Steps to Clarity – Starting with the End

The Golden Hour (Photo credit: The Uprooted Photographer)

Clarity. It is required to get what you want. Your thoughts have to be clear of fear and overbearing. Clarity is the absence of fog and haze. Clarity shines brightly. Clarity comes in steps. One step is to start with the end.

Create a goal

One step of the road to clarity is having a well defined goal. Not a wishy-washy, pie in the sky, maybe someday I’ll have that goal. Not a goal where you are waiting for your ship to arrive. A goal that you can describe and touch. One that you know by heart. One were you can describe the smell and the sound. One you can touch. One that burns in your mind. Yes, one clearly define. A wishing goal will never be reached. A someday goal will never be had.

Get that goal down. Define every part of it. How will you feel when you reach it? How does a person at that goal talk and act? What will your life be like when you have reached that goal? Seeing your goal is not enough. See yourself at that goal.

Building a path

If you don’t have a path, any road will get you there. Build that path by working

backward to you. Create your path to that goal. Define major milestones along the way. Discover the changes and tasks that will lead to those milestones. The result will be your path.

Let’s say you want to be the a great Internet Entrepreneur. That is the end goal. Discover all the aspects of that goal. One will be a great website that pulls traffic. Forget all the chatter and noise on how to get such a website. Work backward on step. A business needs leads, lots of them. Another step back is traffic. How to drive traffic? What do you like to do? Write? Do videos? Place ads? Write that down. That’s your next step. All these steps are your milestones. Create the tasks for each milestone.

Generating a routine

Did you choose writing articles? Would you rather do video? Choose one and do it. Find a site on which to write articles. Perhaps use WordPress or HubPages. Start writing. Don’t worry about topics, just write. Write what you feel. Write what you believe. Write about your passion. Write. Set a goal to write once a week. Hit that and set the goal to twice. Hit that, set the goal to three times per week. Write longer articles. Write with more passion. After content has been created, now use Google to find key words related to your topics. Write and write and write. Content creates volume. Content creates awareness. Content creates mass. Content creates expertise. Content creates clarity.

Do not move to another marketing avenue until you have mastered one. Do not try all of the avenues at once. Choose one and be the rest there ever was at it. Research what the experts are doing and model yourself after them. No need to copy them. No need to imitate. Use your voice. Tell your story. Move alone your path.

Goal reached, next

Success will come when your goals are well defined. Success will come when you create your plan to each those goals. Clarity comes from creating the plan. Creating comes from defining your goals in every aspect. See where you want to be. Be where you want to be. Only one thing, only one person, only one circumstance will ever hold you back. That one thing is You. Don’t let Yourself do that. Go!

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Steps along the journey

Frozen circles of life and death to the portal of other lands (Photo credit: texym11)

Time. It goes by quickly. A few hours grow to become a few days. A few days expand to cover a week. Time. It waits for no one. It marches to its own speed. Never slowing. Never going backward. Always forward. Time.

Not long ago, a mentor helped me to realize I was on the wrong path. I was put on this Earth to do far more than program computers. I was put here for far more than building websites, taking pictures or writing blog posts. I was put here to make a positive change the lives of others. Doing so would in turn change my life. That process has become. Each day, I look for the moment, for the opportunity to change the life of someone else. It matters not if the change is small or large. The goal is to create a positive change.

Each day, new steps are seen. Each day, new steps are missed. Each day, new steps are taken. Each day, new steps are left untrod. The challenge is not only to see, but to act. See and Act! Together, never separate. First one must see. Then one must act.

A mission

When I was younger, I heard many sermons on changing people’s lives. Typically, these were given by missionaries looking to encourage young people into one form of ministry or another. None ever gave much appeal to me. I had friends that journeyed out, not understanding why I staid behind. “Here is where I belong,” I would tell them. Cowardice was their thought.

More than once, the opportunity for ministry came about. I tried here and there, never appealed for long. I knew that I marveled in watching others grow. I tried different ways to affect that, none stuck to me as a true sense of purpose. I kept an eye out.

About a year ago, a new opportunity arose. It masked itself as a business, thought it is far more. Education. Training. Mentorship. All of the items I had missed in various business ideas over the years. The cost was not cheap. The path was well laid. The leadership encouraging. The education second to none. I stepped out. Way out of my comfort zone. And went under.

Head above water

For months I was overwhelmed with tasks. I did them all with great joy and excitement. I placed ads. I did videos. I wrote. I bought. I listened. I set goals. I. I. I. Me. Me. Me.

My family missed me. My wife missed me. I become lost in my own excitement. My joy turned to sorrow. I was broke. No money. No leads. No sales. No nothing. All due to the wrong focus. My eyes were on myself. They were not on others.

More than once, mentors offered a rope to my hands. More than once I halfheartedly took the offer. I wasted their time. I wasted money. Then it happened. The shore, you idiot. It is over there. Swim or get eaten.

My head was finally above water. I swam toward the real goals. I saw again my I am here. I am here to change the lives of others. My purpose is to make you a better person. The addition for you may be small or it may propel you to heights never before seen. It does not matter. You need help and I need to help you. The path is there to be seen. Act now. It is time to wake up!

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Back From Miami

In August, Miami, Florida is hot and very humid. It’s tropical nature can fully be felt this time of year. It should not be surprising that this time of year is also the slow season in Miami. Many hotels have too many empty rooms and prices for them are quite a bit less. So, of course I was in Miami for Top Gun Training.

Friday gave rise to some Geocaching, claiming the the Florida badge and dropping off a travel bug that I found in western North Carolina. I added some miles to its journey by dipping it in Geocaches in Virginia, West Virginia and around Cincinnati. That little one has been around quite a bit. Happy travels.

The training itself was incredible. How often do you get to spend time with not one, but three self-made millionaires in the ways in which they acquired it. For those you could see outside the discussions, leadership by example was quite evident. It is now time to put all those ideas, philosophies and methods into practice. Otherwise, the investment in time and money will have been for little.

Travel back was a bit of a nuisance. Leaving Miami late, the tardiness and annoyances kept falling like Dominoes. Late to Atlanta, waiting on the gate to be cleared, late leaving Atlanta and then having to wait 20 minutes for the bus to the long term parking lot. By the time I arrived home, I was not only very tired, but with the beginning of a bad headache. Such are the sacrifices of the Entrepreneur.

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