Chris Hadfield on how you can achieve your goals

Uploaded on March 13, 2013

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Chris Hadfield on how you can achieve your goals

2013-03-13 - Just prior to becoming the first Canadian Commander of the International Space Station, Chris Hadfield reflects on his life and imparts some sound advice on how a person can achieve their goals and become the person they wish to be. (Credits: Canadian Space Agency, NASA)

Chris Hadfield: Every single day, you're the result of what you did on the days prior. So if you turn that around, you can start turning yourself into who you want to be based on what you decide to do today. What food do you put in your mouth? What book do you read? What movie do you watch? What do you do with your spare time? Do you study, do you learn something? But if you just sort of make deliberate choices with your life, it's amazing after a week or a month or a year the changes that you can effect. And you literally turn yourself into the person that you're going to become.

Life very seldom goes as planned. Mine sure didn't. I couldn't count the number of dead ends I ran into, setbacks, serious problems, minor problems, opportunities that looked like a sure thing that didn't pan out. The key is to accept them.

I decided a long time ago that I wanted to be an astronaut, but I realized the odds were terrible. So I thought, well, let's head in the direction that I like. Let's do things on the way that, if I don't make it all the way to the very impossible end of the ultimate job that I might love to do someday, that each of the things that I'm doing on the way are things that I like doing and that I would be happy to stay in. So I did that. I went to university and studied engineering. I loved engineering. It was interesting and challenging. I became a military pilot. Flying a CF-18 is a tremendous privilege and responsibility. I went to test pilot school. And at each one of those stages of life that kind of built on each other, I would have been happy to stop and say this is my profession, this is who Chris Hadfield is.

Don't measure the success of your life by one thing at the end. Measure the success of your life by each of the small victories along the way.

Unidentified Male:  (Recorded Voice): Five, four, three, two, one, and liftoff. So Tom Marshburn, Roman Romanenko, and Chris Hadfield making their way towards the International Space Station.

Unidentified Female: (Recorded Voice): All parameters are normal. The coffee is all onboard. We are feeling well.

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