Why does your original goal have to be unattainable?

Figure out another way to generate the money to go to your MBA school. That should draw you on.

Honestly, you pick up the pieces by picking up the pieces. Wallowing in self-pity is pointless. We all go through ups and downs. If you get beaten once and give up, you won't be a winner. The key is in the getting up again.

Every day there are goals which have plans for their attainment invalidated by events. The planners keep the goal...and come up with new plans to reach them. Perhaps a review of Think And Grow Rich will help you.

It has been a goal of mine to be a public figure. During the years I was 27 - 30, 4 full years, I bent my entire life towards becoming a council member in my home town. I kept a fairly easy management job so I could focus on evening activities supporting reaching my goal. I joined fraternal organizations and rose in them. I was appointed to and participated heavily in committees of council. I produced press in the local papers and got the city's non-profits and business groups talking, and more. I viewed this as no less than a "life purpose" thing.

The 2005 election came and went...and as if I had been standing at train platform, waiting for the thing to come along that was so important to me, only to find that it blew on past without stopping--I lost.

If you feel anything like the sense of loss and confusion I felt at that moment...after 4 years of deliberate, consistent effort, and rising high in the related fields...coming so close to what I desired, only to have it fly away...then I understand how you're feeling right now.

The goal didn't change, but the means of achieving it did.

It took at least three years for the sense of bitterness to fade.

I moved thousands of miles away to a different country.

I changed jobs and got an entirely new focus.

But the goal didn't change.

Pick yourself up, dust yourself off, and ask yourself: What out of the MBA education is what I really want?

Is it the diploma?

Is it the skillset?

Is it the prestige?

Is it the key to unlocking some great job opportunities?

Is it something else?

I'll bet you can learn and apply whatever these things are some other way...or you can figure out how to get back on top and afford the program.

First thing to do is get your head straight. You know the old homily, and I am not usually one to repeat them, but it is apt for you:

The Man Who Thinks He Can

by Walter D. Wintle

If you think you are beaten, you are;
If you think you dare not, you don't.
If you'd like to win, but think you can't
It's almost a cinch you won't.
If you think you'll lose, you've lost,
For out in the world we find
Success being with a fellow's will;
It's all in the state of mind.

If you think you're outclassed, you are:
You've got to think high to rise.
You've got to be sure of yourself before
You can ever win a prize.
Life's battles don't always go
To the stronger or faster man,
But soon or late the man who wins
Is the one who thinks he can.