As Aristotle famously said: "To thine own self be true." Your thoughts and beliefs are the key to unlocking your true potential. This is because your thoughts affect what you do and what you do affects the people around you, who then reflect that back onto themselves. This cycle creates a powerful momentum- if you constantly challenge your negative thoughts by replacing them with positive ones, eventually they will take over. It's all about not being afraid to risk- because it's only in taking risks that we can truly find success.
The title of the article is "Action Achieves Goals." First, let's take a look at some definitions to understand what Aristotle means by this phrase.
The word action is defined as :
: the motion, condition, or fact of acting or of exerting power : activity (Merriam-Webster)
This definition can be substituted for any other form of the verb "to act." For example: "the motion of moving" and "the condition of moving" and "the fact of exerting power" can all be substituted. This demonstrates that Aristotle believes that action is important because it is what allows an individual to carry out a goal and achieve it.
Now we can see what Aristotle means by his phrase: "to thine own self be true." We have seen that action is required to achieve goals. But what are goals?
The word goal is defined as :
: the end toward which a person or thing strives : the objective sought in an effort (Merriam-Webster)
As you can see, a goal must have some form of end towards which one strives. It must be an end to something. An individual cannot just set out to achieve any goal they have in mind, because they do not know where their goals will lead them. They cannot know the end of their goal, so they cannot strive towards it by itself. Instead, they must do something else: act. Acting is what gives a goal direction. Therefore, the phrase "to thine own self be true" means that you must act in ways that are truthful to your current self, because your current self is the result of your past actions.
This is why Aristotle believes that "action achieves goals." He believes that an individual's actions affect which goals an individual strives for, and once a goal is set, an individual can achieve it as long as their actions remain consistent with their goal.
The words I put in bold represent those forms of action that must always be present, according to Aristotle. In his Philosophy, Aristotle also defines other forms of action that must occur:
: the state or fact of being active : the activity or quality of being busy (Merriam-Webster)
The word active is defined as :
1 : lively and strong 2 intransitive : showing movement and energy offensive (Merriam-Webster)
Therefore, it can be seen that a goal should be something that is expressed in some form of hearty activity . As a result, one can see how simple it is for them to reach their goals. Goals are expressed too in an active manner.
Lastly, we arrive at: "it's all about not being afraid to risk." Here, he is stating that an individual should be afraid of nothing- because the actions that they take are always the result of their past actions. If they have strayed from their true self during their period of time in doubt, then they will never achieve their goals. The individual who did not embrace uncertainty and was always afraid to take risks would never achieve anything because they would literally do nothing at all. So, to any person who for some reason does not want to risk it all and go for what they want, Aristotle has one simple message:
"nothings good unless it is risked.