Just pure dumb luck. Being in the right place at the right time. I guess if there’s any takeaway from that, it’s just to stay attentive and stay open. You never know when the thing that’s going to change your life is going to arrive.

Well, I just worked my ass off. Now, I can buy as much candy as I could ever want.

Unfortunately, I've lost the taste for it, and it's no longer as appealing as it was when I was 5.

Dream achieved?

I had 1 goal. 7y ago I tried to buy an express ticket to thoughts and prayers but the gun jammed. Good thing too, .22 HP probably would've only blown my face off. Made a deal with myself, get better within 7y or try again. I'm back in the gym, doing therapy, finished my degree, and getting to know myself better. Still between jobs but... Hey, can't have everything. Trying to emigrate but that's a bit beyond the horizon atm. That's the next goal.

Step one is to actually figure out what you want. Too many people spend their whole lives chasing after something they think they are supposed to want, and end up further from happiness every day.

Sure, there was hard work. A lot of time spent getting good at what I do, studying, and what not. But I'm going to be blunt: it was a lot of luck. Anyone who says otherwise is probably lacking insight.

Luck in having the circumstances where I was able to focus enough efforts and have the energy to do so. Luck in encountering the right opportunity and people along the way.

Not trying to downplay effort, but a lot of comments make it seem like all you have to do is work hard and you'll get rewarded. Sometimes you totally will. And other times you'll crash and burn or be taken advantage of.

A mix of extreme luck, hard work to put myself in a situation where I could get extremely lucky, and lowering my expectations. College (almost died from stress several times) -> job at shitty company with no money and had to pay me in stock -> company gets huge -> company sells for a fuck ton of money -> move to a much cheaper area, 2000 miles away from all my family and friends -> buy a house.

I have very a simple dream, which is, being happy, after idfk years i finally got it, i just needed to open up, and tell some bad jokes. Guess it's just luck

I seem to have achieved the nightmare. Need a mulligan, NGL.

My dream has always been a family. Raising children is hard as hell and often thankless, but I have 3 adult children and 3 grandkids now. I feel like it’s my greatest achievement.

It took years of effort and work, but it was worth every second.

One of my favorite baseball players, Shohei Ohtani, has an insane goal listing. He breaks down his goals into seperate steps and individual actions he can take to achieve those elements.

Now he’s an absolute freak and one of the most accomplished humans on the planet but learning about how he thinks is interesting and I think we can all take something from this.

He definitely dreams big! And hasn’t accomplished everything on his goal list.

https://hirokiga.medium.com/the-shohei-ohtani-goal-matrix-df454b5b1482

I got a super-cool first job because my mother happened to be jabbering about me to a guy who thought it’d be neat to have an intern. Note that this wasn’t some rich-folks club cotillion, she was a part time dental hygienist making small talk during a cleaning.

Edit (the first line of my post disappeared:)

“Luck is the most important factor in success; more than hard work, more than money.”

It’s not much, but my dream has been to have an apartment and consistent income at the same time.

I’m 40 and I’m about to achieve it.

I honestly can even remember my other dreams except in the faintest of washed out images.

Joining a men’s group helped. Working through trauma has freed up a lot of my mental resources. I can work more, I’m less prone to escape into drugs, junk food, whatever. I’m able to recognize my feelings and hence can make decisions easily instead of always having to think them through.

I’m a little envious of those who had this stability in their twenties — a place of their own, that they can organize however they like and be alone whenever they want, plus money to furnish it and not worry about bills going unpaid. But mostly I’ve learned not to compare because it’s so damned painful and unproductive.

I’d say fundamentally the way I achieved it was by learning to take baby steps. A year ago I was homeless. I got a job washing cars. Now I’m a kitchen designer and I’m about to get my own apartment.

I wish I had this kind of mental health twenty years ago. But I’m glad I didn’t go another twenty years without attaining it.

Hard work supplemented by a tremendous amount of luck and privilege

Made a plan and did it.

Honestly, achieving my goal did not feel like I thought it would. Almost all of the enjoyment came from trying to achieve it. I was very forlorn when I did reach the end....so, now I have another goal!

I lowered my expectations.

I lowered my expectations. Putting less pressure on myself gave me the breathing room to eventually realize that what I thought I wanted was wrong. I’m not the person I imagined I was going to be and I’m grateful for it.

Make smart decisions (especially marriage), take calculated risks, work hard, be nice, cross fingers.

