I make the case for setting goals. Instead of allowing yourself to be blown in any direction like a weather vane. Setting and reaching towards goals if you ask me is one way to have joy and contentment in life.

It’s possible that a person can be truly happy watching TV all day every day for the rest of their lives. I’m not that person. I’m not going to judge a person who watches TV all day. I’m not going to judge a consumer who is insecure about their abilities in relation to people they think are superstars who have it easy.

This is my point exactly: life isn’t easy. Life can be hard at times. Life is hard for everyone even if they don’t let it show. Taking control by setting goals to work toward gives our lives a purpose and a power greater than our pain.

If you ask me there’s a benefit in “picking the brains” of successful people to see how they did it so that maybe we can learn from them and create our own success in our own way.

The point is that we don’t have to copy that person exactly. We can take ideas and translate them into our own mode.

One example is that I tear out fashion advertisements from magazines and insert them in a fashion binder. I won’t be able to replicate the exact look yet when I go in my closet I can create a similar look or mood with clothes I already own.

In this way too we can fashion a lifestyle that works for us. The Aveeno skincare advertisement tells us: “The best way to predict the future is to create it.”

This is what I’m saying: we can create a better life for ourselves when we take action every day in the direction of our dreams. That’s goal-setting in its simplest form. It can start by writing down a To-Do List–the simplest form of setting a one-day goal.

I wrote about goal setting at HealthCentral years ago. I’m no longer the HealthGuide there so I won’t link to those news articles. I will continue in here to pick up where I left off there.

Tennis champ Serena Williams I’ll quote here again:

“You have to believe in yourself when no one else does. That makes you a winner right there.”

Like I said it’s possible to start out with the mindset that you can achieve a goal instead of talking yourself out of doing something.

I believe it’s possible to have a full and robust life. I believe that people diagnosed with schizophrenia bipolar and other mental illnesses have the potential to create a better life for ourselves.

I’ll end here by saying that tearing pictures out of magazines is a great way to begin. If you want to move into your own apartment post where you can see it every day a photo of an apartment from an interior design magazine.

Creating a vision board is another way to visualize your goals. I’ll talk about this next.

I see things differently.

As the prelude to talking about careers I want to limn the number-one secret to success in recovery and in life: getting mentally strong and engaging in goal-seeking behavior.

I wanted to talk about this after listening to the end of an interview with Amy Morin, LCSW on the radio. She said that mentally strong people refrain from talking about what they can’t do.

The interviewer asked her if this stigmatizes people with mental illnesses. The therapist said “No” because everyone living on earth has potential. Morin referenced Marla Runyan, the legally-blind athlete who competed in and won races in track and field. From Wikipedia:

“Marla Runyan…is a three-time national champion in the women’s 5000 metres.”

Do you really want to compare yourself to other people? Being jealous of other people is not the way to live our lives. We shouldn’t compare ourselves to ordinary, average people because to do that would be lowering our expectation of ourselves to conform to people who aren’t driven to excel.

Think about it: we’re capable on our own of doing great things and setting the world on fire. You and I have it going on in our own way. Other people who are content not to strive to have a better life shouldn’t be our benchmark.

No one else holds us back: only ourselves. I make the case for setting our sights higher and dreaming bigger and setting challenging goals.

To this end in here I’m going to talk about setting goals in the next blog entry.

My secret is simple. Instead of telling myself “That’s impossible!” or “I won’t be able to do that!” my first automatic response is “How can I make this happen if I really want it?”

I urge readers to take up this question: “How can I make this happen?”

Imagine: a woman who was blind competed and won in track and field.

I’m sending this blog entry through one day early because I will be going to sell copies of Left of the Dial soon.

This is where I differ: my stance is that we should demand excellence: from ourselves, from our treatment providers, and from others in society in how they treat us.

Each of us has the choice: the free will to decide what we want to do and how we want to live.

I make the case though for striving to bring your A Game to the challenges you face.

We don’t have to do well everything we do. Yet doing well what’s important and what we value doing well can boost our confidence.

It’s not always easy to feel good when we’ve made a mistake or not performed well. Yet learning from a mistake and giving ourselves a pat on the back for trying is what will give us the confidence to try again.

My contention is: for too long people with disabilities were discouraged from setting goals and achieving them like other people in society do routinely. Other people take for granted going to school to get a degree and having a job and living in their own homes.

Now is the time for individuals living with chronic conditions to act like we’re hot shit. Demanding excellence signals to other people that we won’t accept being kicked to the gutter while others enter the banquet hall and feast at the table.

It’s a choice. I realize a lot of people are perfectly content to have an ordinary average life.

I’m simply giving out another possible option: setting our sights higher for what we can do and how we expect others to treat us.

I’m all for demanding excellence.