Goal post

“ In that period you and I will have had time to become intimate with the needs, prejudices, deficiencies, as well as with the sterling good qualities of the operative class, so as to be able to take such practical steps as lie within our scope to remedy the former, and I trust we shall be able to interest and engage others in the same work. What is wanted is to set the ball rolling, not to kick it into the goal. ”

“ Let us religiously set apart times and seasons in which to gather up the fruits of action and to experience the reactions which should follow on action. The most valuable of these fruits is just the intensified appreciation of the disparity existing between our achievements and the goal, the clearer vision of the goal, the sublimer and truer conception of it. ”

“ You stand at the goal, a winner. Does your victory intoxicate, or does it sober you with the realization that you have but opened the way to limitless fields of bigger service ahead? Has success gone to your hands and made them tingle with eagerness to grasp more chances to succeed, or has it gone to your head? ”

“ The accomplishment of your purpose now means that your experience is viewed by you as the present and conscious expression of a plan. Well, what is, precisely in so far as it is, is in the same way a whole experience finally expressing and consciously fulfilling a plan. And the Being of the real object of which you now think means a life that expresses the fulfilment of just your present plan, in the greatest measure in which your plan itself is logically capable of fulfilment. ”

“ Interest and aims, concern and purpose, are necessarily connected. Such words as aim, intent, end, emphasize the results which are wanted and striven for; they take for granted the personal attitude of solicitude and attentive eagerness. Such words as interest, affection, concern, motivation, emphasize the bearing of what is foreseen upon the individual's fortunes, and his active desire to act to secure a possible result. They take for granted the objective changes. ”

“ Put out of your mind forever any thought that you can possibly fail in reaching the goal of your longing. Set your face toward it; keep looking steadfastly in the direction of your ambition, whatever it may be; resolve never to recognize defeat, and you will by your mental attitude, your resolution, create a tremendous force for the drawing of your own to you. If you have the grit and stamina to stick, to persevere to the end, if you persistently maintain the victorious attitude toward your vision victory will crown your efforts. ”

“ Yes, for those who can blindly and without exercise of their own wills place themselves under subjection to the unknown guidance! I cannot do so!" He raised his clinched hand, but let it fall again. "Is it a crime to steer toward a definite goal, and concentrate one's will, one's responsibility upon its attainment? ”

“ Is the goal distant, and troubled the road,
And the way long?
And heavy your load?
Then gird up your courage, and say ‘I am strong,’
And keep going.
Is the work weary, and endless the grind
And petty the pay? ”

“ Regard an exercise as a means of bringing all your powers into life and unity. Let practice be a means of demonstrating your own abilities, spontaneous and deliberative activities to yourself.
2. Practice with an ideal in mind.
The accomplishment of an endeavor implies the reaching or attainment of an ideal. Practicing with no end in view accomplishes nothing. The goal must be an ideal.
There is a universal intuition in an ideal man. There is an intuition deep in ourselves of our higher possibilities. The feeling that better things are possible inspires all human endeavor. ”

“ That ambition, which, conceived in early youth, had decided my career and sweetened all its labours,—the ambition to take a rank and leave a name as one of the great pathologists to whom humanity accords a grateful, if calm, renown,—saw before it a level field and a certain goal. ”

“ How could it be otherwise? It's when you get a man trying to kick the ball through the wrong goal--and succeeding--that the trouble comes."
"Quite right," agreed Vane. "Personally I'm trying to find out what my own goal is." ”

“ Will the goal come to us, or how are we ever to reach it? Are we nearer to it to-day than ever before? Are not our minds yet made up that it is worth reaching, and that whatever does not help us towards it must be abandoned? ”

“ Whatever the goal, it is a personal goal, set by each individual for himself. It's the only kind of incentive that makes any sense. Take yourself as an example—you spend your share of Work-Equivs on additional education because you want to become a space-pilot. ”

“ Some have climbed the ladder of progress more rapidly than others, yet each in his own body is progressing step by step.
"The decisions that we make as we gradually climb back towards our goal are a determining factor in the speed of our progress. ”

“ We see the goal, and gird our loins anew for the race. Or, speaking of things minor, there is fresh prospect of the game, there is companionship in the hunt, and spirit for the winning. Such biography, too, is a mirror in which we see ourselves; and we see that we may trim or adorn, or that the plain signs of our deficient health or ill-ruled temper may set us to look for, and to use the means of improvement. ”

“ Life itself is our game. Opinions coach the active will as to how to do its deed. If the opinion is definite enough, and if the active will obeys the coach, the opinion has "workings." These workings are our intelligent deeds, which translate our opinions into new life. If our purposes are definite enough, and if the issues of life are for us sharply defined, these deeds are, with reference to our purposes, either hits or misses, either successful or unsuccessful acts, either steps toward winning or steps toward failure. ”

“ We blend our own desires and aims with that power that we know can see us through, and we work in the realization that whatever is detrimental in our plans will be eliminated as we press on towards the great goal in view. ”

“ Your next step is right where you are, in the thing you are doing to-day. The door to something better is always in the duty of the moment. The spirit in which you do your work, the energy which you throw into it, the determination with which you back up your ambition—these, no matter what opposes, are the forces that unlock the door to something better. ”

“ Watchwords by themselves, if they remain vague generalities untranslatable into new directions of effort, will fail. What is necessary is a new goal, or else a pragmatic development of past dreams into programs which awaken loyalty and hope. ”

“ I have known people to suddenly enter a new line of work, and be fully equipped, with little or no training. So make the statement: “I am fully equipped for the Divine Plan of my life,” and be fearless in grasping opportunities. ”

