It is Thursday and I promised you yesterday that I was going to speak more about core desires today.

A core desire is more than a goal. It is an unfulfilled dream.

A long range, unfulfilled dream keeps you going throughout life. It will develop within you a passion and a very strong desire to keep going.

Have Many Dreams

It is very important that you have more than one dream.

What is going to happen when your core desire has been fulfilled? You will actually have nothing more to live for.

You need more than one dream, and more than one goal to keep you going. What you need is a long range dream, and a lower level or shorter range dream.

You don't want too many of these, otherwise you are not really going to know what you are aiming for. You can only aim at one target at a time.

One of Each Dream

It is good to only have one long range dream and another short range dream ? just one of each. You don't need anything more than that.

The long range dream will keep you going in a direction. And somewhere in between where you are now and where that long range dream or goal is, there is a shorter range one which you are going to reach.

So you are facing both of them at the same time, but in your mind you know,

I'm not going to reach the long range one yet. But in the meantime I'm going to reach this shorter range goal.

You see the long range dream must keep burning. That is what keeps you going. And when you lose that, actually that is when you lose your zest for life.

You will find very often that people who decide to retire don't live for long after that, because they have nothing more to live for.

You see you may have been dreaming all your life and saying,

It will be wonderful to one day be able to have all my time to myself - to go fishing, playing golf and doing whatever I want to do.

It is a great dream and goal to have in your mind, that one day you could wake up in the morning and do whatever you wanted to do.

That is a wonderful dream, but when that dream is fulfilled you will have nothing more to live for. You will have no more core desire and nothing more to reach for.

Well your goal might change. You might dream now of becoming a professional or famous golfer. But you see again there will be a long range goal for you to aim for. That is your core desire.

Now if you have read my teaching on Dreams, Goals, Plans and Action, then you should have had something burning inside of you while you were listening.

If you haven't done this it is available in my series 'The Way to Success'.

Write Down Your Core Desires

If you already have that teaching I want you to go and review again what I taught on Dreams, Goals, Plans and Actions. Take out a pen and paper, and write down everything that pops out.</

Write down every goal, every dream and every picture that comes to your mind even if they burned in you for many years.

I want you to write them down, and try and identify a desire that has perhaps been in you longer than anything else. It may have started back in childhood. It may have been developed during adolescence, or it may have started after you got your first job.

At some stage something took hold of you; a burning desire. I want you to find that.

If you can't find one, then think back on what used to burn in you. Perhaps you have given up on it now, because you have given up hope that you will ever reach it.

Maybe you are a bit older now. You look at some of the great desires that you had when you were younger and you say,

'I'm too old. I can't do that anymore.'

Stir Those Dreams Up

Do you want to know when you are too old to fulfill your dreams? It is when they put you in a hole in the ground and cover it up with dirt.

While you have breath in your body; and you are still a living creature in this world, you have dreams. If you will admit that to yourself you can face them and say,

I'm not afraid to dream again.

I want to encourage you to take those dreams and bring them back to life again.

But I've tried to fulfill those dreams before. I've tried to set the goals. I've attempted this many times and failed.

I Can Help

Well that is what I am here for; to try and help you fulfill your dreams. So I want you to just take those dreams and to write them down.

I don't want you to try and figure out how you are going to reach those goals. Don't try and figure out what you need to do or don't need to do, what it is going to cost or what is involved. I want you to leave that to me.

I will share more with you tomorrow.