Why do so many people not get what they want out of life?
Why do so many people find themselves falling into jobs they don’t really want? Or living places that don’t make them happy? Or with lifestyles that they find stressful?
How does someone go from dreaming of being a rock star, to being locked in an office to enter data onto a spreadsheet?
Well, there are many factors. But it usually starts by not clearly defining your goals or what you want. Because until you know exactly what it is you actually want, how can you possibly expect to get it?
That means it isn’t good enough to decide you want to be ‘rich’, you need to know what you want to do to become rich. What kind of work you enjoy, how many hours you’re willing to work etc.
Likewise, if you hope to become a rock star, then you might want to think about how you actually intend to make that happen. What does being a ‘rock star’ entail for you and how are you going to make it happen? What would you settle for?
And when you make all these decisions, you need to ensure that this is truly what you’re passionate about – that your intended goal is something that you enjoy thinking about, enjoy working on and can’t wait to make a reality.
The Simple Way to Make Decisions
The reason this is all so important, is that it will then allow you to make all your future decisions that much more easily. This is going to act like your barometer and your road map, to help you to get to the end destination that you want.
Now, whenever you find yourself making a decision, the question to ask is: does it help you achieve your goals?
So for instance, if you’re umming and ahing over buying an expensive piece of equipment, then the simplest way to decide if it is a good idea or not is to ask if it will help you to accomplish your goals. Likewise, if you’re unsure about where to live, or whether you should take a particular job opportunity, ask whether the decision is going to take you nearer or further from your goals.
The problem with many people who aren’t quite sure what they want, is that their objectives end up on a kind of back burner and that other things seem to start getting in the way.
But if you really want to achieve something amazing – if you have a dream business idea that you really want to make happen – then you need to make this your priority and you need to change the way you think about everything else.
And it shouldn’t feel like a sacrifice either. Because if you really love what you’re working toward then it will mean fully embracing the thing you really want to be doing anyway. You just need to find what that passion is…