“ For to go along that road and indeed to reach the goal is nothing else but the will to go. But it must be a strong and single will, not staggering and swaying about this way and that--a changeable, twisting, fluctuating will, wrestling with itself while one part falls as another rises. ”

“ Everyone is supposed to have some underlying purpose, some goal in life—as Bishop Brent says, "even the loafer may be supposed to have the purpose to live as easily as possible." But we do not have to await the satisfaction of having attained this distant goal. We get more satisfaction en route from the successful completion of each of the small steps that bring us a bit nearer the goal, and count that day good in which we have taken one. ”

“ More effort, more concentration, more force applied for purpose, is the thing to strive for first. I can’t tell him how to build. That’s for him to choose.... You can build together. Each of you helping the other, each of you bringing effort, willingness, perception, force of various kinds. But first and foremost, devotion to the purpose of progress, regardless of intervening difficulties and discouragements. Habit is strong in every human force. Remember that, and watch—watch for the little masquerading devils of destruction. They are clever and subtle, and come in plausible guise. ”

“ Think you not the goal itself will gladly arrange the means for its accomplishment? It is just this same discrepancy between the purpose that has been accepted and the means as they stand now which seems to make you suffer, but which makes Heaven glad. ”

“ We have now been led to recognise that this ultimate goal is at all times near enough to be fully in view; that we are always on the verge of it, and that if we have not reached it long ago, it is because the goal itself flies before us. ”

“ This dramatic change in thought is essential to the realization of our goals. For only by placing the task of development in the arena of daily thought and action among all the people can we hope to summon up the will and the courage which that task demands. ”

“ A good aim surveys the present state of experience of pupils, and forming a tentative plan of treatment, keeps the plan constantly in view and yet modifies it as conditions develop. The aim, in short, is experimental, and hence constantly growing as it is tested in action.
(3) The aim must always represent a freeing of activities. The term end in view is suggestive, for it puts before the mind the termination or conclusion of some process. The only way in which we can define an activity is by putting before ourselves the objects in which it terminates—as one's aim in shooting is the target. ”

“ I am, therefore, but as a draughtsman, who, knowing somewhat your desires and aspirations, have drawn a plan, which you in your wisdom can modify, improve, perfect. In this I know we are of one mind, that though the ideal we all of us hold be never reached during our lives, we shall continue to work successfully for its realisation. ”

“ When a current, a general motion of men's minds, sets in toward some definite goal, then it becomes the duty of all those who are their leaders to choose the proper routes with earnestness and conscientiousness. ”

“ How can I dare to form a scheme, when I am aware that the chance of success must be so strong against me? But if you will tell me that there can be a gleam of hope, I will obey any commands that you can put upon me in any way that you may point out. ”

“ This possibility confronts all of us at the threshold of our career. Not that we are all born with like endowment nor that we all can attain it later. But we can all approach nearer our goal by keeping it constantly before us through the procession of the years. ”

“ It is not as a body that you fill the benches of this room; you are here as individuals, and it is your thoughts and convictions, your own resolute efforts to improve, and energetically to direct your labours to the attainment of the highest end that constitutes the real resource to which we have to look. ”

“ Aim is more important than achievement. Direction is more vital in determining the character of a life than progress actually made. Note the form of the exhortation, 'exercise thyself towards godliness,' which involves the same thought as is expressed in Paul's other utterance of irrepressible aspiration and effort, 'Not as if I had already attained, either were already perfect, but I follow after,' or as he had just said, 'press towards the mark,' in continual approximation to the ideal. ”

“ Men want to understand why and how their work assists towards the attainment of the goal, they want to know what they are doing, they want to understand the plan and to see their work influencing the accomplishment of the plan. ”

“ His plans have ever been well defined and carefully executed and he never stops short of the accomplishment of his purpose, for he recognizes the fact that when one avenue of opportunity seems closed he can carve out other paths which will lead to the desired goal. ”

“ But in this actual world of ours, as it is given, a part at least of the activity comes with definite direction; it comes with desire and sense of goal; it comes complicated with resistances which it overcomes or succumbs to, and with the efforts which the feeling of resistance so often provokes; and it is in complex experiences like these that the notions of distinct agents, and of passivity as opposed to activity arise. ”

“ We have latent among us the talent and genius necessary to play such a part. Do we also have the imagination, courage and daring to accept the challenge and take our post of duty in the team that is directing the expansion of our expanding universe? ”

“ I treasure the remembrance of this plan as the earliest evidence of organizing power upon the development of which my material success in life has hung—a success not to be attributed to what I have known or done myself, but to the faculty of knowing and choosing others who did know better than myself. ”

“ The action fits the agent—the exercise matches the faculty. Thenceforward what you are about does itself without your aid, but pours into your hand the treasure that rewards success, the very blossom of life. ”

“ So the object of every step in this discussion, the psychologic object of every step in leadership, is to secure better discipline and morale, more intelligent initiative, keener loyalty and better teamwork. The student must keep these objects ever in mind in both study and practice, as furnishing a purpose or guide in all that is said or done. The accomplishment of these objects is a constant inspiration to a good leader ”

“ If such grand possibilities lie within the reach of our personal actions in the world how important that we live for something every hour of our existence, and for something that is harmonious with the dignity of our present being and the grandeur of our future destiny!
A steady aim, with a strong arm, willing hands, and a resolute will, are the necessary requisites to the conflict which begins anew each day and writes upon the scroll of yesterday the actions that form one mighty column wherefrom true worth is estimated. ”