The road of life is not paved with gold. There are many set backs that can catch us off guard at times. These set backs can send us on a downward spiral of despair or they can lift us up and over the obstacles, depending upon how we choose to view them.

How do you view your set backs? Are they obstacles or are they stepping stones?

Someone once wisely said, 'Obstacles are those ugly things that appear before us when we take our minds off of our goals.'

If you don't know which road you're taking, you will never know if you have arrived. In life we must set goals in order for us to be successful. If we do not set these goals we will end up running into all kinds of obstacles and detours on our road to success.

Do you have a plan for your life? Do you know where you want to be this time next year? How about in 5 or 10 years, have you set goals for the future?

If you have not set goals for yourself you are like a man driving without a roadmap. You have no idea where you are going. Perhaps you like being in the passenger seat and just taking in the view along the way, but sooner or later you may find yourself in a place you didn't want to go.

Take a look at your life right now. You are where you are in life because of choices you have made in the past. You and you alone have bought you to the place you are right at this moment in life. Are you happy where you are? Do you have any hopes or dreams for the future? Or do you prefer to stay exactly where you are? Remember, that a rolling stone gathers no moss. If we are not moving forward we are drifting backward and we start to gather moss and deteriorate.

Hopefully, at this moment, you want to go forward in life and find all the wonderful things that life has to offer you. In order to do this you must set a goal. Pick any goal you wish. Start by thinking about where you would like to be 6 months from now. Take it a step at a time.

Once you have decided on what you would like to see in your life 6 months from now it is time to break it down into bite size pieces. Say to yourself, 'I want to be _________ in 6 months. In order to get there I must do _________________ .'

As you look down the road ahead, you can picture in your mind your goal as an achievement. In order to achieve this goal you must think about what obstacles may show up along the journey from point A to point B.

It is important that you plan what you are going to do with the obstacles that show up on the pathway. If you are prepared for them before hand they will not loom so large and you will be able to cope with them before they rear their ugly heads.

Have a plan of action. There are many roads that may lead to your desired goal. Be sure to have plan A, B and C just in case something comes along to detour you.

It is certain that obstacles will come, the question is, will you look at them as something to bring you discouragement or will you look at it as a stepping stone to help you fine tune your goal.

For every problem there is a solution. Don't let yourself become dismayed when plan A doesn't work the way you wanted it to. Try to be clear headed and look at other possibilities. Use your obstacles to bring you to a higher plane where you can see clearly where you want to go.