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How many of us walk to the edge of what we're capable of and then keep going? I strive to grow as a person. Years ago it was thought someone with schizophrenia couldn't hold a job; I found full-time employment with excellent benefits.

Did this happen by luck, or chance, or coincidence? No. It happened because I set clear goals for my recovery. I wrote them down, taking action each day to bring me closer to my objective.

Goal-setting isn't some magical mystery. It simply takes desire and persistence, traits we can learn if we don't already have them. My friend, who I call the "Energizer Bunny" because he keeps going and going, will be the first to tell you, "Keep up the hope that things will get better."

That's certainly true. If you go on nine interviews and get all no's, the 10th interview could lead to a yes. If recovery were like a quick weight-loss scheme, we'd all be fully recovered in five days, or at least by bathing suit season. In the gym I go to, I like to read this sign on the wall, "There are no shortcuts to anywhere worth going."

Giving ourselves unrealistic time frames for completion of our goals leads to frustration, and abandonment of our efforts. Experts say it's best to set modest, realistic goals, and I can vouch for this: initiating slow, structured changes has always worked best for me.

Now that I'm 39, I'm proud of how far I've come. In the last two years, I met beautiful new friends and began a freelance advocacy and writing career. If I had achieved all this when I was 27, I'm sure I would have taken it for granted.

No one can take this victory from me. I made it happen. It's because early on I wrote down my goals in quantifiable measurements with generous deadlines. For example, instead of saying, "I want to lose weight," I wrote down, "I will go from a size 10 to a size 6." Then I wrote down the specific sub-goals that would get me there, like "replacing whole milk with skim," and "exercising on the treadmill twice per week." Each day, I'd come closer to the goal, and, even though it took me six years, the results were lasting, not fleeting.

Years after starting to set goals, I came across a great book, Denis Waitley's The New Dynamics of Goal-Setting. Though it's out-of-print, I recommend buying it used or finding it in a library. He outlines guaranteed techniques for setting and achieving goals.

It's true: people who write down their objectives and reread them every night are more successful than those of us who may have good intentions, but let their dreams slip out of their heads. Real life could get in the way if we don't make our goals a priority.

One night, after I had given a talk about the Peer-to-Peer course I teach, my mother, who was in the audience, told a young man, "Nobody's going to do it for you. Only you can make it happen." The hard-won victory is the sweetest.

That's the beauty of recovery: it isn't possible for just the lucky or a chosen few. Self-determination, defined simply, implies that each of us has the right to choose how we want to live our life. We can choose to want more for ourselves.

If the seeds of illness are there when we're born, recovery is our birthright.