An End Goal Gives You Purpose in Life

An end goal gives you a sense of direction of where you should be going to in life. Without it, you are living life aimlessly and hoping something sticks by the time it’s over. The two most important days in your life are the day you are born and the day you find out why.

Many people don’t take the time to sit down and actually contemplate what they want out of life. They are fine going in to work during the day, watching tv at night, then doing the same thing all over again. Weekends are just to pass time so that they can do the exact same things again next week.

Without direction, at the end of five years, you will be asking, “where did all that time go?” You weren’t working towards something. You were just existing and doing what others were telling you to do. It’s one thing to have a job, but what’s better is to have a career.

What’s even better than having a career is having a calling. It’s what you were born and destined to do. The question isn’t, “what’s a good job for my future?” The question is “what’s a good thing to do during my life“? That’s where an end goal takes priority above all the other goals you have.

It’s an important question that looks at what you want out of your limited time here on Earth. Deep and philosophical? Maybe. However, it’s better to find that answer now instead of never finding the answer and live a life full of regrets down the road.

Don’t kick the can down the road. Many made this mistake and are paying for it. Self actualization is our number one priority of needs, it’s smart to not neglect it.

What is an End Goal?

An end goal is an overall theme of your entire life and the final destination of where you want to end up at the end of it. You weren’t born just to have a job to put food on the table, you were born for much greater things in this world. There’s a purpose and a reason why you were born.

It’s not just to pass your DNA and genes upon to your future children. It’s for something much greater than that. Everyone has a purpose, it’s up to you to find what that is and figure it out. Your past doesn’t matter and it doesn’t define you. It’s what you do in the now that affects your future that matters.

One end goal may be to SMASH that social share button in the right and post to your favorite social media for your friends to see! The Google algorithm will really appreciate it that you and your friends are getting valuable information. It’s a great thing!

In seriousness, it’s necessary to plan ahead and think what your next steps and moves should be. It’s as necessary as breathing air. You should clearly define your end goal so that you can take steps towards it as soon as you possibly can. The best time to plant a seed was 20 years ago, the second best time is today.

What you do today affects your life 1 year from now. It’s a long term game that you have plenty of time to achieve. However, every day that passes is an inch that is taken away from your life. You don’t want your life to be taken away to nothing by the end of it.

You want to have something to show at the end of it.

How to Find Your End Goal

Below are 3 simple ways to find your end goal. One thing to note is that you do not want to pick an endless goal. You don’t want to pick being rich as an end goal because the ability to acquire more money is infinite. It’s a never-ending goal that you have zero chances of fulfilling.

Pick a specific end goal that is measurable and allows you to evaluate whether you met it or not. Otherwise, you’ll generally feel like you are making progress but in reality, you’re standing still. You are running and going 100 miles per hour on a treadmill but are ending up at the exact same place.

Your end goal shouldn’t be a treadmill. Rather, it should be a fast car that gets you to where you want to be.

1) Recognize Your Passions

What do you spend most time doing and what do you spend the most of your hard earned money on? Don’t just say what your passions are, evaluate your actions then figure out what your passions are. We invest our limited resources on the things that bring us the most joy and happiness.

Time and money are the two most precious commodities we have today. You’re not wasting them on people you don’t like or on things you don’t want to buy. Evaluate where you invested the most amount of energy, effort, and money on for the past week, month, quarter, or year.

Then work your way up from then. Another good way to find out what your passions is to find out what you are good at. Passion doesn’t come from the subject matter, it comes from mastery. As a result, you don’t find your passions, your passions find you.

Your passions are an excellent indicator of what your end goal should revolve around.

2) Envision Your Perfect Life

What is your perfect life? Is it to be financially independent and work when you want to, not when you have to? Is it working as a software developer that ends up changing the world and making other people’s lives better? Whatever it is, envision what success will look like for you if you didn’t have to work for a living.

If you had all the money in the world, what will you do with your time? Are you going to still go into work every day and do what you’re doing? If so, then great! You’ve found a calling that happens to be a career as well. That’s the best spot to be in. If you envision sewing as your perfect life, then take steps outside of work hours to go towards it.

Don’t be like the 99% where they work, sleep, then play. Your perfect life will very rarely consist of you working hard to make someone else rich. Your perfect life is focusing on the things that matter to you the most, exactly what an end goal is for.

3) Connect 1 and 2 together

Now, the final step is to just put your passions and your perfect life together and work towards it. You will spend a third of your life sleeping, a third working, and a third to do anything you want. This is your free time. This is the time that separates you from everyone else in the world.

The time to really show who you actually are instead of just saying who you actually are. It demonstrates what you are willing to focus on. This last third is a great time to focus on an end goal. Some days, you just want to do nothing in your free time. That’s perfectly OK. We all need those days to refuel and propel upward faster.

However, what you need to do is continuously put in time to what you value the most in this crucial third of your life. Mine is blogging. Every weekend, I fire up the laptop and write content that will add value to my readers.

