The Tribune

We hear often the old cliché about shooting for the moon and reaching for the stars but the degree to which people are actually aiming that high is another story.

In fact, as we leave behind our formative years and settle into the routines of making a living, many of us stop reaching. We stop learning, stop growing and somewhere deep inside we probably stop believing in ourselves. Sticking with the status quo soon becomes as good as it gets.

The great Italian painter, sculptor and architect, Michelangelo Buonarroti said “The greater danger for most of us lies not in setting our aim too high and falling short; but in setting our aim too low, and achieving our mark.”

Indeed, aiming too low is a sad but true indictment on many. Living without any meaningful goal or direction produces much frustration. If you don’t know what you really want for your life, it becomes very difficult to know when you get it. What is always true is that no specific aim produces no specific results.

Since you are living in an active universe, you must be intentional in what you choose. When you don’t set your high aim, you end up living a life of aimlessness. As James Allen said: “Aimlessness is a vice. Such drifting must not continue for he who would avoid catastrophe and destruction.”

The challenge is getting beyond the habit of drifting through life. An empowered lifestyle demands setting high aim for your life; rather than settling for the breadcrumbs of fear and uncertainty.

The point here is a life of drifting leads to living in doubt. Waking up to a new day only to relive yesterday’s fears is not empowered living. You must set higher aim for your life. This is not a small thing. Your life’s greatest task is to not just aim but to aim high.

Having high aim is a great motivation. It takes you beyond maintaining the status quo. It’s a personal power that liberates you; giving yourself the freedom from mental and emotional slavery.

Aiming high inspires big thinking. It helps you to elevate yourself out of the same old same old routine. You can live a more meaningful life; knowing where you are going and why you going in that direction.

When it comes to your life, you set the course. The winds of life can only take you in the direction that you are aiming to go. As you contemplate today’s question, look at your life from a larger perspective. Think bigger about yourself, your personal power and capacity to manifest a larger life. Know that you cannot hold high aim if you are thinking small. You must change your thinking before you can change your life.

Leader to leader - get to work on setting high aim for your life. Setting higher aim will get you fired up to live an empowered life.

• Michelle M Miller is a certified Life-Coach, Leadership Expert, and host of the radio programme Men & The e-Factor. Questions or comments can be sent to email coaching242@yahoo.com or telephone 429-6770 or visit www.michellemmiller.com or snail mail to PO Box CB-13060