I made a plan, broke that plan up into achievable goals, and then persevered until I reached them. I made sure to learn how to pause instead of giving up too.

I broke things down into smaller achievers and celebrated those achevements.

My achievent was going back to school and getting my AS. I started with 1 class the first semester, then took 2 the second and leveled out on 3 a semester as doable for me with a full time job. Then, I continued along that way until I graduated.

I told myself I was going to apply for as many jobs as I could in the specific states I wanted to move to. Then I applied for about 25 jobs before I got my first interview. They hired me, and I moved.

I recently was accepted into a nursing program in my state. It took me three years of hard work in college to get all the necessities to apply. Now it's two more years of hard work.

My secret however is that I have a family I need to take care of. Nothing will motivate a person like having a child that you now need to ensure they are taken care and have all needs met. There is nothing I will not do for my child.

Before my child though when I did meet my goals, I had something that I would do for myself. On top of determination and drive, there needs to be incentive for completing the tasks, be it large or small. For example after I finish nursing school, I am going to take my family to Disney land or something.

By holding myself responsible, and by being kind. I don't want to dox myself but having a reputation of someone who can be relied on and is trustworthy, and of also being nice to have around and to be with, means that when opportunities arise they'll think of you.

I think I'm also in the same situation as you. I am kinda unknown about what my goal for this year is honestly. I know that I wanted to become a low poly artist but I don't think I have done enough to get to there yet. Still I consider myself now to be a much better artist than when I started st the start of this year, so maybe I have achieved my goal of being an OK artist, and that seems to be enough for me

Determination, perseverance. Stumble and get back up. Our modern world of instant gratification for everything has made us lazy and complacent. You gotta fight that temptation for the quick fix.

Found a like-minded partner, got married, got pregnant, got pregnant again, got married again, got pregnant again.

At least some of my goals are pretty straightforward lol. Travel-related goals really just require following the thread from beginning to end to figure out all the things you'll need:

I've always wanted to see the northern lights. First I searched for tours to see where and when people tend to go. It basically split into Alaska or Scandinavian countries, and it was a lot cheaper for me to go to Alaska. I also found a place with large, skyward facing windows to allow for viewing from within a heated space, because I am not built for cold weather nonsense.

I'm no longer in school, so I like to travel off season. With a range of months in hand (auroras are best viewed from fall to early spring) I checked in with a friend to see if they wanted to come with (they did!), which further narrowed the date range. We found a package at a price point we both liked, booked flights that overlapped as much as possible, shopped for suitable cold weather clothes, figured out accommodations and necessary time off.

The first time I saw the light with my own eyes, I was actually surprised by how faint they were. They showed up way more strongly on my camera. But I really love astrological phenomena, so I spent most of the nights there bumbling around in the dark with my camera, fiddling with the long exposure settings, experimenting with various makeshift tripods (coat rack ended up being my favorite) and just laying back and watching the auroras while my friend was snoring away. I still remember one moment where the aurora was particularly strong, wiggling around in a large stripe across the sky directly above me.

I always wanted to be a scientist. I'm a professor now for more than a decade. How? Every day, move things forward. It's doesn't have to be much, but it has to be every day. That's how I got in shape, too. And how I learned another language. Every day, just a little progress.

Most of my friends who dropped out of graduate school couldn't keep that momentum and discipline.

I had a very basic goal. A monetary goal.

Make X by Y. I envisioned this plan in high school.

I met it at like 23-24.

I think I considered what I was/am good at and researched jobs that paid the most while taking classes and working REALLY fucking hard.

An internship led to a job led to a career.

Now I’m kinda bored even in a career analogous job switch and I’m wondering if I don’t need to blow everything up and do something different.

I consider myself very lucky because a lot of shit was prep, plus, right place and time.

And I still feel like I stuck to my morals and didn’t do anything outstandingly evil.

I wouldn't really say I'm who you're asking, but I've looked hard at a lot of statistics on this. It's mostly luck, with a big helping of what you were given either through birth or early life, which is just a form of luck if you think about it.

Anything beyond that is going to be a matter of your particular situation, and which things you're willing and able to change about it. If there was a silver bullet everyone would already use it.

It takes time. I’m ten years into my career as a cinematographer and I still feel like I haven’t achieved “it” yet.

Worked very fuckin hard. And made sure i was as good as i could be at what i do

Luck

Usually about two weeks goes by then the project ends up on the shelf with all my other half done projects. Goal successfully archived!