Ready, Fire, Aim....

A lot of life's greatest lessons I learned from dad while hunting. "Don't even place your finger on the trigger until you have the deer in your sites." This makes sense to anyone whether you're a hunter or not. In fact if you asked 100 people if you should squeeze the trigger before sighting your target you'd get at least 99 who would say that wouldn't be smart (the other person is just a smart ass!). Ready, fire, aim is just not smart. It's dangerous. It means you're reckless. You will never hit your target. You're wasting time and ammunition.

Life holds the same lesson. We have a problem with taking actions before we actually have a target. What do we want to hit in life. What are our dreams and aspirations?

Step 1 - Pick a target -The chances of our hitting a target (goal, dream, aspiration) are infinitely better if we are looking at the target. You need to know what you are hunting for. Close your eyes and try to imagine what your ideal life would be. it's different for everyone. However everyone knows what their own ideas are. What kind of person do you want to be, where do you want to live, do you want to be married......?? Answer these questions and you have taken the first steps to identifying your target.

Step 2 - Aim at the Target - Know exactly what you want in life and make that the focal point in everything that you do. In the movie "The Patriot" Mel Gibson tells one of  his sons when aiming a gun to "aim small, miss small." What a great lesson. Pick the smallest, most defined target to aim at. Even if you are off of the mark a little bit you'll still hit the target. If you don't aim at the target you'll probably miss 100% of the time.

Step 3 - Pull the Trigger - We all have the best intentions in the world. Tha why God loves everyone because he knows that each of us have in us good intentions. "However just because you want to do something doesn't make it happen." That's another saying I learned from dad. Until we take action nothing gets done. You can have the highest goals in the world. People can say "oh that boy has the highest dreams." But you have to take action! The gun doesn't do the killing. The bullet has to leave the gun.

In life you should be Ready
                               Then Aim
                                And then, Fire