Don't let the goal be too far awayZhang Baotong 2019.2.28

If I had to run a 5,000 kilometre, I would have to finish it with all my might. But if you ask me to run 10,000 meters at once, I'm going to wave my hands and say, "No, I can't go that far." "Because I've never run this far before. It's a distance that can be daunting to me.

Just like three years ago, when the editor of the "Life Essays" column at the starting point asked me to sign a contract, the number of words for "Poetic Emotion" was set at 300,000 words. I was taken aback by hearing this number. 300,000 words! That's at least a long length. But the longest I've ever written is only 50,000 or 60,000 words. Moreover, life essays should be written one by one, and they should be written as excitingly as possible, and the essays should not be too long. So, I said to the editor, "No, I'm afraid I won't be able to write that much." "I just reported 100,000 words. However, the editor said that 100,000 words was too little, so he set me 200,000 words. However, I kept writing an article of more than 2,000 words a day, and after three years, I have now written more than 2.5 million words.

Only when a person sees the goal can he weigh whether he has the ability to achieve it. If he doesn't see his goal at all, he will easily lose confidence.

Florence Chadwick was the first woman to swim across the English Channel from both directions. Now, at the age of 34, she wants to be the first woman to swim from Catalina Island to the shores of California. On the morning of July 4, 1952, she set off from Catarina Island and swam toward the coast of California. The fog was so thick that she couldn't even see the lifeboat not far away. The water is cold, and sharks swim around constantly, and they can only be driven away by rifles. She swam hour by hour, and countless viewers sat in front of the television and watched her. However, she could not see anything except in front of her. She's been swimming for almost 16 hours, and she's numb. Her mother and coach constantly encouraged her, telling her that the shore was coming soon, encouraging her not to give up. However, when she was only half a mile away from her destination, she asked the lifeguards to drag her out of the water. A few hours later, while warming herself, she told reporters, "If I could see the land, I would have succeeded." "The reason for her failure this time was not because of fatigue and icy water, but because of the fog, which made it impossible for her to see her goal at all. Two months later, she tried swimming again. This time, even though the fog was still so thick, she always carried the belief that she would win. She knew that somewhere behind the fog was land. This time she succeeded! She eventually became the first woman to swim across the Cadarina Strait, breaking the record for a man swimming across the Strait in almost two hours.

It is often said that those who have a goal are running, and those who have no goal are sleeping. The goal is a lighthouse in the sea, guiding the ship through the confusion and towards the other shore. Purpose not only allows us to see the direction, but also allows us to see the mission. Only when we have lofty goals in life can we have lofty ideals and dreams. This goal is like the end of a long march, which needs to be accomplished step by step.

How difficult it is to go through a long march of 10,000 miles to reach the goal. To do this, we must divide this goal into several phases and milestones. Every time we reach a new stage and a milestone, there is a sense of accomplishment and joy. This will give us confidence and hope to achieve our goals. Don't underestimate faith and hope. Many of our unsuccessful lives are due to a lack of faith and hope, and we give up attachment and perseverance prematurely. Just like Florence Chadwick swam across the Strait of Cadarina for the first time, if she could see the opposite coast, she would not give up and give up halfway.

We need to learn the lessons of Florence Chadwick's first failed swim across the Strait of Cadarina. When setting a big goal, learn to divide the big goal into a number of smaller goals. As long as we have confidence, full of hope, and perseverance, the realization of the big goal will not be far away, just around the corner, and we will not lose confidence because we can't see the goal.