Want to Achieve Goals? Have Clarity!

A friend of mine was struggling. She was working hard, had the talent, but still wasn’t hitting her goals. She felt stuck.

So, we sat down and talked. I asked her what she was doing to achieve her goals, and I noticed three things:

• She had a goal, but it wasn’t specific.

• She set the deadline too far away.

• She was doing everything at once, hoping something would work.

I told her straight up: "You need clarity. Right now, you're doing everything, which is leading you to do nothing."

Clarity gives Direction

If you don’t have clarity, you’ll waste energy on things that don’t move the needle. So, we broke it all down:

• Specific Goal – She wanted to be "financially stable." But what does that even mean? We made it specific and it was 50,000 rupees a month.

• Deadline – Instead of aiming for a year, we cut it to 90 days to create urgency.

• Focus Areas – Out of 21 things she was trying, we picked the top 3 highest ROI tasks.

Let’s break these down further.

1. Be Specific With Your Goals

A vague goal is useless. The clearer it is, the easier it is to work towards.

For example, one of my own goals is:

"Reach $10K/month with 4 serious personal brand clients who already make $15K-$20K/month."

We can be more specific but this is the overview. This way, I know exactly who I’m targeting, how much I want to earn, and what steps to take.

2. Deadlines Create Urgency

If you're a sprinter and the finish line is not visible, you won’t go full speed because you don’t know the end but if the goalpost is right in front of you, you’ll push harder.

That’s why I break my yearly goals into quarterly, monthly, weekly, and daily goals.

I barely look at my yearly goal. Instead, I focus on what I need to do today, this week, and this month.

Parkinson’s Law: "Work expands to fill the time available."

If you give yourself a year, it’ll take a year. If you give yourself 90 days, you’ll move 4x faster.

3. Pick a Few Things and Do Them Well

She wanted to do cold outreach, freelance platforms, content creation, etc, all at once. That’s not how you get results (She had 21 things that she wanted to do).

Big creators and businesses do everything because they have a team. But as one person, you only have limited energy.

Think of your energy like a drink in a bottle. You get a full bottle every day, but it runs out. If you use your energy on silly non-ROI things, it's like spilling your drink. Use your energy for important stuff. Some things take lots of energy, so be careful. Like someone in a desert, use your daily energy wisely to get things done.

We cut her list down to:

1. Making content on LinkedIn

2. Doing personal projects

3. Cold outreach

These were the main three things but she also wanted to do some side tasks. So, We made sure we do only meaningful and just enough side tasks to keep the energy maintained and support her goals.

For example:

Reading - She’d read self-help and creative books that would directly help her personal projects and content.

Writing - Instead of journaling aimlessly, she’d write LinkedIn posts and emails to refine her outreach and journal to clear her head and bring more clarity if she gets unclear.

She also wanted to work out daily, but I told her to treat it like brushing her teeth like a part of life, not another task you are optimising for.

Now, if you have hobbies then keep them in your routine, but don’t treat them as primary goals.

For example, she loves doodling. But that wasn’t a goal that would help her business right now. So I told her: “Doodle, but only after you’ve completed your daily to-dos.”

Let your hobbies be a reward for staying on track. They’re great for relaxation, but they shouldn’t be the focus when you have bigger things to chase.

What About Boring Tasks?

She told me, “Cold outreach is boring.”

I get it. Most high-impact work is boring until you get results. That’s how growth works.

I told her, “The secret is to make it fun.” Attach a goal to it. Instead of just doing outreach, do it with the mindset of closing a $2K–$3K client that eventually will take her business to the next level.

Time Blocking

When you do the same task at the same time daily, your brain automatically prepares for it. No resistance. No wasted energy.

Here’s how I do it:

• Mornings: Creative work (writing, scripting, strategy).

• Afternoons: Agency work (calls, execution, deep work).

• Evenings: Learning, reflecting, and winding down.

By blocking time for specific tasks, it becomes easier for my brain to dive deep into the task because it already know that at this particular time I will be doing this and I do that daily.

One last thing—confidence.

A lot of confidence issues come from not hitting goals and comparing yourself to others.

So at last I asked "Would you be happier if you hit your goal in a year, or in 90 days?

Of course the answer was 90 days.

To that I said,”Even if you fail at day 90th, don’t beat yourself up because it would have taken you a year to do what you did in these 90 days, you saved yourself almost 9 months. That will not be a failure but a stepping stone. At that point, set new goals and repeat till you don’t get what you want but keep in mind to improve the strategies to not stay stuck and reflecting every month should be in your list as well, reflect on the things you achieved and did right or wrong, write down those, connect dots and do better.”

Direction Gives Faster Results

Now that she had:

1. A clear goal

2. A deadline

3. A focused plan

She refined this more according to her daily life and she was all set to rock and roll. I wish she achieves whatever she has set her mind to.

“If you want to achieve something, see it clearly and know your first five steps.”

Clarity + Direction = Execution.

My January Efficiency Report

Since I track my efficiency, I reflected on January 2025 and my progress.

• I hit 60% of my goals this month.

• My average efficiency was 56% which is not bad, but it should be improved.

If you don’t know how I track my efficiency and energy, I shared a glimpse of it in this newsletter.

Cheers from my Mancave,

Mradul