It’s been so much fun and I’ll continue to have fun with it. It’s time to figure out what yours is so that you can spend time pursuing the end goal.

Don’t Confuse it With a Means Goal

An end goal is the where you want to end up, a means goal is the how you want to end up there. It’s a classic case of confusion that people go through when deciding what their end goal should be. A means goal is the building block to your actual goal but too many people miss this subtle difference.

How you can tell is by asking yourself the why question over and over again until it makes sense. If you want to be a Vice President at your company, ask yourself why? The conversation may go something like this:

You: I want to be VP.

Why?

You: Well, I’ll earn more money.

Why?

You: Well, I want to reach financial independence and live a life on my terms. Ding ding ding! This is your end goal.

Your means goal is to be a vice president but your ultimate end goal is to reach financial independence faster. Remember that an end goal is your overall theme of your entire life, a final destination of sorts. Another example can be:

You: I want my kids to stop playing video games so much

Why?

You: It’ll hurt their eyes.

So?

You: Their future depends on their health. Visual impairment can be adjusted with glasses, but it’s still not ideal. Ding, ding, ding!

Most of the time, people think they are setting a good end goal while they are actually setting a good means goal. Separate the two because they are very distinct and need to be separated from one another. Both exist for different purposes and co-mingling the two together creates risks.

A means goal is a way to get to where you want to end up. It’s completely different and apart from an end goal.

An End Goal Gives You a Reason to Get Out of Bed

Why should you pursue an end goal? It motivates you to get out of bed and actually do things that are meaningful. Otherwise, you don’t even try at all to get out of bed. I’ll be the first to acknowledge that life is hard. It’s not easy to keep putting in the hours knowing that there’s someone out there putting in more hours than me.

However, it’s one worth living and trying to do well at. If you had a bad day, then take a breather and keep going the next day. I’ve been there. There’s been many days where I just wanted to crawl inside a rock and shut myself out from the outside world.

However, what keeps me going is my end goal. The thought of knowing that I am making progress towards something that I want to achieve. What I eventually want to do is to start a business and create a good life for myself and my family. While I don’t have kids yet, I’m always thinking about the future and what’s next.

There’s a couple of business ideas that I want to pursue but none that I stuck with so far. Blogging has been a great and rewarding venture and I’ll continue with it for the next 3 years, at a minimum. I’ll most likely stick with it forever because it’s been so much fun. I don’t even see it as work anymore.

You need something that motivates you to keep going and not give up. An end goal can serve for that purpose. Giving up is not an option. Failure is definitely an option because it’s based on things that you don’t control. However, giving up is never an option in your life.

It’ll be worth it later.

Protect Your End Goal at All Costs

Your hopes, dreams, and end goals are precious. Protect it and never it them go. It’s easy to say that you won’t but three years later, you may decide to let them go. Don’t let that happen to you. Look at the long term. Your dreams aren’t just a bunch of used napkins that you throw away.

That would be something disposable and meaningless that isn’t worth fighting for. An end goal is worth fighting every single day for and worth giving everything you’ve got for. It’s your baby that you are willing to go the extra mile for just to protect it. Don’t let anyone else take it away from you.

You’re going to get knocked down so many times throughout the journey. I’ve been knocked down more times than I can count. There’s many days where I cried because life was too hard and I didn’t know if I could make it through the end of the day, week, or month.

What kept me going was knowing what I was doing all of this for. It was for my parents who sacrificed so much to get my life to where it is today. There’s no way that I am ever going to let them down. They didn’t immigrate to the United States so that I could slack off.

They immigrated so that I can create a better life for myself. There is no way that I was ever going to let them down. I am eternally grateful that my parents moved from South Korea to the United States. While success is possible in South Korea, the amount of opportunities aren’t as abundant as the U.S.

It is the land of opportunity, people! Take advantage of it.

Your Ideal Life is Just Around the Corner

Whatever you envision as your perfect life is, it is just around the corner. All you need to do is put in the effort to reach your end goal that leads to a perfect life. You will be amazed at how much you can accomplish when you show up every day and put in the effort.

Even if you don’t particularly have any skills or innate ability to do things, everything can be learned. With enough effort over time, people will start calling you a genius because of how well you can do something. Show up every single day, be present, and actually put in a fair amount of effort.

You don’t have to put in 120% of effort every day, 70 – 80% effort over a long period of time pays huge dividends. I don’t give 120% of my effort at work every day. I put in enough so that I can produce a quality work product that adds value to the group. It keeps me going because now, I don’t burn out easily.

My salary of $116,000 before benefits is high for my age group and there’s no denying it. However, with the high salary comes with a lot of stress. One way I’ve been able to keep going is because I remember what I’m fighting for, my end goal. Another way is to pace myself over the long term.

My life is a marathon, not a sprint. Although I’m progressing faster than someone going through a marathon, there’s no way I will ever go at a sprinter’s pace. That’s a recipe for disaster. Find a good pace that works for you and everything else will fall into place one day.