most people will never achieve their goals (here's how to avoid it)

Have you ever set a goal that filled you with so much excitement, you got fireworks throughout your body?

And the moment, you tried to work on it, it all disappeared.

You felt lost, confused, and drained.

The once exciting goal now felt like an impossible mountain that you had to climb.

I've spent the last 10 years of being an entrepreneur trying to figure out what it actually takes to win.

"How do I actually get ahead of my competition and make it out of the race?"

Through the many seasons, there have been a lot more failures than wins.

Dozens of failed businesses.

Hundreds of failed launches.

Thousands of rookie mistakes.

And even more nights of feeling lost, confused and almost being ready to give up.

Through those periods, I always asked myself, "what is the difference between the successful entrepreneurs and the ones who spend their entire lives trying to make it out?"

This question has spun in my mind for so long. Each time I thought, “maybe I found the answer”.

I found myself facing a new trial that tested me more than anything I've ever been through.

Constantly bringing me back to the same burning question.

"What is the IT factor that's needed to succeed?"

Regardless of your business model, regardless of your background, where you come from or where your located.

What's the one thing, if you have as an entrepreneur, success is inevitable.

And I believe, I've recently stumbled upon the answer as I was desperately searching for the missing piece to grow my personal brand and take it to the next level.

Focused attention.

I've stumbled upon the book "Deep Work" by Cal Newport as I found myself in a constant cycle of feeling distracted, unable to concentrate and my mind constantly racing.

Through out the course of building my personal brand, I can't lie, I've been distracted.

Distracted by all of the outside noise.

Giving space to too much background non-sense and not truly putting myself into extended periods of deep concentration.

Something that I'm sure 99.9% of the people reading this right now are struggling with in some way, shape or form.

Or else, you wouldn’t have made it this far.

"Deep work is the ability to focus without distraction on a cognitively demanding task" - Cal Newport

There's 2 things that deep work allows you to do

Which is the basis of any wildly successful project, startup, brand, business, life's work or for the sake of this article "a goal.”

Without deep concentration, you constantly fall into the noise of distractions.

So why is focusing so hard now a days? Why does it feel like you can’t sit down to work on the goal that once lit up like fireworks inside of you?

Multi-tasking is a cancer to your goals.

We are living in a TikTok framed world where everything has 3 seconds to catch your attention or your moving on to the next.

Doing multiple things at once is the new norm.

And that's just naming a few.

We can't sit down without fidgeting, moving or our mind wandering somewhere else.

And then we wonder why we can't produce any meaningful work out of our day.

Cry and complain that life is so hard. We're working so hard but getting no where. If it's not one thing coming at us, its another.

Rarely, do we take a step back and look at the quality of our efforts.

As a result, your goals self-destruct every 30 days.

Your girlfriend or boyfriend makes one mistake and your scrolling on Instagram looking for potential candidates.

You ate one healthy meal and your abs aren't showing up yet so you stop going to the gym.

You tried creating content for two weeks, you didn't "blow up" so social media is too hard.

You started a new side-hustle and you haven't made a dollar yet so it's a scam.

This is the sad life that most of you guys are living. It's the sad life that I lived. Without understanding what caused it or how to fix it.

12 months ago, I found myself starting a new business and expecting everything to fall into my lap since I've had success in the past.

And I wanted things to happen so quickly, I was trying to learn multiple skills at once, grow on multiple platforms at once, launching multiple products at once, and then went to sleep confused as to why my business wasn't getting anywhere.

Extraordinary results don't come from doing everything at once, it comes from putting an extraordinary amount of focused attention on one singular problem.

You probably have it backwards like I did.

You think by doing more, you're getting more done. And I understand why that might sound appealing but your doing ten times more harm than good.

Imagine if J.K. Rowling wrote 2 Harry Potter books at once.

Imagine if Michael Jordan trained for basketball and tennis.

Imagine if Lewis Hamilton learned how to drive a car and fly a plane.

It would make sense to say that the quality of their work would suffer. It'd also make sense to say that one project would probably come out better than the other.

As I look back at any significant breakthrough I've had in my career, it always came from an extended period of concentration.

Focusing on one problem to solve at a time and spending hours figuring out that one singular problem.

Without a doubt, that has been the cause of any big win I've had.

As I sat in my room one night thinking about this thought, during those time periods, I was out less, I was in the gym more and my social media account was always deactivated.

Free from the distraction of my phone and using every ounce of brain power, to solve one problem.

So why don't we look at our goals in the same light?

Instead of trying to juggle, just play catch with one ball.

My personal philosophy for making a breakthrough in your life, work, project, etc, is that you must be willing to give up something of similar or equal value.

And this exercise helps me figure out what I need to fix, asap.

It starts by picturing yourself outside of your own body.

Kind of like giving advice to a friend but that friend is you.

We recreate a similar conversation with ourselves.

Side Note: I usually use a journal for this so I can write out all my possible answers or ideas, you can also talk out loud, or you can record yourself talking and watch it over. Whichever floats your boat.

When a friend approaches you for advice, there is usually a singular topic that they need help with that kicks off the entire conversation.

Whether it's a physical goal, like losing weight or building muscle.

A financial goal, like starting a business and making your first $1000.

A spiritual goal, like being more intimate with God.

A mental goal, like being more mindful and calm.

Choose your one main objective, that excites you.

Something that, once solved, will have you jumping up and down just thinking about it.

Write it down.

After a friend tells you what they need advice on, they usually start with a story of what happened to paint the picture of where they are, what they're going through and where they want to go.

This is the fun part. You get to color outside of the lines.

Everything that you do, have gone through, are feeling, and want to achieve related to this specific goal.

Here are few questions to ask yourself if you feel stuck.

Once you've answered these questions, you should feel a deep sense of meaning and purpose towards the goal you've set. A sense of ownership should come over you, if not, your goal may not be exciting or as life-changing as you thought it’d be.

As you go back to look at your answers for #5, it may help to write out your routine if you can't directly find the setbacks you’ve experienced when pursuing x goal.

(I believe everyone knows what they should fix but they tend to ignore it until someone calls it out.)

Usually this is where something is robbing your attention.

For example,

There's almost always some sort of distraction where you try to multi-task and achieve the big goal you've set out for yourself.

Me personally, I think that monster robbing your attention is usually social media.

In some cases, it might be family or friends.

This is where you must make the decision, do I keep feeding this distraction?

Or do I instead, starve it and feed my goals?

As long as your attention is split, you will almost always slow down your progress significantly.

Your level of effort doesn't matter. You can force a triangle to fit a square no matter how hard you push, you'll just break it.

So why do we treat are goals like such?

This part is tricky for some people. Most people are too in-love with their distractions.

Yes, its fun to scroll on TikTok and laugh for a bit. It's fun to see what your friends are doing on instagram. It's fun to gossip with your friends in the group chat.

But you know what's not fun?

Not being able to pay your bills on time. Looking in the mirror and being disgusted with yourself. Seeing your grandparents work themselves down to the bone. Having to check your bank account before you grab a $5 meal.

Feel free to identify any of the "not fun" stuff you've personally experienced.

At this point, you should ask yourself, are my distractions worth the pain its causing in my life?

If I could change all of the “not fun” stuff, would it be worth letting go of my distractions?

I'd say hell yea (100x over).

So now is the time to take action.

Now is the time where you reflect on your goals, your life, your routine and ask yourself.

Are my distractions worth more than the life I could be living instead?

To get, you must first give.