he fails while daring greatly. So that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who know neither victory nor defeat.”