Setting And Achieving Goals

 • GOALS IN ACTION

When I was a sophomore in high school, I weighed 180 pounds. My brother David, a freshman, weighed a whopping 95 pounds. We were only one year apart, yet I was twice his size. But David had a mountain of a spirit and did incredible things to get to where he wanted to go. This is his story:

I will never forget when I tried out for the freshman football team at Provo High. At five feet two inches and weighing only 90 pounds, I was even smaller than the stereotypical 98-pound weakling. I couldn’t find any football equipment to fit me; it was all too big. I was issued the smallest helmet they had but still had to tape three ear pads together on each side of it to make it fit my head. I looked like a mosquito with a balloon on its head.

I used to dread football practice, especially when we had to crack heads with the sophomores. We used to line up facing each other about ten yards apart with the freshmen on one side and the sophomores on the opposite side. When coach blew the whistle, you were supposed to hit your opponent until the whistle blew again.

I used to count the players in my line to see when my turn would come up, and then count the players in the sophomore line to see who would have the privilege of teaching me how to fly. It seemed that I always ended up getting the biggest, meanest sophomore as my opponent. “I’m dead meat,” was my constant thought. I would line up, wait for the whistle, and in a moment find myself flying backwards and upwards through the air.

That winter I tried out for the wrestling team. I wrestled in the 98-pound division. Even though I weighed in with all my clothes on after eating a big meal, I still couldn’t tip the scales at 98 pounds. In fact I was the only guy on the team who didn’t have to lose weight to wrestle. My brothers thought I would be a good wrestler because, unlike football, wrestling allowed me to compete with guys about my own weight. But to make a long story short, I got pinned almost every match.

In the spring I tried out for track. But as luck would have it, I was one of the slowest guys on the team. Little wonder— you should have seen my pencil-thin legs.

One day after track workouts I just couldn’t stand it anymore. “That’s it,” I said to myself. “I am sick of this.” That night, in the privacy of my room, I wrote down some goals I wanted to achieve during high school. To be successful in my athletics, I knew I had to get bigger and stronger, so I set goals in these areas first. By my senior year I set a goal to be six feet tall, to weigh 180 pounds, and to bench-press 250 pounds. In football, I set a goal to be the starting wide receiver on the varsity football team. And in track I set a goal to be an all-state sprinter. I also envisioned myself being captain on both the football team and the track team.

A lot of nice dreams, wouldn’t you say? At that moment, however, I was staring reality in the face. All 90 pounds of it.

But I stuck with my plan from my freshman until my senior year.

Let me illustrate. As part of my weight-gaining process, I made a rule that my stomach would never be empty. So I ate constantly. Breakfast, lunch, and dinner were merely three meals in an eight-meal day. I made a secret agreement with Cary, the starting varsity linebacker for Provo High, who stood six feet three inches tall and weighed 235 pounds. He promised me that if I helped him with his Algebra II homework, he would allow me to eat lunch with him every day for weight gain and protection purposes.

I was determined to eat the same amount he ate, so each day at lunch I bought two lunches, three milks, and four rolls. We must have been a hilarious sight together! I was also taking my Gain Weight Fast protein powder along with my lunch. I would mix the sickening powder in each of my milks and nearly barfed each time I drank it.

During my sophomore year I began working out with my good friend Eddie who was also yearning to get big. He added another requirement to my food list: ten full teaspoons of straight peanut butter and three glasses of milk each night before bed. Each week we were required to gain two pounds. If we didn’t “make weight” on the official weigh-in day, we were required to eat or drink water until we did.

My mom read an article that said if a young kid slept ten hours a night in a completely dark room and drank two to three extra glasses of milk a day, he could grow one to two inches more than he normally would. I believed this and followed it rigidly. After all, I needed to reach my goal of six feet, and my dad’s height of five feet ten inches wasn't going to help me. “Dad,” I said, “I want the darkest room in the house.” I got it. Then I put towels under the door crack and over the window. No light was going to shine on me!

Next I set a sleeping timetable: I went to bed around 8:45 P.M. and got up around 7:15 A.M. This ensured me 101/2 hours of sleep. Finally, I drank all the milk I could.

I also began lifting weights, running, and catching the football. Each day I would work out at least two hours. When Eddie and I lifted at the weight room, we would check out the XL shirts in hopes that one day we would fill them. At first, I could only bench-press 75 pounds, slightly more than the bar.

As the months passed I began to see results. Small results. Slow results. But results. By the time I was a sophomore I was five feet five inches and about 120 pounds. I had grown three inches and gained 30 pounds. And I was much stronger.

Some days I felt like a lone man against the whole world. I especially hated it when people would ask me, “How come you’re so skinny? Why don’t you just eat more?” I felt like saying back, “You idiot. Do you have any idea of the price I’ve been paying?”

By my junior year I was five feet eight inches and 145 pounds. I continued with my weight-gain program, the running, the lifting, and the skill development. In my track workouts, I made it a goal never to loaf, not even for one sprint. And I never missed a practice, even when I was sick. Then suddenly the sacrifice really started paying off. I got real big, real fast. 

In fact I grew so fast that I have stretch marks across my chest, as if I was mauled by a bear.

As I approached my senior year at Provo High, I had reached my goal of becoming six feet tall and fell only five pounds short of my goal of 180 pounds. I became a starting wide receiver on the varsity football team and was also elected as a team captain.

My senior year in track was even more rewarding. Again I was selected as a team captain, became the fastest sprinter on the team, and one of the fastest sprinters in the state.

At the end of the year, weighing 180 pounds and bench-pressing 255 pounds, I was awarded “Best Body” by the senior girls of the high school, the award that I loved most of all.

I did it! I really did it! I accomplished most of the goals I had set that night in my room years ago. 

Truly, as Napoleon

Hill wrote, “Whatever the mind of man can conceive and believe, the hand of man can achieve.”

• TURNING WEAKNESSES INTO STRENGTHS

Notice how David used the five keys to goal setting. He counted the cost, he wrote them, he roped up with his friends, he set his goals during a momentous moment when he was sick of being a shrimp (sorry, lil bro), and he had the raw tenacity to “just do it.” Now, I’m not endorsing being body-centered, as David was for a period. And I can’t promise you that you can will your way into growing taller, no matter how much milk you drink. 

I’m only trying to demonstrate the power that goals can play in your life.

As David told me his story, it became clear that being a ninety-pound wimp might have been a blessing in disguise. His apparent weakness (skinny body) actually became his strength (forced him to develop discipline and perseverance). 

People who lack the native physical, social, or mental gifts they desire must fight just that much harder. And that uphill battle can produce qualities and strengths they couldn’t develop any other way. 

That is how a weakness can become a strength.

So if you’re not endowed with all the beauty, biceps, bucks, or brains that you covet—

Congratulations! You just may have the better deal. This poem by Douglas Malloch says it

well:

The tree that never had to fight

For sun and sky and air and light,

But stood out in the open plain

And always got its share of rain,

Never became a forest king

But lived and died a scrubby thing . . .

Good timber does not grow with ease,

The stronger wind, the stronger trees.

This piece of experience is taken from the novel named 'The seven habits of highly effective teens'. I loved this part as I can relate to it and it's so inspiring.