If you’re saying “my goal in life is to be successful,” then it’s so important to understand that this entire process starts with one crucial action.
Defining what success means to you.
I think that’s the first thing. And that can be different for everybody.
For some people, this might mean to live somewhere specific.
Maybe you want to live in New York City, Hong Kong, or Paris.
Other people may want to live out in the country. Maybe you want to build a home in the mountains of Colorado, or put together a cabin/farmstead in Alaska.
Or, your goals may have more to do with what type of work you want to be doing, what talents you want to be using, or what you want to achieve for yourself in this lifetime.
But success has a lot to do with what you desire for yourself.
So if your goal is to be successful, first you need to define what success means to you.
Defining Success For Yourself Isn’t As Easy As It Sounds
What has worked in my life is this:
Over the course of growing up, and primarily through my 20s, as I was having different work experiences, business experiences, and so-forth—I would come across individuals who lived what I would describe as very attractive lifestyles.
This ‘attraction’ was partly created by just the type of person they were, how they acted, what they were working on, etc.
And that eventually helped me to create a vision in my mind of what I wanted my life to be like, and how I would define success for myself.
Finding Thought Mentors And Role Models Can Help You Discover Your Path
In my specific case, there were two people I met when I was young who I continue to think about to this day.
At this point, I’ve known them for about 35-40 years or more.
Both of these individuals were involved in real estate and business.
Both of these men had an office. But they also worked from home, which I really admired.
I would watch these men interact with their families. I would watch how they set up office spaces at home or in an outbuilding on their property, and I was really attracted to that.
To me, this looked like success.
Both of these men were also very active in their own faiths. Their individual faiths were different—but faith was an important component to both of their lives.
And to this day, I still remember these things.
My Goal In Life Is To Be Successful – This Means That Defining The Goal Is Essential
Now, fast forward 35-40 years, and it’s remarkable to me, when I look back on those ‘visions’ I had when I was young, how much I’ve actually achieved what I dreamt about back in those days.
For example:
We are in the process right now of building a farm. And I’ve specifically planned to put my office in a specially designed outbuilding right on the farm. There’s also going to be a gymnasium and all kinds of other things that I’ve wanted for years and years.
But see, the seed for these things was planted 35-40 years ago.
And so, I’ve always been one to say:
“Think about other people you admire, and take stock of what about their life you admire so much.”
When you’re trying to figure out what success looks like for you, think about people you admire, and look at how they’ve set up their lives.
This can give you a huge amount of inspiration.
In particular, you might want to look at someone who is 10, 15, or even 20 or more years older and more successful than you are—and then you can say to yourself:
“I really like that lifestyle that this person leads. I really like the type of family they have—I really like how they’ve structured their life.”
I’ve always found this process to be extremely useful in helping me to define success for myself.
But it all comes back to this:
You must define success for yourself, so that you’ll know what you want to shoot for.
You Can Also Look At Other People’s Lives To Figure Out What You Don’t Want
I’ve also seen people who lived and worked in the corporate world. And right from the beginning, I always knew that I didn’t want that type of lifestyle.
These people traveled a lot. They were away from their families a lot. There was a pecking order and a hierarchy within that corporate world that I just had no real interest in playing at.
Well, to me, that path wouldn’t have led me to success, in my view.
But see, I had to define this for myself.
I had to figure out what I actually wanted, and what I didn’t want.
And that’s not to say that some people wouldn’t find success in that environment.
It’s just a very individual thing, and you have to define it for yourself.
I like to be working with my family around. I also enjoy having animals and things like that. And to me, that kind of lifestyle (being closer to home, around family, not in a corporate environment, etc.) has always been what I looked at and thought about as being successful.
6 Steps To Achieve Your Goals And Find Success In Life
To make your goals happen, it really all goes back to the core of SMART goal setting.
It’s so important to write things down.
I can’t stress how important I believe this practice is.
It creates accountability, it creates a path—and to me, it’s a difference-maker.
There are so many areas of life where people oftentimes don’t think about what they want to happen.
They may think:
“Just go ahead and do something.”
But if you don’t have a purpose for why you’re doing it, how are you going to know if it’s successful or not?
See, it all starts with a dream.
And after that, it’s all about making a plan.
