How to Reach Your Goals & Achieve Success FASTER
As a reader of my blog, I bet you have a few goals for your life… just maybe?
Personally, I’m working on increasing my income to be able to buy my dream home on a couple of acres, but I’m sure you have goals of your own as well.
Perhaps you dream of someday earning a full-time income from your blog, traveling the world, running a marathon, or being on Oprah.
While it’s important to enjoy the journey that life is and appreciate each day, life can also be more FUN when we’re moving towards our goals more quickly.
But, let’s face it, sometimes our goals can feel like they are taking forever to reach. Your progress each day can feel SO tiny that it seems like you’ll never get to where you want to be.
Well, if that’s the case, you’ve come to the right place! I’m a big goal-getter (a couple examples: wrote a book, bought a multi-family investment property, started several successful businesses — all by age 23) and I’ve figured out a few steps that help me reach my goals more quickly.
Of course, I’m totally still learning too! I’ve achieved some of my goals but I have many that I’m still dreaming of. The concepts I’m sharing today are simple, but they take a long time to master. I look forward to being able to achieve future goals even more quickly than I did those in the past!
Okay, enough of my rambling! Let’s get into the Five Steps to Reach Your Goals FASTER.
1. Get Clear on Exactly What You REALLY Want
I know, I know, you’ve probably heard this before — but that’s because it’s SO important. Honestly, this is normally the part of the process that takes me the very longest out of any of the five steps. There are always so many opportunities and good things that I could potentially pursue that it can be tough to narrow it down.
However, narrow it down you must, or else you won’t be able to figure out exactly how to reach your goals! As long as you’ve only got a vague idea where you’re headed, it can be really difficult to determine what your next steps should be. The clearer you are about your goals, the clearer your path will become.
ALSO: Focus on what you actually want.
A lot of people think they want a “high-paying job” or “a million dollars.” But those things aren’t actually fulfilling in and of themselves. That high-paying job might mean you have to spend 40 hours each week doing something you hate, and money doesn’t guarantee happiness.
What you really want is probably actually something that you could buy with the money. Maybe that’s your dream house, the opportunity to travel whenever you feel like it, freedom from your current job, or just the feeling of financial security.
Figure out what you actually want to achieve, because there are likely much easier+faster ways to reach it than the traditional path. I go more into detail about alternative ways of achieving your goals in this video:
2. Focus On Just ONE Goal
As pointed out in a couple of books I’ve enjoyed recently (The One Thing and Essentialism), you can reach your goals much faster if you don’t spread yourself so thin.
You have a limited amount of time, energy, and other resources to devote to pursuing your goals, and the more goals you divide yourself between, the longer they will take.
When goals take longer, you actually move towards them even MORE slowly, because you’re so liable to get distracted along the way. It’s a lot harder to get the momentum you need to really make big progress.
And, when goals take longer you’re also more likely to give up before you ever reach them. Tough to hear, but true.
3. Stop Complaining and Making Excuses
Whenever you complain, you’re telling yourself that you’re a victim of the circumstances; that you can’t change your reality; that you’re helpless and have no power.
Talk about demotivating! Seriously.
If you want to reach your goals faster, you must believe that you have the power to make that happen. You are in control of your own results.
Everybody has setbacks. Everybody’s dealing with limited time and too many distractions. But somehow some people push through and become wildly successful anyway.
Sure, sometimes people draw a hand full of trump cards, but many successful people got crap hands (like Oprah, J.K. Rowling, or Walt Disney) and made the best of what they had. And they did alright.
So take responsibility for your life, acknowledge that you (and you alone) have the power to reach any goal you desire, and act accordingly.
4. Get Professional Help
Most athletes or artists who truly want to become great — whether that means being a pro soccer player, concert pianist, or prima ballerina — don’t hesitate to invest in their training. They accept that they are beginners and understand that it makes sense to learn from those who are more advanced than they are.
Yet, for some reason, “the rest of us” just don’t seem to see it this way. We’re like 5-year-old figure skaters who watch the Olympics and think, “Oh, that looks so easy! I can probably just figure it out on my own.”
With that attitude, will that little girl ever realize her dreams? It’s unlikely.
I’ve got a theory that we don’t invest in ourselves because we don’t believe in ourselves. If we have money to invest, we’re more likely to buy stocks than to invest in ourselves — because we have more belief in a stranger’s success than we do in our own.
If this is a horse race, you aren’t betting on your own horse. And that’s no way to live.
(The Olympic champions? Most of them have parents who started investing in their training as young children. I’m not saying this to discount the athletes themselves — they did the hard work, they brought the grit, and they were determined. But, even with all these qualities, it doubtful whether many of them would have experienced the same level of success had they not had someone who truly believed in them enough to invest in their education.)
So put your money where your mouth is and invest in your dreams!
5. Work HARDER
You think you’re working hard? You’re a busy, modern adult with a million responsibilities and little time to pursue your goals?
You can work harder.
You can find more minutes each day to build your business, work on your body, meditate, or earn money for that trip you say you want to take.
Do you have a TV? Ditch it. What do you desire more: to sit around watching TV, or to achieve your goals?
Maybe you don’t really care about your goals. Maybe you’d rather watch TV. Then just accept that reality and act accordingly.
But if you have dreams that you really want to reach — then focus your time there.
Of course, I’m not saying don’t have fun or relax! Resting, self-care, and enjoying life are extremely important things to do.
Sleep 7 – 8 hours each night. Take a day off each week. Have some fun every day.
But the rest of the time? Focus on what is most important to you.
Because whatever you focus your energy on will be magnified in your life.
Dream of being your own boss?
Oh, and, by the way, if one of your goals has to do with growing your business then I hope you consider joining us in Startup Society!
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