Interesting!

Notwithstandingly, entrepreneur and founder of the Success Motivation Institute in Waco, TX, USA, gave a nice and apt definition, back in the late sixties (but I encountered his great work back in the late seventies, when I participated in his pretty expensive Dynamics of Goal Setting program):

"Success is a progressive realization of worthwhile, predetermined personal goals."

In retrospect, when I am reviewing my own journey on the Highway of Life for the last seven decades, I am indebted to Dr Maltz and his Pyscho-Cybernetics classic, and of course to other giants before me, for spurring my relentless quest for developing personal mastery, starting back in the late seventies.

One area, which I have had already written quite substantially here is opportunity sensing.

The other area is goal striving.

As I have had already mentioned earlier, my first encounter in the late seventies, was entrepreneur Paul J Meyer's Dynamics of Goal Setting program, which gave me the requisite skillsets, toolsets, actionsets and mindsets to get the ball roling.

In the ensuing years, as a professional in the corporate world (where I have had hung out for almost a quarter of a century), I was introduced to what folks called strategic visionising, and later on, scenario planning, which gave me another eye-opening dimension about goal striving, which corporate folks applied in creating a positive vision of the future, in an organisational setting.

More interestingly, they have duly empowered and facilitated my departure from the corporate world in the early nineties with  subsequent venture into following my own bliss, by setting up three small entrepreneurial outfits.

Without goal striving, both at the personal, professional and organisational level, I would not have come this far, in terms of personal success achievement.

I am now retyred (not a typo, just a novel way to express a new spin for me), enjoying the rustic laissez faire lifestyle in Vietnam, also a foodie paradise, where I have had relocated from Singapore more than a decade ago.

I have had always been fascinated by the idea of goal striving, especially after having read Dr Maxwell Maltz's Psycho-Cybernetics classic, following my particiation in the Dynamics of Goal Setting program from Success Motivation Institute, Waco, TX, in the late seventies.

Here's a specific passage from the book about Dr Viktor Frankl, which intrigued me, but didn't strike me as much when I first read it:

"Viktor Frankl, dintinguished Austrian psychologist and author of Man's Search for Meaning, survived three years of imprisonment in Aushwitz, Dachau and other concentration camps during World War II.

Although he witnessed massive suffering, death and destruction, Frankl stated that one in twenty prisoners actually survived these death camps, and the primary reason for many of these survivors was their continued purpiose ffor existence.

These surviving prisoners set goals to either see their families again, fulfill a previous mission, or live long enough to inform the world of the atrocities of war. It was these goals that helped keep them alive, while others without a purpose for their continued survival, perished."

I must admit that I actually didn't understand this particular passage very well, or rather its significant implications, until I have had the wonderful opportunity to read Dr Frankl's book,  and also after a planned visit to the remnant of the Auschwitz concentration camp in Poland, as part of my holidays across Eastern Europe with my late wife Catherine, in the late eighties.

I thus remember vividly this elegant quote from Dr Frankl:

“Life can be pulled by goals just as surely as it can be pushed by drives.”

I fully concur with the concept that setting goals is a key element of becoming successful. They help us to work effectively and methodically, and they also help us to manage our tasks and priorities.

From my own experiences, it is best to also set short-term goals rather than just long-term goals, as these will help us to work towards our long-term goals, and keep us motivated as we will have small wins and mini-achievements along the way.

In retrospect, this has had been one of my best life lessons.

UNDERSTANDING THE POWER OF GOAL STRIVING:

Looking back at my own life, after having traversed the Highway of Life for more than seven decades, I like to say that, I can relate very well to these astute observations of Dr Maxwell Maltz.

Back in the mid seventies, when I was promoted to manager of a division, I was then only 27 years old.

My first investment into personal development was the facilitated 'Dynamics of Goal Setting' program from the Singapore distributor of Success Motivation Institute of Waco, TX, USA.

I remember vividly it was pretty expensive, and I even had to get a finance company loan for one year to pay for it.

The author of the program, Paul J Meyer, gave me the best definition for success:

Success is the progressive realization of predetermined, worthwhile, personal goals.

Nonetheless, that investment somehow spurred my nascent foray into acquiring more skillsets, toolsets, actionsets and mindsets about developing personal mastery.

