The Power of Setting Goals

The last two texts encouraged you to take the time to identify the values you consider to be most important to you, to define in your own words what living in those values looks like, and to seek out what you believe your purpose in life to be. 

You’ve taken two very powerful steps forward by exploring the foundation of who you are and who you are meant to be. These are steps I believe we can easily lose along our journey, if we aren’t careful to practice being intentional about building our lives. 

The next step to continue building a strong, intentional foundation, is to identify and define the goals you have for yourself. In fact, I would suggest going a little further in this step and take a personal inventory of the barriers you feel stand in the way of your goals, as well as the strengths and resources you have to help you overcome those barriers. 

I’ve been very open with you in sharing the background of my life, in hopes that these stories will cultivate one of the most powerful substances you can have in life … Hope. 

I’ve given you a glimpse into my life from behind the barbed wire, my imminent death sentence, a miraculous healing and a life-changing adoption. But, I’ve also opened the door into my life growing up with elderly adoptive parents, a family and environment infused with crime, drugs, and deceit, and the emotions I battled as I walked through this journey.

I’ve shared how my values and a strong sense of purpose helped me keep going, especially when it was hardest.

Today, I’ll take you a little further into this journey. 

I feel like I’ve collected a lot of wisdom through life, most of which came through my adoptive father, Frank. 

My adoptive father, who I affectionately called Papa, was my hero. In my child-like eyes, he was the strongest, smartest, wisest man in the world. 

Some of my fondest memories in life are moments I spent with him, and he never let these moments pass by without dropping powerful nuggets of wisdom into my young, developing brian. 

He was an early riser. By 4:00 a.m. every morning he would be awake, dressed in his white painter’s pants and white undershirt and in the kitchen making a full pot of Folgers coffee and a bowl of Cheerios topped with thinly sliced bananas. 

Of course, I was nothing if I wasn’t his shadow every waking hour of the day and night.

I don’t think he minded. We would sit at the kitchen table, him eating Cheerios and sipping black coffee with just a tiny pinch of sugar in it. I would sit across from him, quietly watching. Neither of us were big on talking that early in the morning, but simply sitting with him was enough for me. 

Once he finished his cereal and coffee he would sit at the table in silence for a while. It always looked like he was deep in thought. After a few minutes he would tell me to go get ready for school and he would head outside to tinker with one of his building projects. He was a master painter by trade and could build absolutely anything by hand, without a set of blueprints or instructions. 

After some time had passed with him working on his projects and me getting ready, we would head to the car and proceed with our morning routine of him taking me to school. The trip to school wasn’t too far, maybe 15 minutes, but it was the time I looked forward to the most. 

By this time he was ready to talk, and would take the time during our trip to ask me questions about what I was going to be doing in school that day and what types of lessons I was learning. Once we arrived at school, without fail, he would reach across to the passenger seat, take my small hand in his, and speak the words I was accustomed to hearing every morning of my life for many of my childhood years. 

“Hope, now you know I love you right?” 

I would answer with a simple “Yes sir.” 

“You know I believe in you. I’m proud of you. You are the best thing that’s ever happened to me. You know that right?” 

Again, I would respond with “Yes sir.” 

“Ok, you go and do good for me today. You can do anything you set your mind to. There’s nothing you can’t do. Go do real good for me today.” 

With this I would lean across to the driver’s seat, kiss my father on the cheek, give him one more “Yes sir,” and then hop out of the car to start my day. 

As a child I didn’t understand what it truly meant to have a father in my life. I didn’t realize that the time he spent with me and the words he poured into me were as powerful as they were. 

I had no way of knowing that every time he told me he loved me, every time he took my hand in his and told me he believed in me, every time he told me I could do anything, that what he was actually doing was building resilience within me. He was training my brain to overcome self doubt and break through the barriers we usually create for ourselves when we come face-to-face with challenges and barriers. 

I don’t think he realized that what he was doing would travel far beyond those school morning rides. But they did. 

You see, I was a dreamer. I was a thinker. I was an idea generator. My curiosity and creativity gave me a naturally-active brain. The composition of my brain, combined with the powerful words of my father, instilled within me the belief that I could do anything. They became the foundation of which I began creating goals upon. 

As I remember back to these early years of my life, I remember always having a goal I was working toward. Most times the goals revolved around my school work, such as learning how to spell and define the new words of the week. However, as I grew older, my goals grew along with me. 

Some may brush off the idea of having goals as being silly. Others may think setting goals is a good idea, but fail to comprehend the strength that creating and working toward goals has the power to give. 

But powerful, they are.

There were countless late nights members of my family would cause some type of conflict. Whether it was acting out because of being drunk or high or having officers searching our home for someone running from a warrant. 

There were countless moments I was told I wasn’t smart enough or good enough to ever make anything of my life. 

There were even countless moments of various types of abuse I endured at the hands of family members and those coming in and out of our home. 

All of these countless moments I mention, they possessed the power to influence my life and my decisions … but they didn’t have enough power to compete with the words of my father and the goals I set for myself and was determined to reach. 

My goals drove me to wake up every morning. 

They shielded me from the malicious arrows of others' hurtful words. 

They kept me focused on the things that mattered most to me. 

They inspired me to swim when it often felt like I was set up to sink. 

As you read these words, you may not have had a father speak these words of life into you. If you didn’t, my heart hurts for you. However, let me speak those words into your life right now. 

You are loved and you can go forward from this moment and do anything you set your mind to. 

The words of the naysayers don’t have to have any power over you.  

The words of your own self-doubt and discouragement don’t have to have power over you. 

The mistakes of your past no longer have to have power over you.

Create real, achievable goals for yourself. Take inventory of every strength and every resource you have within you to reach these goals. And, celebrate every victory, large and small. 

Your goals are one of the most powerful assets, weapons, and tools you will ever possess.