In motorcycle training you are taught that, when rounding a corner, you should stare at the point ahead in the road where you want the bike to go. Do not stare at the tree or other object off to the side of the road you are trying to avoid. One tends to end up where one is looking. It’s like focusing on the object literally with one’s eyes makes it loom larger in the mind’s eye as well – as though whatever we look at becomes stronger, as if the object feeds off the rays of our stare the same way a plant grows in the sun’s blinking warmth.

The man who oversaw the massive public project of constructing the first subway line in Manhattan, which was done all at once instead of one station at a time, was only 35 years old at the time. After it was completed he said, if he had known how hard it was going to be, how many hurdles and missteps he would have to overcome, he never would have agreed to do it.

In the beautiful documentary A Man Named Pearl, a self-taught horticulturalist, Pearl Fryar, has created a 3-acre Eden of fantastic topiaries out of thrown-out plants, including trees that, according to the experts, should not even be able to grow in that part of the country. In the face of this fact, Pearl replies, “Well, nobody told me I couldn’t grow them here.”

As economic times grow more difficult for many, it is easy to see how the creeping rust of self-doubt can begin to gain a toehold; understandable when one’s vision begins to drift from the brass ring to the yawning chasm. We all know what happens next in that movie. Like they always say, “Don’t look down!”

People that achieve great things have at least one thing in common – they focus on their objectives, not on the hurdles in their way. It would be beneficial to keep in mind the positive vision of what we hope to achieve, that which we wish to come to pass, no matter how much more out of reach it may seem temporarily. Envision the best possible outcome, like the ski racer that runs the course perfectly in their mind before even entering the gate, and you’re almost already there. The first victory happens in the mind.