If you want to drive from your home to a store on the other side of town, you’ll need an automobile with gas in the tank and the keys to start the car. But you’ll also need to know how to drive. You’ll need judgment based on life experiences to tell you when to step on the brakes if a traffic light changes to red. You’ll need a desire to reach your destination so you don’t keep stopping for coffee and a piece of pie every ten minutes. You’ll need to know how much time to allot for the trip so you can get home in time for whatever else you have to do. And you’ll need enough maturity to call and say you’re going to be late if you get stuck in a traffic jam. You can’t measure these requirements with a yardstick, but they’re as important to reaching your destination as the car, the gas, or the keys to start the engine.
Let’s continue this metaphor for another moment or two. There are all sorts of ways to keep track of the condition of a motor vehicle. You can look at the tires to see whether they’ve worn out their tread, you can look at the odometer to see how long it’s been since you changed the oil, and you can turn on a switch and then walk around the car to see if the headlights and taillights are working properly. There are objective indicators of the condition of your car.
Similarly, there are ways of objectively evaluating your achievements. Most people don’t take advantage of them as often as they should, but they’re available nonetheless. For example, you can put together a financial statement in order to determine your net worth. You can hire an appraiser to learn the market value of your house. You can compare where you were ten years ago to where you are now to determine the level of progress you’ve made in your life.
Achievement depends on effective goal setting and monitoring in the same way that a successful drive to the grocery store depends on knowing when to apply the brakes and when to step on the gas. But how can you track your progress and determine if you will be able to get where you want to go? In other words, are there ways of discovering whether you are doing what you need to do without having an accident?
I (Jim Rohn) believe there are ways of evaluating your goals just as there are ways of measuring depth of tread on a tire or the amount of gasoline in the tank of an automobile. To utilize these techniques, all you need is a commitment to be truly honest with yourself. At first this kind of brutal honesty may be painful, but you must realize that true achievement is unlikely unless you pay the necessary price.
Just as the gas gauge of a car indicates “Full” and “Empty” with several demarcations in between, you can learn whether you have enough fuel to get to your life’s destinations. But while a car has only one gas gauge, your progress can be evaluated by four different imaginary gauges.
Here’s the first one. On the right-hand side of the gauge–corresponding to the letter F, for “Full”–I want you to imaging a letter R, which stands for “Refusal.” And on the left side of the gauge, I want you to imagine a letter C, which stands for “Complacency.”
If your goals are good and strong, there are certain things that you simply refuse to accept in yourself or in other people. In your work, you refuse to accept anything less than your best effort. That doesn’t mean that things will always work out exactly as you had hoped and intended, but that’s not the point. There will always be variables you can’t control, but regardless, your level of effort should always be the maximum possible. With your family, your commitment should be just as strong. You should simply refuse to compromise in any area where your family’s needs and welfare are concerned. And with yourself, you should similarly refuse to accept pettiness, dishonesty, or unethical behavior in any form.
On the left-hand side of the first character-evaluation gauge is the letter C, which stands for “Complacency.” But it could also be the letters LIS, stands for “Let It Slide,” or even WTDA, for “What’s the Difference, Anyway?” Ask yourself where you stand on that scale. Do you have enough character to accept only your best effort? If not, it’s time to make a pit stop right now.
The second character-rating gauge has the letter D on the right, and on the left is the letter M. The D stands for “Decision,” and the M stands for “Maybe.”
Ask yourself: are you a person who comes to a fork in the road and turns either right or left? Or do you stop the car, scratch your chin, and say, “Well, maybe I’ll go this way, and then again maybe I’ll go that way,” and in the end you go nowhere? Think about the big goals you have set in your life. It could be that you want to leave your job and start a business of your own. It could be that you want to get married. In any case, are you the kind of person who makes the necessary decisions and takes the necessary action to achieve those goals, or are you someone who says, “Well, maybe this just isn’t meant to be.”
Now imagine a gauge with a big W on one side and an A on the other side. The W should be in bright red or orange, while the A should probably be a dingy green or pale yellow. That’s because the W stands for “Want,” as in “I want it now!” or “I want it real bad,” or “I want it so much I’ll do whatever it takes to get it!” The W means you’ll go to law school for five years at night while working full-time during the day because you want to be a lawyer. The W means you’ll get up at four o’clock in the morning every day to work on your novel because you want to be a writer. It means you’ll travel from one end of the country to the other many times to find a doctor who can make your child well. I know people who have done all those things because they really wanted something, and eventually they got it.
The A stands for “Apathy.” That’s where you don’t really care what happens. And if you don’t really care what happens, it’s just as well, because the outcome will not be positive.
Now we come to the last of our imaginary character gauges. On the right-hand side is the letter P, and that stands for “Promise,” and on the left-hand side is the letter F, and that stands for “Fear.” If you are a person of strong character, you will promise yourself that you will achieve your goals or…
Or what?
It doesn’t matter, because you never consider that possibility. You have made a promise and you are going to keep it. When you set out to drive to the grocery store, you don’t stop at the doorway and think, “What will I do if I don’t make it?” You have no time for fear. You simply intend to get to the grocery store. You know you are going to get there. And you will get there… it’s simply guaranteed.
* Source: Leading an Inspired Life by Jim Rohn