When we picture ourselves as successful, there’s a tendency to ignore real emotions and hardship that every successful person goes through. By shooting for the stars in your quest for success, your dreams are on the horizon and can seem possible to achieve which is one step towards becoming successful. However, the path toward actually landing somewhere close to your dreams is rougher and more difficult than expected. It is likely more akin to landing on the moon, a closer and more realistic destination. When you’re able to steer your expectations of success by aiming for the most and settling for less than this, this is likely how a good number of successful people achieve their dreams.
Notwithstanding quitting altogether, success comes in different forms for different people, and it is a measure of perseverance and focus. After starting out as an entrepreneur, I soon realized how much perseverance and focus expanding a business actually takes. I didn’t quite understand how much of a continued journey it would be, however, and couldn’t get over the fact that there was less “success” than I anticipated. For example, the expansion didn’t include the number of people I wanted to reach, there were fewer downloads than expected of the app, and the blending of social media technology with posts of gratitude didn’t catch on as so quickly I expected it would. Expecting virality, I achieved notoriety for a smaller objective and project under the namesake of appreciation. I was shooting for the stars and had to settle for a trip to the moon instead.
Fast forward 7 or 8 years, I am sitting, contemplating a different objective: how to spread wellbeing in an effective, intriguing, convincing and powerful way. Notions of spreading wellbeing arose naturally as an extension of the practice of gratitude and self-care, and my own learned experiences could speak to how to deliver benefits to sleeping, diet, and exercise. These are just a few of the baskets of wellbeing I wanted to fill with tools that could help a needing audience. By experience and exposure, I learned that a needing audience would include U.S. veterans and individuals experiencing hardship. The needs of both these groups require close and delicate attention to such wellbeing categories as vital as sleep, food, and daily exercise. Delivering monthly wellbeing packages with tried-and-true practices that could shape veterans’ and others’ wellbeing may be the next step in my journey, and I want to be prepared for the ride; therefore, here I am working towards shaping these packages into the best tools possible not just for veterans, but ultimately for as many as possible.
How can I steer my journey of entrepreneurship into a successful moon landing? By working hard, delivering successful products, measuring our product’s impact through careful research, and growing our social media presence to reach more people in order to help with wellbeing for as many as possible. It won’t be an easy achievement, and like with any other successful idea, I anticipate there will be many more rough patches ahead. Knowing and acknowledging that I’ve steered them before gives me confidence that I can ride out the journey with success as a disciplined entrepreneur. Thank you to all those who supported and cheered me onward. I appreciate the success of bringing gratitude and self-care to those who sought them and will continue to develop ideas and products that illuminate these cherished concepts. Thank you.