"It is not the mountain we conquer but ourselves."

Only mediocre people are always at their best. …. Bill Russell, the legendary center for the Boston Celtics basketball team, used to keep his own personal scorecard. He graded himself after every game on a scale from one to one hundred. In his career he never achieved more than sixty-five. Now, given the way most of us are taught to think about goals, we would regard Russell as an abject failure. The poor soul played in over twelve hundred basketball games and never achieved his standard! Yet it was the striving for his standard that made him arguably the best basketball player ever.

SMART Goals Specific Motivational Attainable Relevant Trackable

Another Month Ends All Targets Met All Systems Working All Customers Satisfied All Staff Eager and Enthusiastic All Pigs Fed and Ready to fly -Entry in Weekly Schedule New Zealand Symphony Orchestra

NEW YEARS RESOLUTIONS YOU CAN KEEP Are you sick of making the same resolutions year after year that you never keep? Why not promise to do something you can actually accomplish? Here are some resolutions that you can use as a starting point: ~ Gain weight. At least 30 pounds. ~ Stop exercising. Waste of time. ~ Read less. Makes you think. ~ Watch more TV. I've been missing some good stuff. ~ Procrastinate more. Starting tomorrow. ~ Spend more time at work, surfing with the T1. ~ Take a vacation to someplace important, like to see the world's largest ball of twine. ~ Don't jump off a cliff just because everyone else did. ~ Stop bringing lunch from home--eat out more. ~ Don't have eight children at once. ~ Get in a whole NEW rut! ~ Start being superstitious. ~ Personal goal: Don't bring back disco. ~ Don't box with Mike Tyson. ~ Buy an '83 Eldorado and invest in a really loud stereo system. Get the windows tinted. Buy some fur for the dash. ~ Speak in a monotone voice and only use monosyllabic words. ~ Only wear jeans that are 2 sizes too small and use a chain or rope for a belt. ~ Spend my summer vacation in cyberspace. ~ Don't eat cloned meat. ~ Create loose ends. ~ Get more toys. ~ Get further in debt. ~ Don't believe politicians. ~ Break at least one traffic law. ~ Don't drive a motorized vehicle across thin ice. ~ Don't swim with piranhas or sharks. ~ Associate with even worse business clients. ~ Spread out priorities beyond the ability to keep track of them. ~ Wait for opportunity to knock. ~ Focus on the faults of others. ~ Mope about faults. ~ Never make New Year's resolutions again.

1 Corinthians 9:26 A Sense of Direction A woman driving through Oregon over the Cascade Range ran into a snowstorm and became very frightened. Then she peered ahead and saw a snowplow. What luck! She kept as close to the machine as she could while it removed snow from the road. At times the heavy snowfall almost cut off her view, but her faithful guide kept on leading the way. After some time, the plow stopped, and its driver got out and walked over to her car. "Lady, where are you going?" he asked. "I'm on my way to Central Oregon," she replied. "Well, you'll never get there following me! I'm plowing this parking lot!" Do you ever feel like you're moving in circles, running around aimlessly? Who are you following?

Norm Evans, all-pro tackle for the Miami Dolphins for several years, once confided, "It's really dangerous for a pro football player to get angry. In fact, that's when linemen sustain their most serious injuries." He explained, "Anger is so harmful in football that if I can get an opposing lineman or end angry at me, he will concentrate on beating me and forget to attack the quarterback—and that's my job, protecting the quarterback." Mike Fuller, fleet-footed safety and punt-return specialist for the San Diego Chargers in the late 1970s, agreed. "The wide receivers are continually trying to make us angry each time they come into our area, because they know if they can upset us emotionally, they can fool us on the next play." Bob Hutchins, former judo champion for Southern California and now a missionary in Mexico, stated, "I was just an above-average judo performer until I learned how to make my opponent angry. Then I won the championship." Like these athletes' opponents, millions of men fall into the trap of thinking you're not a man unless you get angry. However, an angry person makes poor decisions, wounds those he loves with his tongue, overreacts, disciplines too severely, and does things that calmness of thought would not otherwise permit.