How Far Are You Prepared To Go?

Determination is all about making a firm decision to achieve a certain desired result, and then having the steely resolve to follow through with that decision. It's a commitment and pact to oneself, that no matter what circumstances, challenges, opposition, and adversities, we face in pursuing that result, we will honor that decision. There's no out, there's no escape route, and there's no option to give up or quit. It's a simple case of agreeing to just one result only, and that is succeeding in accomplishing that desired result. Setting a goal for ourselves is the easiest part of the journey to success. Having said that, it's astounding that so many people even have difficulty doing this. We sort of have an idea of what we desire, but there's no real context or solidity to it. A lot of people simply wish for wealth, longing to be rich so they can have more freedom to buy what they like, and do more of what they like. That's not a goal however! They set this plan to quit work, and then go about living the high life, but such a plan serves no purpose. So many people who have inherited wealth, or perhaps have struck it lucky on the lottery, have thought all their wishes had come true, yet within a few years of having gained this wealth, they find themselves back in the same position they were beforehand. They end up burning through the funds because they were too focused on treating themselves to a life of luxury, that they lose sight of the importance of investing and budgeting. Money may enhance our life in various ways, but it doesn't assure happiness, like many people seem to think it would. It's why money should never be at the centre of our goals.

So, in removing money from the equation, what is our goal? What is the one thing that would totally transform our life, and bring us immense happiness, satisfaction, and fulfillment? Personally, I believe that our goal should always relate back to our purpose in life. Now that may even complicate our thoughts more, because for those who can't establish a goal for themselves, and one that isn't money centric, identifying their life purpose can be even more challenging. Interestingly, many people don't even think about there even being a purpose in their life, and just live day to day, with a "come what may" attitude, but we all do indeed have a purpose in life. The question is, how many of us actually make the effort to discover it, and unfortunately the answer is not many. Our purpose should be in some way linked to helping and serving others in life. It's identifying the best method in which we can use our talent, skill, capability, and potential, to enhance the lives of others. Perhaps we have never viewed our job from such a different perspective, but the work we do there each day, is in some way contributing to adding benefit and contributing to enhancing the lives of others. The problem here though is that most people don't view their job in such a light, and instead see it as nothing more than their source of income. Most people don't even like their job, and the reason being is because they settle for something that at least makes them some sort of income, rather investing some of their time and effort into pursuing their passion. When we uncover our passion, we can turn that into our profession, and that profession will always involve a product or service that we believe can benefit others, add value to their life, provide them with convenience, or even generate happiness. It's through uncovering our passion that we can then discover our purpose. When we find a line of work we are passionate about, we are more likely to be motivated, inspired, and excited, which will in turn help us to reveal our true skills, talent, and potential.

So we discover our passion, we discover our purpose, but now what about our goal? Well, what success do we want to see off the back of the work we do, and the service we provide? With our passion uncovered, we are naturally going to feel more positive and inspired by the work we do, but inspiration and positivity aren't going to be the success generators. What we need is something to drive us, a reward that will fill us with that determination I talked of above. That drive and determination will only come from a reward that has a powerful internal emotion attached to it, something that we would do anything for to achieve it. From our passion and purpose, what can we set as a goal that will not only add value to the lives of others, but also bring us happiness, satisfaction, and fulfillment, on a scale we have never experienced before? What is that life changing success element? What do you desire to achieve so greatly for your future, that you would work hard for, that you would never quit for, that you would be 100% committed to, that you would be patient for, that you would sacrifice for, and that you would invest everything into? What is that life changing goal that you have an emotional attachment to? Only you can answer that. The easiest way to tell if your goal isn't powerful enough and worthwhile though, is to ask yourself the question, would you ever give up on pursuing it, even if you encountered your lowest of lows in life? It's just like today's quote by Jim Rohn states "when you know what you want, and you want it bad enough, you'll find a way to get it".

