BE REALISTIC

When you write things down, you also need to understand some of your
personality strengths and weaknesses. For example:
• Are you realistic?
• Do you undershoot all the time?
• Do you overshoot?
• Do you always hit the target?
I learned these principles young in life. I was a senior in high school and I
had this good friend with whom I was in wrestling. We had about the same
skill set throughout our entire (but short) wrestling careers. I remember our
first year, in which my goal was to be a varsity wrestler. I wanted to be the
varsity guy, but it was unrealistic. I did not have the skills to beat the
varsity guy in only one year’s time because he was so much better than me.
I ended up being junior varsity (JV). My friend’s goal was to be JV and
that’s what he was; he reached his goal. In my sophomore year, my goal
was to take state. My friend’s goal was to go to state; that’s all he wanted.
Yep, you guessed it; I did not take state. I did well, but I did not accomplish
my goal. I never had that feeling of accomplishment. However, my
friend’s goal was to go to state, and when he got to state, he’d
accomplished his goal. The sky was the limit at that point. He continued to
move forward and he placed.
During my junior year, my goal, again, was to take state. My friend’s goal
was to place in state. Like the year before, I placed in state, but did not take
state. My friend actually took state. Because he had previously placed, he
only had to win two matches. Once he had placed, the sky was the limit.
Boom! He took it.
My senior-year goal was to take state. That was the only year it was a
realistic possibility for me. The problem was I’d developed such a pattern
of never accomplishing my goals, that actually accomplishing a realistic
goal was very difficult, and I did not do it. However I did place; they
actually ranked me Number One. I was the shoo-in that year. I beat
everybody, yet I still lost. My friend’s goal was to take state, and with his
pattern of always accomplishing his goal, he was certain. “I am taking
state. This is my year to say ‘Yes, I am the champion. I'm taking it.’” And
yes, he took it.
He had been realistic, not downplaying himself, but realistic about what he
could accomplish. Thus, he had that feeling of accomplishment when he reached his goals and objectives. I, on the other hand, was unrealistic from
the beginning. Then when I had my chance, I didn’t believe it. I didn’t
believe I could do it and I fell short.
Anytime you face a decision, you need to treat it like we’ve taught you to
treat risk. The decision can be managed, but let’s be realistic: if you are
coming off making $20,000 a year, establishing a goal to make $500,000
the next year is unrealistic. Investor dilemma comes with a realistic choice.