Naturally along the way, I bumped into great motivational writings, among which 'PsychoCybernetics' by Dr Maltz, 'Law of Success' and 'Think & Grow Rich', both by Napoleon Hill, were most impactful.

As I progressed along the growth trajectory of my professional career tracking in the corporate world, attendant exposures to strategic visionising or planning, vision building, contingency planning, scenario planning, just to name a few, became part and parcel of my knowledge acquisition and management.

One thing that really stood out, as a common denominator in whatever I have had gained within almost a quarter of a century of my professional life, is the relevant core issue of goal setting and goal achieving, in both corporate/business and personal settings.

In the corporate world, having goals is always expressed as the power of having a positive vision of the future.

Drawing intellectual cues from author-filmmaker-futurist Joel Arthur Barker, having a positive vision of the future is the most forceful motivator for change — for success — that companies, schools, communities, nations, and individuals possess.

To cut to the chase, Dr Maltz was far ahead of his time, and I am glad to be able to have the wonderful opportunity to have read his writings, as well as others.

QUEST FOR DEVELOPING PERSONAL MASTERY:

In retrospect, when I am reviewing my own journey on the Highway of Life, I am indebted to Dr Maltz and his Pyscho-Cybernetics classic, and of course to other giants before me, for spurring my relentless quest for developing personal mastery, starting back in the late seventies.

One area, which I have had already written quite substantially here is opportunity sensing.

The other area is goal striving.

As I have had already mentioned earlier, my first encounter in the late seventies, was entrepreneur Paul J Meyer's Dynamics of Goal Setting program, which gave me the requisite skillsets, toolsets, actionsets and mindsets to get the ball roling.

In the ensuing years, as a professional in the corporate world (where I have had hung out for almost a quarter of a century), I was introduced to what folks called strategic visionising, and later on, scenario planning, which gave me another eye-opening dimension about goal striving, which corporate folks applied in creating a positive vision of the future, in an organisational setting.

More interestingly, they have duly empowered and facilitated my subsequent venture into following my own bliss, by setting up three small entrepreneurial outfits, after leaving the corporate world in the early nineties.

Without goal striving, both at the personal, professional and organisational level, I would not have come this far, in terms of personal success achievements.

I am now retyred (not a typo, just a novel way to express a new spin for me), enjoying the rustic laissez faire lifestyle in Vietnam, also a foodie paradise, where I have had relocated from Singapore more than a decade ago.

UNDERSTANDING THE DYNAMICS OF GOAL SETTING

These astute observations plus the Million Dollar Personal Success Plan by entrepreneur Paul J Meyer, who founded the Success Motivation Instituite, Waco, TX, actually represented my nascent journey into developing personal mastery, while participating in their Dynamics of Goal Setting program, back in the late seventies.

I was then a young manager, in the late twenties, working in a large German firm in Singapore. I was also just promoted from the position of an engineering executive.

It was from this point of my life that I came to know Dr Maxwell Maltz and his Psycho-Cybernetics classic.

Around the same time, I then got involved in reading up Napoleon Hill's work, particularly his Law of Success and Think & Grow Rich, among other popular success literature, mainly from the United States, during that era.

In retrospect, all of them started my deep personal interest in pursuing personal excellence.

Without the valuable lesson takeaways from all of them, the insightful knowledge acquisitions from further participation in numerous workshops, and the exchange of ideas and insights with myriad like-minded professionals along the way, I wouldn't have survived and sustained the almost quarter of a century in the corporate world and another 15 years of running my own business.

In particular, from the personal development angle, Paul J Meyer, Dr Maxwell Marlz, Napoleon Hill, Og Mandino, David Schwartz, Dale Carnegie, Earl Nightingale, Jim Rohn, Dr Win Wenger, Tony Robbins, just to name a few, had been tremendously great influences.

From the professional development angle, there were far more notable influences, and I would just name Dudley Lynch and Paul Kordis, for their published writings, especially their Strategy of the Dolphin and Code of the Monarch, were among the first to initiate my intellectual foray.

I must admit, though, that one quintessential common thing really stood out among all of them: the imperativeness and urgency of goal striving and the power of the human mind in creating success.

Suffice to say, it has had been a very long ride, with fond memories and sweet reminiscences, indeed.