The Little Extra That Makes You a Winner

The first step to be taken in order to start the Plus Factor operating is to learn to be a creative dreamer. In some uncanny way that no one fully understands, they seem to contain the seeds of their own fulfillment. If you dream something long enough and hard enough, a door seems to open and through that door come mighty forces that will guide and support you in your efforts to make the dream come true.

Creative dreaming, in other words, activates the release of power that we call the Plus Factor.

Hard-nosed, practical people sometimes scoff at such a notion. To them the term dreamer implies vagueness and impracticality.

A dream vividly imagined. A goal tenaciously pursued. A faith that God will help you with a worth ambition. An unshakable determination to work and work and keep on working. These are all keys that open the door to the power that we call the Plus Factor.

Dreams are not just idle nothings. They are the parents of possibilities. Possibilities are the descendants of dreams. Without the one, these can never be the other. Dream, therefore. Dream big, dream long, dream strong. And remember…

Sometimes, the Plus Factor is only a dream away.

Let’s assume you have begun to liberate the Plus Factor in your nature by the process of creative dreaming.

Now what must you do?

You have to build a viaduct over which they can pass from the world of dreams to the world of reality.

In other words, you have to learn to set goals.

Here are five suggestions that will help you:

One: Sharpen your thinking about goal setting.
Give it some real thought. Obviously, goals range all the way from very broad life goals to small specific goals. Learn to distinguish between long-term and short-term goals. Decide how many you can handle. Be realistic about the amount of time and effort that may be necessary. The objective is worth the price. One must not drift in vague circles but use the compass of the brain, and chart a course, and follow it.

Two: Make a commitment to excellence.
Sometimes people say, “Well, I really don’t know yet what I want to do with my life.” Okay, perhaps not. But while you’re waiting for that goal to come into view, or into focus, there is nothing to stop you from choosing one supremely important goal: the determination to do everything as well as you can.

Three: Learn to distinguish between a goal and a wish.
The fairy tales we all loved as children are full of spells that bring instant happiness and charms that make dreams come true; but they are fantasy, not reality. The reason such stories have had such appeal through the ages is that they promise glowing rewards without effort. Life isn’t like that.

Four: Prepare for ultimate goals by achieving interim goals.
The principle involved here is completely logical and completely sound: The training and experience you acquire in attaining a lesser goal leaves you ready to pursue a greater one.

Five: Choose goals that will benefit others as well as yourself.
A goal that involves conce
for other people seems to liberate the Plus Factor much more readily than one that doesn’t. It’s not enough for a person entering medical school to want to be rich and successful; his or her basic goal should be the desire to help people. You’ll find it helps to have the concept of service embedded in the goal.