Why is it that we start the year filled with renewed drive and motivation only to find ourselves drifting aimlessly through life a few months later?

It’s easy to make plans for the future and how we’re going to change our life for the better — it’s much more difficult to build new habits and overcome adversity on the road to success.

But it doesn’t have to be that way.

Start by setting a direction

Most of us have made this mistake in the past — setting a goal that focuses entirely on a destination, not the journey. “I want a bikini body.” “I want to buy a house.” “I want a million dollars in my savings account.”

While setting a destination goal is better than nothing, it’s not ideal. We tend to fixate on the desired result and completely ignore the hardships and challenges on the way to reaching that goal. This means we are much more prone to abandoning our goals after the first few hiccups. Plus, people often pursue goals that leave them feeling miserable and deflated because they think too much about what they could have and very little about what achieving their goal will cost.

If we don’t take the journey into consideration and get in the right mental state, we end up standing in the way of our own success. So what can we do about that?

The answer lies in setting a life direction instead of sticking to individual goals. And the best way to figure out what that direction should be is to look inward and figure out what energizes you and brings you joy and fulfillment.

You can start by asking yourself a few simple questions:

• When am I happiest? When does the time fly by?
• What daily activities do I look forward to?
• What do I want to learn next?
• Who do I want to connect with? What kind of people inspire me to be better and strive for more?

When you know the answers to these questions, the next step is to set goals that put you on a journey you know you will enjoy.

In fact, as soon as you start moving in the right direction, the goal itself becomes less of a focus and more of a reinforcement of the journey and the decisions you’re making along the way.

There’s no better way to achieve what you set out to do than to enjoy every minute of doing it. So stop hopping from one small goal to another and focus on steering your life in the right direction.