***Be a Chameleon: Today's Top Achievers Redefine their Goals and Themselves Every Day

During the last century, many people were able to achieve great success by chasing just one goal. Henry Ford got a lot of mileage out of his dream to sell an affordable car to every average American. H. L. Hunt, at one time the richest man in the world, drilled for oil.nnWhen you look at today’s most successful people, you see that a lot has changed. People like Steve Jobs at Apple and Jeff Bezos at Amazon.com are always pursuing new goals. Jobs, for example, has morphed from a computer maker to a developer of digital entertainment devices and Internet services.nnToday’s top achievers are chameleons who defy easy definition. But when you stop to think about it, doesn’t it make a lot of sense to reevaluate your goals often? After all, when you were starting out in life, you had a beginner’s view of the world. Now that you are on your way to success, your expanding knowledge will help you set goals that are wiser and more in step with the changes taking place in the world.nnThe problem is that for some of us, setting aside our cherished dreams can feel a lot like self-betrayal. I had a friend in college whose childhood dream was to be a physician. When he started having trouble in his pre-med classes, he had to go through an intensely painful process of finding something new to pursue. Today he is a thriving investment banker. The fact is, reinventing your goals almost always brings new accomplishments.nnLook at Martina Navratilova (http://www.tennisfame.org/enshrinees/navratilova.html). Her first big dream was to become the top woman singles player in the world. She did that with an intensity that blew opponents out of her path. Then, in her forties, she decided to reinforce her position as one of the top doubles players in the world. Most tennis players would not be able to set aside the ego gratification of being the world’s top singles player and move into doubles, which doesn’t command public admiration in quite the same way, but Navratilova did it joyfully. And when she is finished with her doubles career, I bet she will be chasing new goals, too.nnDr. Kenneth Ruge wrote a book called Where Do I Go From Here? about the challenges you face when you try to move your life in a new direction. He says that when it comes to changing goals, your own ego is usually the biggest obstacle you face. You won’t quit a dead-end job and start your own company because you are afraid of what people will say, or you won’t pursue your dream job because your old commuting friends just won’t understand why you made a life change. Ruge says you need to get past those imaginary “fear dialogues” to reach your goals. When you move toward your dreams, you will find out who your real friends are. They will be rooting for you.nnAnother important step is to consider whether the world is still waiting for you to reach the goals you have set for yourself. If you are still chasing a two-year-old dream to launch an Internet store, for example, be sure to do a market analysis to see whether the idea is still as promising as it seemed before. The world is changing fast. To keep moving toward success, you can’t be a one-note Johnny. You need to be a chameleon instead.nnIn medieval times, alchemists believed that if they threw a chameleon into a fire, it could not be harmed. (Guess they didn’t have a lot of chameleons around to experiment on.) Nonetheless, it’s an image that takes on new meaning today. People who can change, and change often, are most likely to triumph in today’s red-hot competitive world.