episode 08. HAVING GOALS, AMBITIONS and DREAMS

who do we follow? thelawdsway

Georgie | Alex | Drew

In this post, I am going to talk about having goals, ambitions, and dreams through three very short stories I have made. These stories will focus on three different individuals who had discovered the meaning of having goals, ambitions and dreams that will provide a message that I would like for you to take on board.

GEORGIE

Hey, my name is Georgie. I’ve been in this process called life for a while now, 73 years of age and I’ve learnt many things as each year went by.

I want to talk to you about having goals.

You see by my age; it may be safe to assume that I’ve had a lot of them. Many were unsuccessful but I had a great run with the few that I made into a reality. I want to focus on a key goal I was able to attain which was buying my home that I’ve fortunately been able to have seen 4 generations being brought up in, so far, let’s keep faith alive! So, buying a home- man, what an achievement. To be real, this goal took a long time to achieve, and I think the reason for this was because of my lack of knowledge of buying a home. You don’t get taught about paying mortgages, renting homes, tax, bills, and the like at school. I had to learn all of this online and obviously with the help of family, friends and the organisations that work in these sectors.

If anyone told you buying a home was simple, they were wrong! I say this because there’s a difference between buying a house and a home. And my goal was to buy a home. Somewhere that my family would call their place of peace, their place of growth, their place of love. There were so many residences I saw whilst house shopping, but I just knew that they weren’t the one, they weren’t my home. The pressure started building as the years went by and we still hadn’t settled down. We initially had a time budget of when we were supposed to find and move into the home to not cause that big of a disruption to the kids daily lives, but I didn’t want to rush in this process as I knew I’d regret doing so in the future.

Lo and behold, my partner and I bought our family home in 1983 at 39 and 35 years old.

I know this age may seem a bit too old in the current social lifestyle, but I still achieved my goal. Yes, it may have taken some time, 10 years of searching and saving up to be exact, but we did it. The goals you set out to achieve within your lifetime are achievable. You have got to have the tenacity to stay driven and stay working on it so you can see it go from being a plan to reality. You may achieve said goal in a year, you may achieve in 5 years, but the matter of the fact is that you achieved it.

Don’t give up.

I nearly did at times but look at the reward of the determination that saw me through this process. You can either stay working for x years on your goal and by the end of the final year you finish it with a completed goal, or you can spend x years just living and having unticked goals still written in your plan. Choose which route you decide to take wisely. Your relationship with your goals has to be genuine and real. It’s the only way you can ever see it through and show the world and most importantly yourself that you made it: because you will.

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ALEX

Hi, I’m Alex. I’m 12 years old and just finished my final day of primary school and I can’t wait to now enjoy my summer holiday!

Grandpa and Grandma are taking me, Sammy my little sister, and Doro our labradoodle up to Durdle Door Holiday Park! This is going to be a core memory of mine for sure. See, we’ve been planning this trip for a while now, and it’s all the more exciting after listening to Grandpa and Grandma’s stories from when they were young and would camp in this place with their friends. Every Sunday for the past 3 months this has been the point of discussion around the family table as we dug into our Sunday roast dinner and now it’s finally time to pack up our things and go!

I’m also excited because I’ve always been a fan of outdoor activities. Ask mum and dad, all our family trips have been camping and/or road trips, my whole family, even extended has this tradition to travel up to Devon for the Christmas holidays so we can spend time in the countryside. I especially love these road trips as we get to visit so many different farms! I love animals- sheep are my favourite! We’ve had this tradition since I was 5 years old and every time, we have to leave Devon after the holidays have ended, I do get sad because I know I will miss all the farm animals that I got to see. This is to the point where, and you can ask my family on this, whenever we get back home, I’m always saying that I’m going to be a farmer when I grow up.

Get paid doing what you love- what a treat!

Money doesn’t matter to me though; I’ll just be happy knowing that I get to wake up every day on a farm looking after the animals. I really feel that this is my ambition in life. Who knows what the future may hold but I’m choosing to focus on the present and right now, I know that this is what I want to aspire to become.

Do you do the same or do you worry about the future?

I think that the present is a beautiful thing, it’s literally a gift that life has given us. Normally, relationships with gifts are you showing appreciation, gratitude not only of you receiving this gift but also to what or who gave you the gift. The gift of present was given to you by life.

Literally.

