While conducting research to write this book, I came across a story that I found both striking and inspiring. It seemed fitting to share it here with you to introduce this first section. It’s the story of Kate, an American executive in a highly competitive industry.

With over twenty years of experience, Kate is a brilliant senior executive working for one of the leading companies in her field. She oversees thousands of employees under her leadership. Because the company generates substantial profits, she earns a comfortable six-figure salary.

Compared to her peers in the same industry with similar responsibilities, her salary is twice as high. It is well-deserved, as everyone in her company and the industry recognizes her as an exceptional worker and an excellent leader and manager who provides unwavering support to her teams daily. She is also a mother of three children and a happily married woman.

Given her significant responsibilities in the company, her husband, Mike, agreed to resign from his job to take care of their children full-time as a stay-at-home dad. Kate is passionate about her work, and her perseverance, determination, and dedication have allowed her to climb the corporate ladder and build an enviable career in a male-dominated world.

Despite her apparent success and enviable life, she didn’t feel well—she seemed depressed, as if she didn’t belong. It may sound unbelievable, but she admitted that she no longer knew what to do with her life. It was as if she had lost control and sought to give her life true meaning, a purpose beyond her job and responsibilities.

Stories like this are common among people who achieve extraordinary accomplishments. Beyond the corporate world, similar situations occur in other environments. In sports, for instance, we find many relatable cases:

• André Agassi, who was the world’s top tennis player in 1995, once said during a low point in his career: “I have never liked tennis.”
• In 2016, after dominating world tennis for years, Novak Djokovic broke down. He admitted losing motivation after his victory at Roland-Garros, the only tournament missing from his record.
• “After every Olympic Games, I think I went through a period of severe depression (…). I didn’t want to swim anymore, I didn’t even want to live (…). You think about suicide.” These words from American swimmer Michael Phelps, the most decorated swimmer in history, reveal how he suffered from severe depressive episodes during his career and contemplated suicide after the London Olympics in 2012.

By winning tournaments and competitions on a global scale, these high-performing athletes undoubtedly achieved their goals. However, when victories and accomplishments create feelings of anxiety and discomfort, it is a clear sign that something is wrong.

How can such high-achieving athletes, at the peak of their craft, adored and celebrated worldwide, go through such negative experiences? According to Olivier Schmi, a sports and performance psychology expert in Geneva and the University of Bern, “When sport becomes a job, there is a risk of being consumed by the pursuit of performance and glory at the expense of enjoyment.”

In the examples we’ve seen, both in business and sports, one thing is clear: although these individuals achieve most of their yearly objectives, the truth is they don’t know what truly brings satisfaction to their lives, what lights up their eyes, or what deeply moves them. How can this happen when everything seems to be going well? When someone is successful, it is often challenging for them to take a step back to determine if what they’re doing aligns with their values and deepest aspirations.

In truth, they sometimes continue certain activities just to please others or to maintain the glory they’ve tasted. Most of the time, they lack clarity about what they should continue or stop doing.

The first part of this book aims to help you develop clarity about your life—learning to envision your future while staying grounded in the reality of your present. Clarity is not a personality trait that some people have and others don’t. Whether you currently possess a high level of clarity or not, know that it is something you can learn and cultivate daily.

Clarity is developed through questioning and introspection. It emerges when you research to understand the “why” and “how” of your experiences—what happens in your life, opportunities seized or missed, and repeated failures in certain areas. If you remain static and don’t undertake this work of research and reflection, don’t expect clarity to come as a miraculous gift from the heavens. As you can imagine, the more you ask yourself questions and seek answers and solutions to the situations in your life, the more you will develop clarity.

According to research on clarity, people with the highest levels of clarity know the answers to certain fundamental questions such as:

• Who am I?: What do I value? What motivates me? What are my strengths? What are my qualities? What are my weaknesses?
• What do I want?: What are my true desires? What do I aspire to? What do I want to do with my life? What are my deepest aspirations?
• How do I get there?: What are my objectives? What is my action plan to achieve them? What are the steps involved?

While these questions may seem basic at first glance, you’ll be surprised at how knowing the answers can profoundly impact your life!

These three questions highlight the importance of self-knowledge, vision, and goals. That’s what we’ll address in the following chapters, dedicating one chapter to each concept. We will explore how to better understand ourselves, how to write our vision, and how to set our goals.

This text is an excerpt from the book “THIS YEAR I ACHIEVE MY GOALS!” written by Henri M. Missola.

We invite you to read the next article: “Your Vision Aligns with Your Core Talents.”