Achieving Long-Term Goals: How to Overcome Failure and Reach the Summit

“I’m going with a long-term strategy.” This statement is like standing at the foot of Mount Everest and pointing to the distant summit, declaring, “I’m going to climb up there.”

• Understand why failure is essential on the journey toward a great long-term goal.
• Learn the importance of the ‘pivoting’ strategy through examples like Slack and YouTube.
• Gain concrete survival skills to prevent burnout and complete the journey.

1. The Starting Cry: The Beginning of a Great Journey

Every great journey begins with a dream, a declaration. The moment you set a long-term goal is filled with pure passion and potential. Like a writer dreaming of a great novel before a blank page or a YouTuber nervously recording their first video.

An Le, CEO of NFQ Asia, started his business with the primal cry for a “better life.” At first, there is no fear of failure or weight of experience. Perhaps this “productive naivety” is the most powerful driving force. If a climber felt every danger to be faced before climbing Everest to the core, how many would take the first step? The challenge is how to transform this pure passion into a strong will to endure the storms of reality.

2. Endless Uphill and Snowstorms: Tests and Hardships of Reality

The moment you take the first step toward the summit, romance ends and the real climb begins. The path is steep, the weather unpredictable, and your equipment feels utterly insufficient.

2.1. The Pain of Creation: Burnout of Content Creators

Today, one of the most dazzling climbers is the “creator.” Behind the goal of becoming a popular YouTuber lies a brutal struggle.

• Creative depletion: One YouTuber said “content exhaustion” is their greatest anxiety. Creativity is not just a talent but a resource tied directly to survival.
• Burnout: Studies show 52% of influencers experience burnout. When your life itself becomes a product, the boundary between work and life collapses, and you become a 24/7 evaluated entity. This is not merely a personal weakness but a structural problem caused by relentless performance pressure.
• Hate comments: Hundreds of compliments are overshadowed by a single malicious comment. Psychologically, it takes at least five positive experiences to offset one negative one.
• The uniqueness of ‘parenting’: Especially ‘parenting influencers’ face more complex issues like invasion of their child’s privacy, unexpected risks, and dilemmas of commercial activities.

2.2. The Wall of Rejection: Facing the World’s Indifference

Some face a huge wall of the world’s neglect and indifference.

• J.K. Rowling: The ‘Harry Potter’ manuscript was rejected by 12 publishers. It was only after the 13th small publisher’s editor’s daughter reacted positively that it was published, with an initial print run of just 500 copies.
• Vincent van Gogh: Though his works are worth billions today, during his lifetime he officially sold only one painting, ‘The Red Vineyard at Arles’. His loneliness, unable to fully rejoice even in this small recognition after a lifetime of neglect, poses an important question: Is worldly recognition the only measure of success?

2.3. The Ashes of Failure: The Real Resumes of Successful CEOs

In business, ‘hardship’ comes in the form of failure. But successful people see failure not as an end but as part of the process.

One entrepreneur called his first business failure a “turning point.” Through failure, he identified his strengths and gained ideas for the next business. Contrary to Tolstoy’s saying, in the corporate world, “all failing organizations look alike” because they are managed by intuition and instinct. This suggests that studying failures can be a more effective learning method than studying successes. Failure is not a period but a comma to pause and seek a new path.

3. The Path Was Not One: A New Climbing Route Called ‘Pivoting’

Sometimes the planned route is blocked. A wise climber boldly changes direction to find a new path. In business, this is called pivoting, meaning modifying strategy and direction while maintaining the core elements of the business model.

• Slack: Originally dreamed of ‘game development’ but failed twice. However, the internal messenger created for team communication showed huge potential and was commercialized into Slack.
• YouTube: Started as a ‘video-based dating site.’ When no one showed interest, it pivoted to a ‘platform for sharing all videos,’ leading to what we know today.
• Instagram: Originated from ‘Burbn,’ a complex app with location check-ins and planning. Seeing users only loved the ‘photo filter and sharing’ feature, they boldly discarded everything else.

Comparison: Great Pivot Cases

4. Minimum Gear to Protect Yourself: Survival Skills for Long-Term Goals

The more difficult the climb, the more important it is not just the will to push forward but the ‘survival skills’ that protect you and help you finish.

4.1. Your Own Base Camp: SMART Goal Setting

“Climbing Everest” is too vague a goal. You need to break down the huge goal into specific action plans, setting up ‘base camps.’ The SMART principle is effective here.

• Specific
• Measurable
• Achievable
• Realistic
• Time-bound

4.2. Fighting Mental Altitude Sickness: Burnout Management

Ambitious journeys bring mental altitude sickness like ‘burnout’ and ‘slumps.’ I too once poured everything into a project and was completely exhausted. I realized that stopping is not failure but a necessary process for recovery.

4.3. Find the Best Guide, the Sherpa: The Importance of Helpers

No one climbs Everest alone. Every expedition has Sherpas who guide and ensure safety. Our journey needs such Sherpas (mentors, colleagues, experts) too. Great achievements are almost always products of collaboration. The declaration “I will climb that mountain” should soon become “Let’s climb that mountain together.”

Conclusion

The true meaning of ’looking far ahead’ is not to rush toward a single goal but to carry the compass of a great goal, adapt flexibly to rough terrain, protect yourself and your companions, and steadily walk forward—the process itself.

• Key Point 1: Failure is a milestone, not the end. Failure signals the true path we must take.
• Key Point 2: The path can change. Like Slack and YouTube, bold pivoting can lead to greater summits.
• Key Point 3: Protecting yourself comes first. SMART goal setting and burnout management are essential survival gear for completion.

What is your long-term goal? When you face failure on that journey, I hope you pause without hesitation and take a new step forward.