Reaching your goals

It’s 2005, and Dave Cornthwaite, an amiable Brit in his mid 20s, has his life laid out in front of him. He has a well-paid job in graphic design, a girlfriend, his own house inWales, and the cat that settles on to his lap as he flops down to watch a DVD most evenings helps to complete the picture.

Fast-forward eight years – to October 6 this year – and Dave is swimming down the Missouri River in the US, something he has been doing every day for the previous two months. He finishes his 1,001-mile swim to a round of applause from his support team, and crosses off another job done on his ‘adventure bucket list’.

There’s no time to rest, because tomorrow he’ll start work on a new challenge, or write another book (his third) or perform a sold-out motivational talk.

To say that Dave (www.davecornthwaite.com) has changed his life since waking up to the fact that things were getting a little boring before would be something of an understatement. Since being hit by the realisation that “sitting in an office for 50 hours a week just to get paid was crazy”, he has skateboarded from Perth to Brisbane, kayaked the 1,500-mile-long Murray River in Australia, taken a 1,396-mile bike ride from Vancouver to Vegas, sailed more than 3,000 miles from Mexico to Hawaii and done a whole lot more besides.

“What happened was that I made the decision to prioritise what made me happy and what I had never done before, and it was really liberating,” says Dave. “I enter these expeditions with the complete belief that I can do them, and luckily, so far, it’s been a success.” It goes without saying that Dave’s adventures have changed his life, but not just because of the unforgettable experiences he’s had.

Goals can give a phenomenal boost to your self-esteem and your passion for life – and gogetters seem to agree that by staying focused and pushing yourself, what follows is the rather