My present gift is my ambition to become a farmer. I mean it’s all I’ve basically known since I was 5! And that’s the first step- figuring out what you want to do in life. My desire to become a farmer is so strong, I even use my spare time to research more about farm life, reading children books about it, talking to my family about it and this all plays a part in having an ambition. I’m taking the time to build up my knowledge and through this, it’s motivating me more and more to pursue and accomplish my ambitions. You know, not many people like to take the time to listen to the words of the youth because they say that we haven’t lived long enough to acquire much wisdom. Take it from me, having an ambition is crucial in this process of life. Do your research, create some life experiences, have open conversations. These all add to your ability to learn more about yourself and what you desire to achieve in life: what you are ambitious to achieve in life.

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DREW

Hello, Drew here! Huh. I’m not going to lie; I’ve been going through some things.

Being publicly known can take a toll on you, especially on your mental state. The internet is a scary place, and no one can tell me anything different. It’s not even hugely because of the internet that my mental health has been affected recently, but more due to the people that come up to me and have conversations that always leave me feeling low.

I live in a small town called Popwick Rye where everybody knows everybody and the type of employment that is accepted to be seen as hard working are the typical manual labour jobs. So, obviously me being so open about being a social media influencer was frowned upon. I’ve been called it all: lazy, useless, rip off, unsuccessful, stupid, failure, a mistake. Honestly, the people and their intentions with speaking these words over me doesn’t faze me at all, what fazes me is the reason why they feel they have the right to say all these words is because of my age.

I’m 35 years old.

In their eyes, I haven’t succeeded in life because I am not married, I don’t have kids, instead of being and having those things in a nice home, I live in a small apartment. I film content all day instead of working their stereotypical manual labour job and my monthly income isn’t at a set rate, some months are better than others. Because I’ve reached this age and I have not fit their status quo, they see my life as being unfulfilled. They expect me to be another individual who spends their whole life living and fulfilling the town’s dream. I seem to not have the ability to figure out my own dreams to work on and see through. That’s the norm and that is where the issue originates from. Now, put aside my environment, my material and personal characteristics and let’s just focus on my age, my social status, and my dream.

From my perspective, I’m making it, I’m becoming a somebody.

From society’s perspective, I’m becoming an anomaly.

Why do we pressurise each other so much that if we’re not at a certain stage by a certain age, the time is up and there is no other way that we can still become successful? The comparisons are too much! And don’t get me started on the failed acknowledgements that we receive from others on our small wins, that unbeknoweth to them, they are leading us to reach our dreams. There’s literally someone out there with their big dream being able to see another day. They are battling with this prospect and from the outskirts you check them and see that they are not living up to your so-called standards of what their dream should be. So, you immediately assume that they will and are becoming nothing.

It’s so wrong to have this mindset.

Rather, we need to take better care in understanding that dreams are a relationship between an individual and their mind, heart, body, and soul. Somebody’s dream may not entirely agree with your mindset and even though it doesn’t, we are not in the capacity to bash others about their dreams. Now, we can offer home truths to push them to do more, and become more, but these truths should not be seen for you to think that you can take control over their mind and build their life into fulfilling a dream of your own that you never saw through. Dreams require belief, encouragement, determination, being able to become an actuality and perseverance.

Remember that.

***as a disclaimer, please note that this is a work of fiction so any similarity to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events, is purely coincidental. Just to note that even though Durdle Door Holiday Park and Devon are in fact actual places, the whole of Alex’s story is completely a work of fiction***

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BIBLICAL REFERENCE

Philippians 3:12 CSB Not that I have already reached the goal or am already perfect, but I make every effort to take hold of it because I also have been taken hold of by Christ Jesus.

1st Corinthians 12:31 CSB But desire the greater gifts. And I will show you an even better way.

Psalms 37:4 CSB Take delight in the Lord, and He will give you your heart’s desires.

I chose to have the discussion for this post from a philosophical viewpoint. The simplest definition of philosophy is acquiring the love for wisdom where individuals seek to understand the core truths about themselves, the world and their relationship with the world and others. I think this definition plays a key part in being able to know what it means to have goals, ambitions, and dreams and hopefully, this knowledge that I have found will be able to speak to you today and to act as a word of encouragement towards your growth. Whilst this choice of a philosophical viewpoint helped curate the messages from this post, it goes without saying that the gifts of goals, ambitions and dreams stems from God. Without God, we don’t know the full extent of the plan for our lives, the path to our destiny and it is through Him that we access the visions He has in store for us to help us reach and achieve the goals, ambitions and dreams we have for our lives. Go to Him, seek for Him to show us His plans over our goals, ambitions and dreams- not only how He will perfect it for us but how He will prepare for us to be ready to receive them.

Remember, Trust in the Lord, Love like the Lord and Walk with the Lord. TLW

who do we follow? thelawdsway