Anyone who has ever achieved success has had to face a great deal of adversity, rejection, failure, setbacks, and challenges, prior to their accomplishment, at least the overwhelming majority anyway. These individuals, and anyone else who has ever taken on the journey to achieving a life changing goal, would have experienced many a time where they would have felt disheartened and defeated, many would have even have reached a point where they would have been left with nothing, and yet they still carried on. When something means so much to you, you find a way, no matter how tough it gets! Now I'm talking major adversities here, like constant failures and rejections, being on the brink of bankruptcy, and trials that are emotionally draining and brutal. Success just takes so much hard work, patience, and dedication, not to mention an incredible amount of resilience to continually lift oneself up from failure, but there needs to be that goal that drives you so greatly, that you just don't stop striving for it, you never give in. That leads me to question you about what lengths you would go to, in order to achieve your goal? How far are you prepared to go to achieve the future and life that you desire? As I said, the journey to success is brutal. We will find that the greater the goal we want to achieve, the more arduous the journey is to get there. Let me give you an idea of the type of challenges you need to overcome. You will need to overcome any fears and doubts that are preventing you from succeeding, such as fearing failure, financial loss, ineptitude, and being judged and criticized by others. This means you will have to continually take risks, and you will have to continually make your own decisions based on what you believe is the best pathway to achieving your goals, irrespective of what anyone else says or advises.

You will have to face failure, and likely have to face it time and time again. That means you will need to have the resilience to continually pick yourself up, dust yourself off, and keep going. You will need to step out of your comfort zone, and continually make changes. The actions that lead to your goal are undoubtedly going to involve you having to do some uncomfortable tasks, but they are not negotiable. When you encounter failure, you need to remain adaptable to continually make changes to your action plan. If an action is not working, then stop forcing it and instead, change it. You will likely lose friends and loved ones along the journey. The moment you make the choice to pursue your goal, and create happiness and satisfaction in your life, the decisions you make, and the actions you take, are going to piss people off, that's a fact! Because it doesn't fit their agenda, or it inconveniences them, or it's not what they believe you should be doing, they will get angry and frustrated. The longer this goes on, the angrier they get, to the point they label you as downright selfish and inconsiderate, before they eventually choose to distance themselves from you altogether. That's not easy to take, especially when it's someone like your partner or close friend, but you must remain committed to your goal. Anyone who fails to genuinely support you in achieving your goal isn't worth keeping in life anyway. You are going to potentially face times where you have no money at all, especially to invest in your goal. I'm talking $0 in the bank here. So desperate things become that you start to get extremely concerned as to how you're even going to continue getting by. You may even face the threat of bankruptcy.

You need to put your pride aside and ask people for help. It's not a nice feeling asking to borrow money, especially when you have failed over and over, and you find yourself asking often. Do what you need to do to keep the dream alive, and just continue to resource. You may find you need to sell assets, possessions that may hold sentimental value, or something you'd be extremely hard pressed to give away. You may need to go into debt, however a lot of the time we need to go backwards before we can go forwards. You will need to make many sacrifices. Sacrifice will involve giving up some things you enjoy, such as Netflix, time with friends, sleeping in, gaming, and your favorite television shows, just to do some tedious actions, which are progressing you towards your goals. You are going to face opposition. Just like I mentioned with people like your partner, friends, and family, getting angry and frustrated over your decisions and actions, there will be many people who will judge you, criticize you, ridicule you, mock you, and paint you as a fool, because what you are doing is not considered as "normality" in the eyes of society. Here is where you need to have steely resolve and just let people think what they want to think. You will need to have extreme patience, and I mean extreme. Anything worthwhile waiting for takes time, and I'm talking a handful of years here. That's a long time to endure constant failures, challenges, and criticism. I could go on and on about how tough the journey to success really is, but let's face it, the other option we have is just to continue living a life as it is now, void of happiness, satisfaction, and fulfillment. We may think not pursuing our goals may be at least less stressful and challenging, from how I'm describing it above, but life isn't so lenient, even if we take the alternative option of remaining as we are. It will throw challenges, adversities, failures, hardships, and trials, at us anyway. We should know that already from what we have been through in life to this point. So again, how much do we really want success, happiness, satisfaction, and fulfillment in life? Who wouldn't want these blessings in life? That leads us to that question of this blog entry, how far are you prepared to go? What sacrifices are you prepared to make, and to what length are you prepared to go, to make your ultimate dream a reality? Courage, determination, drive, adaptability, patience, perseverance, resilience, commitment, dedication, and hard work, it's all these attributes and attitudes that success comes back to. Don't be a quitter! Discover your passion, unveil your purpose, establish your goal, and prepare yourself to go the distance, no matter the cost! It will be more than worth it in the long run!

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