Don’t Fall Victim to the Chase: Achieving Aspirations Without Losing Sight of What Matters

It’s easy to think that the only thing standing between feeling fulfilled is achieving a few goals. The goals may be to find the perfect spouse, build a successful business, or live a good life. Often this idea of achievement can turn into an obsession. It’s easy to become so fixated on the chase that it’s easy to lose sight of what truly matters. Instead of placing hope in things that don’t matter, it’s wise to start an online business because it’s a passion and something that can improve one’s life. Don’t base happiness on achievement, but be satisfied and happy when success comes your way. It’s possible, as we often talk about during our free webinar training, to start a money-making business without losing sight of who you are. Here are some tips to follow to stay on course without losing sight of yourself and what means the most to you in life. 

1. Be mission focused

Inc. talks about being mission focused while building your business as opposed to position focused. Do this and you’ll keep the focus on serving your audience and building a business that can help others. 

In other words, be mission focused instead of position focused. Rather than relying on the short-term goal of being a “manager” to provide direction, dedicate yourself to being a great mentor. Then, regardless of whether or not you become a manager, you can still serve the greater mission and stay the course. 

Find a cause to serve and success will follow. It might not be in the exact way you imagined, but I promise you it will be just as fulfilling. If not, your value and sense of purpose will always be based on your last accomplishment. That's an awful way to live — to never feel good enough. 

2. Develop your goals 

It’s okay to focus on your goals, as Medium The Startup reminds us. However, make sure your goals are measurable. Don’t set goals that are unrealistic because it’ll be much harder to achieve them. Stick to goals that you won’t become obsessed with but rather will propel you toward success in a healthy manner. 

Your goals determine exactly where you want to go. So they need to be measurable and specific.

As an example, here’s my main goal:

$1,000,000 by 03/12/2020

Notice how I have an exact amount and an exact date. This gives me something to work towards. It tells me how much I want and when.

I have since developed this goal and changed it a little, to be less about the money and more about giving back but for the purpose of this article, lets keep it simple.

If you need help finding your goals, here are a couple of tips to remember:

Your goal needs to be exactly what you want. Not what you think you’re capable of or what you think you should do or what other people want from you. If it’s not exactly what you want, you’ll lose interest in the process and fail.

Make your goals SMART (Minus the ‘A’).

S — Specific: Write out exactly what you want.

M — Measurable: How are you going to measure progress and determine milestones?

A — Achievable: I don’t like this one. I think it forces people to put boundaries on what they can achieve. You can do anything, just look at Elon Musk.

R — Relevant: For personal goal setting, this means creating a goal that gets you where you want in life. Take it back to developing a goal that’s exactly what you want. It’s important to do this right. For example: don’t set a goal of wanting to travel the world if you want to have a certain amount of money saved by X date. Your goals need to line up.

T — Time Limited: This is critical to achieving a goal. Without setting a time of when you want to achieve it, you allow yourself to procrastinate. With an exact date, you’re locked in.

Addicted2Success also elaborates more on how you can achieve your goals by focusing on your passion. It’s ideal with you can work on creating a profitable business and achieve your goals simultaneously. 

The sad thing is that having lots of money actually doesn’t feel that good, in fact, there is no such thing as enough money – this is why dreams are more important. Working towards a dream feels amazing, and as you hit each milestone, it makes you fulfilled beyond your wildest dreams.

All of a sudden, you are achieving success at something that has the possibility to be your life’s work. When your dream becomes your life work, it gives you a sense of meaning that no amount of money can give you.

Now, have you ever seen someone who is angry, has lots of money and became happy, spent it, and the next week they are angry again? We all have, and that’s what money can do to you if you let it. I am not saying you should forget about money and waste it, just don’t let it be your focus.

3. Develop a plan 

As you work on achieving your goals, Medium The Startup recommends developing a plan. It’s hard to get a business to work if you don’t have a plan in place, so come up with an effective plan and stick with it, even when things get rough. 

Rant over, now it’s time to develop your plan.

You’ve pushed though all the thinking and have made it to the final stage of developing a goal.

Now it’s time to figure out how to get there.

At this stage you need to break your main goal down into smaller goals.

I break it down like this:

Main goal, Yearly goals, 6 monthly goals, Quarterly goals, Monthly goals, Weekly goals, Daily goals

By breaking my main goal down so much, it does 2 things:

It tells me exactly what I want to accomplish everyday, in order to reach my goal. Making my to-do list a lot easier and quicker to develop.

It makes my goal seem attainable. If I was to look at my main goal, $1,000,000 by 03/12/2020, it would seem impossible but broken down, my daily goal is something like ‘write a blog post’. Much more achievable.

Now that you’ve set up your foundation, it’s time to create the positive mindset you need.

As Entrepreneur says, planning is essential for any business to succeed. Remind yourself daily why you started this journey and what you can do to get there one day at a time. 

Planning is one of the most important strategies associated with the achievement of any goal. Yet, many of us fail to create detailed and intricate plans to realize our dreams. We have some abstract notion in our minds that will only get us part of the way there, but it won't help to bring those goals into fruition. 

Anyone who is serious about a goal needs to create a massive action plan and has to be willing to take action on a daily basis — every single day without fail — in order to reach their heart's desires. Make a plan and obsess over it, working on it tirelessly, day and night, until you reach your goals.

4. Do what you can right now 

Instead of constantly focusing on the future, Inc. mentions in their article how important it is to focus on what you can do in the here and now. Take the time to celebrate goals when you reach them and find happiness through success without feeling dissatisfied. 

Act in the authority that you've been given and embrace your current situation. You may not be a “manager” now, but that doesn't mean you can't be a great mentor to others. 

For years, I thought that the only way I could make a difference was if I had my own business. Now don't get me wrong, aspirations are important. But, if you're not happy without your accomplishments, then you won't find happiness with them either. 

If we're not careful, we can get so fixated on a future goal, that we miss the opportunities to make a difference now. 

A quote that pulled me out of some static times in my career came from Edward Everett Hale, “I am only one, but I am one. I cannot do everything, but I can do something. And I will not let I cannot do interfere with what I can do.”

5. Eliminate distractions

Along the way, you’re bound to find some distractions, but Entrepreneur urges you to push them aside and instead, focus on building a profitable business. As we said before, there’s a fine line between losing sight of what matters and focusing on developing a successful online business. Yes, you can achieve both if you stay true to yourself and focus on things that matter. 

Distractions interrupt our progress, yet the world is full of distractions. The most common distraction comes in the form of always-on pocket computers that offer an intimate connection to the world's vast annals of information. Considering that smartphones and social media have upended industries and commerce, along with how we interact with one another, it's no wonder it's become harder and harder to stay productive during the day. 

You have to learn to cancel out the noise. Consciously becoming aware of the distractions that are all around you, then working to cut them off, is certainly one strategy for achieving your goals. Turn off the phone, the internet and the television, and slip into a world where you're purely focused on the task ahead.

During our free webinar training, we offer tips on how you can start your own online business today. It’s okay to chase your dreams, but there’s a way to stay focused without losing yourself to the chase. Make money, find success, and do something you’re passionate about for an incredible, self-fulfilling life. 

Sources: Inc., Medium The Startup, Entrepreneur, Sales Hacker, Addicted to Success