Gamblers are like investors and successful business people. They share one thing. Both of them want success. However, they differ in terms of patience. In contrast to gamblers, investors and business people do not pay a lot of attention to short-term success. In other words, they are not influenced by outer factors like the shift in politics or minor trends. They are indeed patient. Instead, they set their goals within 5 years and more. Gamblers, for example, are acting on short-term success and are impatient about success. In today’s post, I will explain the secret of persistence and tell you 10 tips to achieve your long-term goals.
Give yourself room for Errors
Every time I start a project, I immediately know that success takes its time. For example, I never believed that this blog would be a hit overnight. Furthermore, the website project, which I start recently again, will also take time to be successful.
Two years ago when I decided on my life, I define my goals precisely. “In 4 years when I turn 30, I can live off my side projects.” Here I mean, this blog and my own company. The reason for setting my goals with time is the fact that I know how hard it will be. For example, even if we finished our website project, it will take another 2 years to establish it.
Besides, by setting a time limit, I consciously give myself time as well. I programmed my brain to calm down when failures occur. It means I strip myself down from stress and pain when I truly fail. Another reason for this is to avoid to start gambling. Gamblers, as well, are driven by the wish for success. However, they concentrate more on small and fast results. It is dangerous because you will lose money and you will be stressed out.
All in all, by setting your goal and giving it time to grow, you delete a lot of stress, avoid losing money and you give yourself a chance to be truly successful.
Quick and Dirty
It is easier said than done. Especially when you have such a strong desire to succeed. I cannot count how many times I want to start gambling. Winning 1 million money for doing nothing is pretty tempting. But I also know that I will lose a lot of money in the process. Since then, I still working on my goals and I am patient about success.
However, not many people have such a strong patient for success. They fall into the circle of gambling. They gamble, they lose money, they work to have money to gamble and they gamble again.
Our brain reacts positively to fast changes. We react exaggeratedly to highs and lows, to rapid changes and jarring news. But we never noticed continuous changes. As a result, we systematically overemphasize doing over not-doing and action above waiting.
10 Tips to achieve your long-term Goals
I hope you guys understand now the advantage of working on your long-term goals. Moreover, you start to see or even better, you start to avoid short-term pleasure. Because every successful thing or event in this world is tanks to time. The most successful books are not the current best time seller in your store. It is, for example, the bible, the koran, the little prince, and so on.
Here are 10 tips to help you focus on your long-term goals:
1. Break your long-term Goals into smaller measurable Goals
How do you eat an elephant? The answer: One bite at a time. This is the secret behind achieving your biggest goal. In other words, no big goal can be achieved in a day. And time is the decisive factor that split gamblers between investors. Only people who are patient and see small changes can achieve their ultimate goal.
However, everyone starts at the bottom. Instead of getting overwhelmed by this sheer workload, you must break it down into smaller goals. With that I mean, small and measurable goals. Then it is guaranteed that you keep up the momentum and stay motivated.
10 tips to achieve your long-term goals: #1 Breaking down your long-term goals into smaller measurable goals will benefit you. You won’t be overwhelmed, stressed out and you will be motivated.
2. Focus on Process, not Results
One of the most important lessons is to enjoy the process over results. A lesson I paid with a lot of pain, sleepless nights, and tears. For example, at the beginning of this blog, I focused on making money on this. Therefore, my brain was strongly wired to succeed. As a result, I was easily frustrated when this blog did not perform. With time I actually learned to love what I do. Now I do not care if this blog will be successful or not. Firstly, I love writing which I never knew would be this much fun. Secondly, I actually help people with my articles, and slowly I establish myself as a life-/dating-coach.
As well as programming, I just love programming. I love solving problems because it satisfies me so much. Imagine struggle 3 days on something. Then you find the solution by research or your abilities. Can you imagine how I was burst with happiness?
10 tips to achieve your long-term goals: #2 Learn to love the process and the results will be seen soon. Enjoy the things you do right now. And the desired results will come automatically.
3. Little Wins are the Best Ones
Even though you should concentrate on the process, it is undeniable that the results are still great. Moreover, if these results are unexpected. For example, I gained a follower through my blog. She told me that it is great how I expose myself to my thoughts and experiences. And this is might be the same for many of you. People who share the same pain and failure. However, I know we all strive to be better every day.
Not to mention all the other much smaller things. It made my day, if I got a new subscriber, a new like on my Instagram or Facebook, or if I just code.
Indeed, small little wins are the best ones
10 tips to achieve your long-term goals: #3 When you break your long-term goals into smaller ones, it will pay off. With these small wins, you feel much more confident in what you do. Also, it makes you motivated. I still cannot believe that I still write a blog. But this is so much fun to share my experiences and knowledge with you guys 😀
4. Build on Your Goal as You Achieve Each Level
As many of you guys know, I am a fan of reflecting on goals, processes, or even my own personality. Especially, reflecting on your process and goals is crucial. I liked to reflect on goals after I did something significant. For example, I start a new campaign for whatever reason. After 1 week I analyze this campaign. What are the results of this campaign? Did I learn something? If I failed I ask other questions like: How do I adjust this? Is it another approach to it? Or should I stop doing this?
While you achieve your small goals, you automatically adjust and plan on these accomplished goals. Of course, it is hard to see what is right and wrong. But naked numbers never lie. That is why you should learn how to interpret these numbers. A skill I yet need to learn.
10 tips to achieve your long-term goals: #4 Build and plan on your accomplished goals. Only if these goals are small and can be executed in a proper time, you will learn how to adapt your future goals. Try many ideas as much as possible. Only then do you know what works and what not? A crucial technique for succeeding with your ultimate goal.
