Title: Achieving Impossible Goals Word Count: 708 Summary: Any one who has a goal or plan which

is slightly out of the ordinary is likely t o be given advice by a panel of 'experts'. They may well tell you that what you are planning is impossible, dangerous and even ridiculous. In some cases they co uld be right but quite often they are not. The article tries to assess how much respect we should give to the experts. Keywords: goal setting Article Body: "If the world were to blow itself up the last thing you would hear would be the voice of an expert saying it can't be done." --Peter Ustinov Don't pay too much attention to the experts. They told the Beatles that the time for a guitar group had passed! At least one of them, Paul McCartney, is still g oing strong.He played at half-time at the Superbowl in 2005. Not bad for someone whose time had passed. Stephen Hawking was diagnosed with motor neurone disease at the age of 21. He wa s given two years to live. He went on to get married and have three children and became one of the greatest theoretical physicists that the world has ever known . He is now Professor of Mathematics at Cambridge the position once held by Sir Is aac Newton. At least 40 years have passed since he was supposed to have died. Recently in the UK some mothers have been released from jail. They had spent yea rs of sheer hell in prison for allegedly killing their own children. The evidence against them provided by a leading 'expert' has been shown to be fa ulty. They are now free but their lives have probably been destroyed irreparably . The expert has not even been sacked from his job. The experts probably told Sir Ranulph Fiennes that running 7 marathons in 7 days soon after a massive heart attack was not a good idea. He did it anyway. Sir Ranulph, who was described as the world's greatest explorer in 1984 in the G uinness book of records, has the self-confidence to ignore the experts. Sir Ranulph now plans to climb Everest by the difficult route. The experts are p robably not bothering to tell him that a man with a heart condition should not t ry to pass the 'death zone' on Everest where oxygen is in short supply. Sir Ranulph is not too concerned. He believes that, If you plan meticulously and take the right person and the best kit and accept the fact that luck is an elem ent, you will do alright. Recently Anthony Smith, a 78 year old UK pensioner, has asked for three voluntee rs over the age of 65, to accompany him on a raft made of gas pipes across the A

tlantic. Two of the gas pipes will be sealed full of air to provide buoyancy and the othe rs will be filled with water for drinking and washing. A woman of 24 volunteered for the voyage, despite the request for male applicant s over 65. Her application was reluctantly rejected. Anthony may or may not succeed but he has probably already had a boat load of ex perts telling him not to set sail. I have a feeling they may be right in this ca se! I, for one, will not be volunteering to accompany him. Like Nelson, I suffer bad ly from sea sickness and can't swim too well! An expert told me, many years ago, that I was making a fuss after I had a minor operation on my toe. I was in severe pain for two or three days. My mother did n ot believe the expert's assessment and eventually removed the bandage. My toe wa s black with gangrene. The bandage, put on by another 'expert', had been too tight. I could have lost b oth my leg and my life if my mother had paid too much respect to the experts. Frank Garon, the internet guru and philosopher, makes the key point that there a re more than enough experts and critics to go around. We don't need to become ou r own critic. "The rest of the world will do the job, of trying to shoot you down, for you. Yo u don't need to do it yourself. You have to be your own cheerleader and your own biggest fan. Not your biggest enemy, and my fear is that maybe you don't cheer yourself on enough or give yourself enough credit or enough of a chance." Obviously one should at least listen to the experts. Many of them do know what t hey are doing and could save your life or your money. After all, an expert, Dr. Mike Stroud, accompanied Ranulph Fiennes on his marath on runs and great polar expeditions. However, we should not automatically assume that experts are always right. Some of them are spectacularly wrong.