Succeed and Reach Your Goals

We all have goals in life and I would like to share with you how I achieve my goals. A lot of what you need is an understanding of yourself. In writing this article I will share those things that help me in my journey toward my goals. 

My goals in life for the past few years has been to become financially independent. This is not always an easy goal to achieve. The big goals in life are often challenging and it can be very rewarding to reach those sorts of goals, even more rewarding for me is the path to those goals. My largest challenge has been in discovering what really motivates me. 

When I first started out I thought it was money that was my motivation. Money is a part of my goal yes but it's not really what motivates me and gives me energy or passion to keep pushing for my goals. It should come as no surprise then that I was having a hard time reaching my goals. A job is really all you need to get money, a decently paid job will pay your bills, put food on the table and give you a bit of pocket money. If money was my main motivation then yes I could just go out and get a well paid job, goal achieved.

Having a decent job has not given me the sense of reaching my goals however, and so I needed to have a look at what would give me that feeling of success. When I ask myself the right questions I start to build a clearer picture of what I need to succeed. The most useful question to answer is what motivates you?

In discovering what motivates you and using that to reach your goals you turn what was a hard job into a fun job. Have you ever had a fun job? It's the easiest job in the world when it's fun, you will put in as much time as it takes and not even notice the overtime. Reaching your goals is the same, if the journey towards that goal is fun you wont see it as effort and hard work. 

I don't know what motivates you so I will share what motivates me and maybe get you thinking about your passions in life. So what motivates me? Having something with genuine value to offer that earns me respect in my own eyes motivates me. When I sit down to write an article here at hub pages my motivation is to contribute something that a reader will benefit from. I want to write something that will inspire someone to leave a comment or have a look at my other articles. My passion for writing useful articles means that I don't hang around to see if anyone has left a comment or anything else because I am thinking about what I can write next. My motivation and passion keep me looking forward to the next article instead of focusing on articles that don't get read much or commented on.

It is hard to see 'failures' behind you when you are motivated and passionate to keep making forward steps toward your goals. If you are not really motivated by each step toward your goal it is going to be very easy to spot perceived failures.

So, what are your goals, really? Are they vague or specific? What will they look like and feel like when you reach them? These questions are just as important as 'What do you need to do to reach your goals?'. Understanding the nature of your goals and why you have chosen them as your goals will go a long way in figuring out the first steps you need to take to reach.

Take some time to think about your goals. If it is difficult to answer questions that define the nature and detail of your goals then you have found the first step you can take to reaching them. By better defining your goals for yourself you will be more prepared to recognize the steps needed to reach those goals. If you don't really understand your goals and what you want how can you make it happen? My only answer is sheer blind luck! Blind luck might work if you are blind to the specifics of your goals.

Now that you have thought about your goals and have a clear idea of where the finish line is there are a few other tips that will help you on your way. I will take my example of financial freedom to illustrate how one can begin the journey to realizing their goals.

My first question I asked myself is, why do I want financial freedom? Part of my motivation for this goal is the security of being able to pay all my bills and live a comfortable life. This is not all of it tho, I desire freedom. I hate waking up early in the morning to go to work and I hate going to bed early at night so I can wake up on time. I don't mind doing some hard work but having to answer to someone else can be stressful.

So what I would really like to see is myself, self employed and successfully earning a good income. I would like to see that income build up into something that I can rely on in my old age. There is one more twist in my goal, I want to enjoy the whole process, from building an earning foundation to enjoying every small success that builds towards the ultimate goal. 

You may have heard the saying, nothing builds success like success or some similar derivation. It really is this concept that I would like to share here. This key to success when used really can unlock doors for you.

The basic idea is that you must take your ultimate goal and break it down into easy to achieve goals. Financial independence is a pretty big goal, taken in whole like that it may even seem impossible. I have broken this down to smaller steps. The first step was to find some method of earning that I might enjoy. The internet is full of money making ideas. There are 'guru's' out there selling their strategies for making money.

I found my idea, I would write an ebook. I wrote my ebook and it even sells from time to time. It's no big earner and to be honest I really don't like selling it. I would much rather give it away and maybe ask for donations or something. I guess it's no surprise that something I am reluctant to sell does not make big sales. I do not count this as a failure or anything like that, the people who buy and read my ebook almost always email to say how much they enjoyed it and so it is a pleasure to me but it's not the step toward my goal I had hoped for. Thats alright tho as another idea came along.

A family member happened to mention that people make good money writing on blogs online. I could see myself enjoying blogging so I set up a blog even tho I didn't really understand how blogging can earn money. I wrote a few posts and checked my blog often to see if I had any followers or comments, any sign that it was working. I could not tell if it was doing anything and did not know how to find that info out. 

I realized that I needed to learn more. My first question was how to get traffic to my blog. I happened upon something that has given me more then I can adequately describe. I found this site, Hub Pages as a way of creating a back link to my blog which was advised as a way to generate traffic to my blog. Within a few hours I had fans (now called followers) for my articles here as well as a few nice comments on my articles. 

Finding this site was kind of a fluke, what I was searching for and what I found cannot be compared. The day I found this site I found more then just information on generating traffic to a blog or website, I also learned how affiliate selling works with more then just google ad-sense. I set out to earn online, eventually to earn through blogging, and now actually do earn here on this site. My articles are not paying the bills, yet, but they do earn a trickle of income.

My income is nothing to brag about yet but it is building. I have several articles here that I am proud of and happily brag about to my family! I enjoyed every part of writing them and marvel when an older one 'comes to life' and starts earning even just a few pennies. I recently was ecstatic at not 1 but 2 sales through the amazon affiliate program, and the next 2 sales were even better! I cannot quit one of my day jobs yet (I have 2 part time jobs to support myself with) but I can see that the day when I quit the one that causes me stress and unhappiness is fast approaching. 

I love writing and being read. I love being helpful and providing something of value to others. I have found what motivates me. I have relished the smallest of successes and cannot see failures, just lessons. My day jobs take up a lot of my time yet with every spare second I am obsessed with finding a new topic for an article. During the week I research, on friday I start writing and make sure I finish my article before the next monday. I have never felt so motivated and obsessed with anything that does not cost money but can earn money before. I have found more then a way to earn money, I have found earned self pride and something that is easy to stay motivated over.

So here is the moral of the story as they say. To succeed and reach your goals you need to understand your goals. You need to figure out your motivation and use it to get and stay motivated. This will in turn lead to determination. A determined person does not fail, they learn instead. Add in a little bit of patience and you can find and accomplish smaller goals that are like bricks that build toward your ultimate goals.

I hope that this article has inspired you and got you thinking. If by chance you would like to try writing online, perhaps you have already tried blogging, I would recommend that you give Hub Pages a try. Sign up and write an article or two. Make your fist articles fun, don't worry to much about search engine optimization or keywords or traffic. The great part of this site is it's members and there is a darned good chance your first article will be read by a member. There is also a good chance you will earn a follower or two who just want to make you feel welcome here. Not everyone is this welcoming but enough users are to help you feel that you got results fast. If you would like to learn more about how Hub Pages can earn money I have an article that answers that very question at How writing articles can make Money. When you have gotten your feet wet and want to learn more about how to make money with hub pages please do a site search, there are members here who have written brilliant articles dealing with every aspect of earning money here. If you do sign up feel free to contact me and let me know that it was I who inspired you :).

Please feel free to leave a comment and let me know your thoughts on achieving success and reaching goals.