What to Do When Your Goals Feel Miles Away

Sometimes I look at the life I want and feel incredibly motivated.

Other times…

I look at exactly the same life and feel completely overwhelmed.

More freedom.

More travel.

Building my own income.

Growing Soulful Summits.

Becoming stronger, fitter and healthier.

Helping more people.

Then I look at where I am today.

And the distance between the two can feel enormous.

It’s like standing at the bottom of a mountain, looking towards the summit and thinking:

“How the hell am I ever going to get from here to there?”

I’ve realised this is one of the biggest things that can knock me flat.

And I’m slowly learning that the problem isn’t necessarily the size of the mountain.

It’s where I’m looking.

Stop Looking at the Whole Mountain

When we have a big goal, we naturally want to know how we’re going to achieve it.

The problem comes when we feel like we need to see the entire route.

I do this all the time.

If I want more freedom, I start wondering exactly how I’m going to create enough independent income.

If I want Soulful Summits to succeed, I start thinking about building an audience, finding members, growing the community and making it financially sustainable.

Before long, I’m not thinking about what I need to do today.

I’m trying to solve the next five years.

No wonder I feel overwhelmed.

You Can’t See the Whole Route From the Bottom

Imagine actually climbing a mountain.

You wouldn’t expect to see every step between the bottom and the summit.

You’d know roughly where you were heading.

Then you’d walk the section of trail you could see.

When you reached it…

You’d be able to see more.

I think life works in much the same way.

Sometimes the next part of the route isn’t just unknown.

It’s impossible to know until you’ve taken the earlier steps.

Progress Reveals the Next Step

Soulful Summits recently gave me a perfect example.

For months I worked privately on the course.

Eventually I had to stop tweaking it and send it to real people.

Only then could I begin answering questions such as:

What do people find useful?

What confuses them?

What’s missing?

What doesn’t work?

I could have spent another six months trying to predict those answers.

Instead, I had to move forwards.

Taking the next step didn’t just create progress.

It created information.

The next part of the trail became visible.

The Slight Edge

One book that has helped me understand this is The Slight Edge by Jeff Olson.

One of the biggest ideas I took from it is incredibly simple.

Small actions, repeated consistently over time, can eventually produce enormous results.

The difficulty is that they often seem almost meaningless today.

One healthy meal doesn’t transform your body.

One workout doesn’t make you fit.

Saving £50 doesn’t make you financially secure.

One social media post doesn’t build an audience.

But repeat the right actions for long enough and something starts to happen.

They compound.

What 18 Months Can Do

If I could go back around 18 months and show the old version of me what was coming, I think he’d be pretty shocked.

Since then I’ve:

  • Lost nearly five stone.
  • Learnt how to cook properly.
  • Completely changed the way I eat.
  • Cleared a credit card balance that had been hanging over me.
  • Built my emergency savings to over 4 months cover.
  • Finally left a job I desperately wanted to escape.
  • Built Soulful Summits.
  • Finished the first version of the course.
  • Sent it to real people to test.

Looking at the whole list feels significant.

Living through it rarely did.

Most days were ordinary.

Cook another healthy meal.

Don’t buy the chocolate.

Save some money.

Write another lesson.

Apply for another job.

Record another video.

Keep going.

There wasn’t one magical day when everything changed.

There were hundreds of ordinary days that eventually added up to something much bigger.

So What Should You Actually Do Every Day?

This is the part I’ve realised I need to get better at.

It’s not enough to say:

“Take small steps.”

Which ones?

The first question is:

“If I kept doing this for the next year, would it make the result I want more likely?”

If you want to become healthier, perhaps it’s:

  • Eat nutritious meals most of the time.
  • Exercise several times a week.
  • Do a little mobility work each day.
  • Get enough sleep.

If you want to become financially stronger:

  • svgSpend less than you earn.
  • svgSave something every month.
  • svgAvoid unnecessary debt.
  • svgGradually increase your income.

If you want to build a business or audience:

  • Create useful things.
  • Publish consistently.
  • Talk to potential customers.
  • Reach out to people who could help you reach a wider audience.
  • Learn from what gets a response.

The exact actions will be different for everyone.

But the principle is the same.

Work backwards from the result you want and identify the few behaviours which, repeated consistently, are likely to move you towards it.

Then make them simple enough that you can actually keep doing them.

Find Your Slight Edge Actions

Try this.

Choose one thing you want.

Then ask:

What would someone who eventually achieves this probably be doing regularly?

Write everything down.

Then narrow it to the few actions that matter most.

For example:

Goal: Build a healthier, more capable body.

My actions might be:

Eat well + mobility + exercise + recover.

Goal: Build Soulful Summits.

My actions might be:

Publish + talk to people + promote + learn + improve.

Goal: Become financially stronger.

My actions might be:

Earn + spend carefully + save + build independent income.

You don’t need twenty habits.

You need a few useful ones that you can repeat.

Then Give Them Time

This might be the hardest part.

Once you’ve identified the actions, you have to resist constantly digging them up to see whether they’re working.

If I publish three posts and nobody responds, that doesn’t necessarily mean posting doesn’t work.

If I stretch for a week and still feel stiff, that doesn’t mean mobility work is pointless.

If I save £100 and still don’t feel wealthy, that doesn’t mean saving has failed.

Results often arrive later than the work that creates them.

So perhaps the question shouldn’t always be:

“Is this working yet?”

Maybe it should be:

“Am I still doing the things that are likely to work if I give them enough time?”

That’s a very different question.

Review the Route Occasionally

Of course, persistence doesn’t mean blindly doing something forever.

Sometimes an approach genuinely isn’t working.

That’s why I think there’s another important part of this.

Do the work regularly. Review it occasionally.

Don’t redesign your entire plan every Tuesday because you’re having a bad day.

Give your actions time.

Then every few weeks or months, step back.

What’s working?

What isn’t?

What have I learnt?

What should I change?

Then continue.

A Simple Way to Remember It

When I start staring at the whole mountain, this is what I’m trying to come back to:

Know where you’re going.

Identify the few actions that move you towards it.

Repeat them.

Give them time.

Review and adjust.

Keep walking.

That’s it.

I don’t need to solve the next five years today.

My Biggest Takeaway

I still get flat when my goals feel miles away.

I still look at the gap between where I am and where I want to be and wonder how I’m ever going to close it.

But the last 18 months have given me some evidence.

Big changes don’t always feel big while they’re happening.

Sometimes they look like:

A healthy meal.

A workout.

A few pounds saved.

A post published.

An application sent.

An uncomfortable conversation.

Another attempt.

Another day.

The important thing is identifying the actions that move you in the right direction…

…and then doing them for long enough to give them a chance to work.

Takeaway

  • Know roughly where you want to go.
  • Work backwards and identify the few actions most likely to get you there.
  • Keep those actions simple enough to repeat.
  • Don’t expect immediate results.
  • Review your progress occasionally rather than constantly.
  • Adjust when you learn something new.
  • When the whole journey feels overwhelming, return to the next action.

You don’t need to see the whole mountain.

You need a direction.

You need the next section of trail.

And you need the patience to keep walking when the summit still looks miles away.

Because sometimes progress is happening long before you can see it.