Set a Goal for a Happy Fathers Day!
Father's Day is coming! For those of you living outside the United States, that may not be a special day, but June 15 is Father's Day in the United States. This is simply a day we designate to honor fathers for the contributions they make to their families and society. We celebrated Mother's Day on May 11 for a similar reason. So, to all of you fathers out there, Happy Father's Day! (And, to those of you looking for a Father's Day gift for someone, I'll give you a suggestion for a free gift at the end of this post!) I want to take the occasion of Father's Day to share a little about my Father. He is in heaven now, but he left many memories with those he left behind; and he left the legacy of a strong, loving, and loved, family. That's pretty strong tribute just by itself. But there's more, and that's the topic of this post. My dad was a dairy farmer. He never talked a lot about goals and how to achieve them, but he taught me related truths anyway. First, I learned from little on up the law of sowing and reaping. Are you familiar with that one? Simply, you reap WHAT you sow AFTER you sow it! Reaping a crop is an example of delayed gratification. First, you work hard preparing the soil for the planting. Then, you plant, cultivate, and nurture the crop as it's growing. Later…months later…you reap the crop. You can't plant it today and expect to reap tomorrow. It doesn't work that way! This is an important concept to remember as we are working to achieve our goals. We will reap WHAT we sow. In other words, we can't sow careless financial habits and expect to reap the rewards of good financial habits. Also, we reap AFTER we sow. Thinking of finances again, we may need to work our financial plan for many years to achieve the financial result we desire. That result is the goal. We have to work the plan for as long as it takes to achieve it! The second important lesson I learned from my dad is to never quit. Don't ever give up! My dad was not some huge financial success owning half the county and getting rich from his efforts. Indeed, I saw him suffer more than one significant setback, financial, physical, and health. But I never saw him quit. He would never just give up and expect someone else to take care of him. Sometimes he had to change the plan he was following, but he always kept going. That's another life lesson to apply to your goal achievement process. Try, fail, adjust, but don't quit! So, there are your two life lessons. You'll harvest what you sow after you sow it, and never quit! Happy Father's Day!