5. Make sure your expectations are realistic
Again, understand your circle of competence. In other words, know what your limits are. Do not expect too much if you are at the beginning. By erasing high expectations you will not be easily disappointed. By implementing #4, you will not have high expectations at all. Therefore it will spare you a lot of wasted time.
Also, by making your expectations realistic, you feel more motivated to accomplish your daily tasks. Moreover, you will enjoy the smaller goals and you keep adjusting your steps for your ultimate goal.
10 tips to achieve your long-term goals: #5 Make sure your expectations are within reach. So you will experience strong motivation and you will keep up the momentum.
6. Be Consistent
Be consistent is key. Work as much as possible on your goals. Extent this to an extreme that you feel ashamed if you skip one day. For example, I have the attitude that working 5 minutes on my goals has an impact as much as working one week for a company.
See it this way. Every minute you work on your personal goal will have benefit the rest of your life. Investing 5 minutes for 20 years of joy? What an easy call to make. When you follow the previous tips, you will have no problems with this. Here are some links to the previous post that concentrate on being consistent: Great habits, not discipline leads to success. Why we should start right away. How to be motivated instantly.
10 tips to achieve your long-term goals: #6 Be consistent.
7. Seek Accountability
November 2020 is another lockdown here in Berlin, Germany. I am working at home instead of at my local Starbucks. However, I created a Discord Channel for people like me. People who want to learn something during this 1-month lockdown. The purpose of this channel is to create accountability for my friends. Each day, I will hold a meeting where people list all the tasks they want to do. At the end of the day, we all will review what each one has accomplished. As well as, reviewing the problems each other faced.
With this technique, I force people to work on their goals. I eliminated all excuses by showing me their to-do-list. Each time they will learn their personal limits. In other words, they will understand what they can accomplish for a day. Another reason for that is to eliminate excuses. Who will have excuses if they observe other people? It is a kind of nagging. And I know that some will quit. But for those who stay, will be different than before the lockdown.
10 tips to achieve your long-term goals: #7 Ask friends or relatives to keep you accountable. This is a great motivator. Not only that this will eliminate your excuses, but you also will not admit defeat that you did not accomplish a task. A great competition to hold.
8. Prioritize on the most important Tasks
Every day, before I start to hustle, I make a list. In other words, I make a To-Do-List of today’s tasks. However, I do not list things randomly. Instead, I prioritize the tasks by importance. How will this accomplish tasks that will help me in the future?
If it does not matter in 5 years, do not spent more than 5 minutes on it.
For example, I prioritize my schedule as following: Blog, Playabit (the website project). general programming, Reading, and then all the trivial things. Unconsciously, this pattern follows me for a long time now. And I am keeping this up. Because this blog and Playabit are my main income sources and the things that I enjoy the most. Pairing a goal and joy is one of my motivations.
No to mention that working on small tasks will satisfy me. A feeling that I did something great and meaningful on that day.
10 tips to achieve your long-term goals: #8 Prioritize accomplish tasks that have a huge impact on your life. Working 5 minutes on these tasks will help you a lot more than working 5 hours on trivial things.
9. Make Room to Breathe and Failures
There was a time where I constantly beat myself down. Because I failed and did not achieve some kind of success. As a result, I was stressed out and overworked. All day and all night, I worked with the desperate desire in mind. This always asks me when I will become successful? When dude, when? It stressed me so much that I ate less, was sleepless, and broke down more often.
To compensate for this, I stopped working on my projects. Instead, I just played video games all day long. I am glad that I turned that around.
I gave myself room to breathe and for failures. Moreover, I accepted that these things are part of my journey. In other words, every failure or error is proof that I improve myself. Only people who fail a lot can say that they even tried and learned. Learning from failures is great but if you find a solution to it, you will feel fricking amazing.
10 tips to help you focus on your long-term goals: #9 Make room to breathe and fail. You won’t stress yourself and you will enjoy the little things.
10. Deconstruct your Goal
Sometimes you will forget what you work for. Especially when fatigue overwhelms you. You will ask if this suffering makes any sense to you. Moreover, you start to think to give up. Here you need to remind yourself what your goals are. A nice technique is to deconstruct your goals over and over again.
You start with imagine your ultimate goal. Here you see yourself at the end of the journey. How would you feel? Who will you become? How does this enrich your life? Once an overwhelming motivation hits you is a good time to think further. Ok. I know what I want. What do I have to do to make it possible? Now, you start to deconstruct your ultimate goal into smaller goals. Smaller goals into smaller tasks. At the end of this deconstruction, you will know what you have to do tomorrow.
10 tips to achieve your long-term goals: #10 Deconstruct your ultimate goal to remind yourself why you are doing this. And in the end, you will be motivated and know what to do tomorrow
Summary – 10 Tips to achieve your long-term Goals
Everything great needs time to grow and to flourish. But most people do not have the patience to endure this. They want success as soon as possible. Unknowingly exposing themselves to gambling and even drugs. Any successful person will tell you to be consistent and patient about your goals. Even I sometimes disbelieve it. I am successful hungry as well. But I trust those people and keep going.
And one day, your biggest dream will be achieved.
“I cannot count how many temptations I have to start gambling.” — err…What? hahaha
Question: What’s the difference between point 1 and point 10 ?
Point 1 is active planning and executing. Point 10 is visualizing your goals. In other words, you imagine your achievements and then break it down in what you must do. It is a trick to boost your motivation.