When you make a plan for your life and set goals to carry you toward your dream, what you’re actually doing is creating milestones to help lead you to the realization of that plan.
You create a literal roadmap for life success for yourself.
But far too many people don’t even make it to the dreaming stage.
They write themselves off before they even give themselves a chance.
They stay stuck in the ‘hope’ phase.
With that being said, let’s go through some basic steps that you can start taking today to help you dream big to create a vision for your life, turn those dreams into goals, and then begin working on the process of making those goals a reality so that you can achieve the success you desire in life.
1. Identify What Success Means For You
Identify how you want to be successful in life.
Be as specific as possible. Also, define why that particular metric matters to you.
- What kind of life do you want to have, and why?
- What would your perfect day look like, and why?
- How much money would you be making, and why?
- What kind of work would you be doing, and why?
- What would you like to be accomplishing in the world, and why?
- How would you like your life to impact others and make the world better? Why does that matter to you?
- How would you like to be remembered after you’re gone, and why?
See, it’s so helpful to figure out what the finish line is. It’s in your best interest to dream of a destination for your journey.
2. Think About The Things You’re Hoping For
Think about the things you hope for, and ask yourself this question…
What could happen if I actually had the power to dream this into reality?
This is visualization.
Think about those dreams, and imagine how amazing your life could be.
Once again, get specific with it. Don’t be afraid to dream big.
3. Turn Those Hopes And Dreams Into Goals
Take that dream, and break it down into a set of small, manageable goals that could, at least in theory, lead you to accomplish your own definition for success
These goals can be big or small. They can be simple or complex.
But for best results, start very, very small—and very, very simple.
Then, get more elaborate and more specific over time.
See, the goal is to turn your dreams into goals that you actually believe that you can accomplish.
Of course, this may change over time. And that’s ok.
But it’s so important to get started today with taking those hopes and dreams, and turning them into simple written goals that you can refer back to on a daily basis.
To learn more about strategic goal setting, check out this guide: 4 Steps To Strategic Thinking And Setting Of Goals.
4. Visualize Success
It’s so important to visualize yourself achieving a life that you see as being ‘successful.’
This means to try to imagine it being real, and to believe that you can achieve it if you stick to your goals.
Imagine how if you worked on accomplishing these goals over the next few days, weeks, months, and years, how much progress you could make toward actually achieving them.
But I can’t stress this enough:
Believing in yourself, and visualizing yourself at the end goal, is so important.
5. Work Hard And Consistently
As with all good things in life, goal achievement and success require their own fair share of elbow grease.
Even the Bible speaks to the importance and necessity of hard work:
“By the sweat of your face will you earn your food, until you return to the ground, as you were taken from it. For dust you are and to dust you shall return.”
– Genesis 3:19
This speaks to a universal principle:
That we must work diligently and consistently if we want to produce positive results in our lives.
6. Review, Revise, Go
And finally, it’s so important that you continue to re-assess your goals as you get more specific about what success looks like for you in your future.
If your idea of success shifts a little bit, then it stands to reason that your goals may shift a bit as well.
And once again, that’s completely fine.
This is why it’s so important to ‘review, revise, and go’ as you work toward achieving success in life.
Review
Keep reviewing your goals, to make sure that they align with what you want to succeed at in life.
Revise
If you’ve noticed that your vision or goals have changed, you can revise them to make sure that they stay in alignment with where you want to be in the future.
Go
Of course, setting goals is just the first part. To truly create success for yourself, it’s important to get out there, roll up your sleeves, and make it happen!
In Conclusion – My Goal In Life Is To Be Successful
Friends, I’m going to be very honest with you.
Every single one of you has the potential to have the life you’ve always hoped for.
But in order to begin the process, you must turn those hopes into dreams.
Then, you must turn those dreams into goals…
And then, you must apply yourself to the goal-setting/goal achievement process to start writing down your goals and working to make them a reality.
Need a bit of help getting started? Download my weekly goal-setting sheet, print out a few, and give it a try.
You can also sign up for my email list to get my free Goal-Setting Essentials Starter Kit.
But remember. In order to achieve success, you also need to define it.
So that’s really the first step.
I believe in you.
You’ve got this.
Now get out there and make it happen.
Best wishes…
Jay O’Donnell