The 3 Factors that Ultimately Determine Successfully Achieving Your Goals

Photo by Annie Spratt on Unsplash

If Point A is where you are, and Point B is where you want to be, and success is defined as completing the journey of getting from Point A to Point B, then there are 6 factors that ultimately determine success.

1. Position
2. Direction
3. Route
4. Follow Through
5. Distance
6. Speed

To be more effective, our positions can be changed, better directions can be discovered, and routes can be revised.

In terms of position, some can be born into a position where everything ahead of them is as easy as rolling downhill. Others may be born into a position where everything ahead and above them will be an uphill climb.

To improve our accuracy of getting from Point A to Point B, we often go in search of direction and routes to take. If it’s a craft, we may seek teachers for training or study other successful cases, referencing the paths they traveled in order to construct our own route. Teachers may be people we have direct access to, or it could be

But the last three factors are the most important: distance, speed, and follow through.

Although we can gain better positioning, discover better directions, and revise the routes we take, none of that matters if you don’t follow through and travel the distance with sufficient speed.

In my work, I guide students through the various steps, opportunities, and possibilities for them to prepare for college and life, often aiming at external achievements in their academics, testing, and extracurricular activities. The biggest myth that both they and I should never believe is that information alone will be enough to get them from Point A to Point B.

I’ve seen students with more disadvantageous positioning travel further and move faster climbing uphill than students who were positioned with the advantage of running downhill. And so with every student I meet, I make sure to emphasize and remind them of the following.

No matter how well they are positioned, others can only really give them direction and routes. They are ultimately the ones who must decide the distance they will travel and the speed they will travel at.

And they’re going to have to follow through on that distance and speed almost every single day. We can schedule it into their calendar, break down routes into the simplest step-by-step processes, but they are the ones who will have to answer with their own actions the question of “what did you today to get from Point A to Point B?”

Because it’s the sum total and compounding of their follow-through that answers the real question — did you get where you want to be?