I’ve never achieved a goal in my life.

(almost - I have achieved one - aka meeting 1person/day for 30 days)

Other than that, my life has been full of goals and objectives that I’ve set,

But without prevailing in any of them.

Just last month (July) I set out to achieve 300 followers on Twitter.

But my work ethic was so bad that I’m now at 164. (which is less than it was a week ago)

I have been weak.

Not because I didn’t achieve that goal,

But because I didn’t give it my all to achieve it.

I didn’t work for it.

I could have done more,

But I didn’t.

I am not proud of myself.

.

.

.

If you’re human, and especially if you’re on self-improvement,

You’ve felt this as well.

That feeling of knowing you can do more, but just not getting there.

But, due to my past failures, I’ve found the exit.

And it comes down to the 2 lessons I’ve learnt this month:

1. The goal was not the problem:

Most people, when you tell them about your goals, say:

“That’s impossible, you’re never gonna achieve that.”

And we get riled up, saying:

“You fucker, I’ll show it to you. Not only will I achieve it, I’ll go even further beyond.”

(yes, this was an anime reference)

And you can just feel the energy and the motivation surging you right after you walk out of there.

You go back home, and you immediately sit down at your computer, ready to show that fucker who you are.

The month passes, and the results are here.

But you haven’t achieved it.

You’ve truly given it your all,

But luck wasn’t on your side.

You get up from your chair, angry.

“Ugghhh, how the fuck could this happen?!? I’ve done EVERYTHING. And for NOTHING.”

You argue with yourself a little more, then sit back down at your desk.

You’re tired.

You’ve worked your ass off, and yet it was all in vain.

It was all for nothing.

You think to yourself that you’ve set too big of a goal.

And that you should just set smaller goals in order to achieve them.

But that, my friend, would be the biggest mistake you could make.

You see, the goal you set was not the problem.

Nor was it your work ethic.

The problem, in this case, was you.

But how could that be? You’ve done everything right, didn’t you?

It wasn’t your actions that were at fault, but your thinking.

You based your value on the result, on the outcome.

And once you saw you hadn’t achieved it,

You were worthless.

Once you do everything in your power to achieve a thing,

The outcome is out of your control.

And the biggest problem is just that.

You did it in order to achieve something.

It’s like if you’re a shy person and you want to talk to a girl.

You set the goal of getting a girl’s number.

You go, you talk to her, and you get rejected.

In your mind, all that’s left now is:

“Yeah, fuck girls, they’re no good in our society. Just stay in the kitchen bithc.”

When the real goal is to take the actions that could lead you to success.

Because afterwards it’s not in your hands anymore.

So set big, audacious goals, that most couldn’t even fathom.

Work your ass off,

But don’t look at the results when making the judgement.

You see, I’m not sad because I’m not at 300 followers (ok maybe a little)

But I’m sad because I could have done more, and didn’t.

And this ties in perfectly with the second lesson I’ve learnt:

2. Focus on the train:

Or, how one of my good friends Peter reframed this:

One of the biggest mistakes we can make when wanting to achieve something is actually focusing on what we want to achieve.

Because I was more focused on the outcome of my goals,

I was always checking to see if my followers had gone up.

Always hoping that one of my posts would blow up.

But, yesterday, I listened to a very interesting episode of a podcast called: “The Stoic Coffee Break”.

And it opened my eyes to something I was too dumb to see earlier.

The important part of the journey isn’t that it gets you to the destination.

The important part of the journey is the growth you get while on the path.

We focus too much on the first part, on “achieving something we’ve never achieved before”

When the most crucial aspect is who it forces us to become.

I’m happy that I’ve gotten to around 170 followers.

And I was happy that I had 20 subscribers on YouTube.

But this isn’t what matters.

Followers come and go, what matters is the changes I’ve done in myself to achieve all of this.

If you were to receive right now an account with 100k followers not knowing anything about writing, it will be gone in a few days.

It’s not about what you get, it’s about who you become.

When I started writing on YouTube I didn’t even edit my videos once.

I was leaving in the water breaks, thinking I was cool because I saw that in a public speaking video.

(even though there was no one in the room)

I was afraid to talk in front of the camera, and I didn’t even write my scripts.

I was horrible at writing, clueless to absolutely everything.

What I got from creating content on YouTube and Twitter isn’t 190 something followers combined.

I got to be a different person, with many many friends to show for it.

I met beautiful people on Twitter and I became beautiful myself. (spiritually that is)

Yesterday I watched a podcast with Mo Gawdat and he talked about his ultimate goal, he said:

“Until I die, my goal is for my message to reach and make 1 Billion people happier. “

And then he talked about if he thinks it’s possible or not, saying that he most surely knows it will not happen.

And he, my friends, is called by many people The Happiness Guru (just search Mo Gawdat - The diary of a CEO, you won’t regret it)

He created something called ‘The Happiness Equation’:

Happiness ≥ Events - Expectations

And he managed to remove any expectations from his goal,

Managing to transform it into a simple guide for his actions,

Rather than something he bases his value on.

If there’s even a thing you take from this article, let it be this:

Whenever you create a goal,

Let it give you the motivation and guidance necessary to achieve it.

But never, and I mean NEVER expect to achieve it.

If you do it,

You’re making yourself miserable by choice. And that’s just stupid.

Enjoy what the journey brings into your life and make sure to be present through it.

Because when you become successful, you won’t think:

“Ah, finally, now I’ve reached everything I wanted, I’m happy.”

If you try and create happiness through external outcomes, it will never work.

You are the only one that can create it, not anything outside of you.

Thank you so much for reading till the end my friend.

You’re a very fucking cool guy.

And until next time, please share the email if you think it helped you,

And have an amazing day.