My Lesson Learned in Reaching Hard, Stretching, and Long-term Goals
Today I’d like to share with you a personal lesson that I have learned in reaching goals, especially those hard, stretching, and long-term goals.
By applying this lesson in my own life, I have achieved my goal of financial freedom in just about two years. My definition of being financially free is simply that I have a stable income to cover all my expenses so as to live comfortably without actively working much(perhaps only 3–4 hours a week at most). This may not sound much to you, but it offers me the freedom of living my life the way I want and the free time to pursue hobbies or things that interest me.
The funny thing is, I may have known this lesson all along, but never put much faith in it. Only until one day I decided to give it a try, did I really begin to see the amazing results and its true power. The lesson is very simple, but I believe perhaps very few people are actually doing it, so the value of it is largely ignored by many.
So the lesson is: to reach a hard, difficult, long-term (>1-year) goal, you need to write it down daily.
I know you have probably heard about this over thousand times. But please hear me out. There are two important parts to it: one is “writing it down”, the other is “daily”.
For writing down your goal, it doesn’t matter if it’s a piece of paper, or on your computer, or your smartphone, etc. You must write it out in some way. Don’t just keep it in your head. There are many science proven benefits of doing this, but I only believe what works for me personally. And so far, I can say for sure, it’s worked wonders.
Many people probably have already tried this before, but didn’t get much result. See, that’s the trick, that’s where the second part comes in, which is probably even more important than the first part. You need to write it down DAILY.
The magic happens in the daily consistent application of the routine. Find a time of day when you have a few minutes to yourself, and just write it down, don’t think much about it, just let it out on paper, or your computer, or somewhere.
Do this for a few days in a row, you may not feel and see much difference at first. Most people who tried this would stop here. That’s why it didn’t work for them.
But stick to it, and give it some more time, maybe a month or two, I assure you that you will start to see some changes, such as results in terms of ideas you start to have, people you start to meet, things you begin to notice, which all pull you towards your goal.
My experience is that I started to see it working about two months after doing it on a daily basis. Then after another two months or so, when I wrote it down, the goal itself seemed no longer a wish, hope, or future possibility, but has become a certain reality. I started to truly see and know that I could do it. That’s how powerful it is.
I could write more and more, trying to convince you that this works, but I think the best way is that you simply try it for yourself. Give it a test for a few months. I can’t guarantee it will definitely work for you. But I know it has worked for me, and for many people I know, so I strongly feel that it will also work for you.
