Own Your Story: Goals to Glory

The popular belief is that achieving goals gives us external glory when what really compels us (instead of motivates us) is gratitude, not glory. Internal inspiration has far more long-term effects than external motivation. The huge secret is that when you stop looking for external validation, it comes. The glory then is seen as a statement of what is instead of a measurement of worthiness. When you seek outside yourself for the glory you anticipate receiving, you are dependent upon others – diverse others, with various skills and challenges themselves – to present you with their version of whatever trophy you are seeking. If you lead your life in pursuit of others’ permission or approval or support or direction, you will never know which is your own true life, nor who you were created to become. Instead, determine for yourself which goals will allow you to achieve the feeling of accomplishment you desire deep down. Just point yourself in the direction of your dream and start walking. Take in the entire picture, not just the prize you set your eyes on. When you realize that the only response necessary for whatever you are going through is unconditional gratitude, you will see that, like Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz, you’ve had what you were searching for all along. So use the ideas in this book as signposts for you to build your own discernment muscles. Read, contemplate, ponder, disagree, debate, share, reflect and decide which ideas you’ll discard and which you’ll keep – either for now or for someday in the near future. View the world and your place in it as an experiment in happiness and contentment and see what you can do each day to live into that objective. Consider taking yourself out of your own story as you read the thoughts in this book. If you can observe yourself from a different vantage point and allow the ideas you read to give you a new perspective, you may find that you are pursuing goals from a place of inspiration instead of from an external motivation. We all need a bit of each, but if you are always doing your life instead of really living and being in it, you will be an observer instead of a true participant. Allow your goals to bring you to the place of true inner glory and you will really get that wherever you are is exactly where you are supposed to be.