A few years ago, I found myself stuck. On the outside, life looked fine — I had a good job, I was an executive leader of companies with all the perks. But inside, I felt restless and empty. My days blurred together from one board meeting to the next; from one report to the next. I woke up with neck pains and low energy, and I couldn’t shake the thought that I was living someone else’s life.
Then I attended a shareholders’ meeting where I learned about gross negligence by my colleagues. I quit and instantly felt the relief. But the honeymoon soon faded. How would I pay the bills? I had to get my act together.
But before that, I wanted to achieve a dream I had held for 7 years — cycling from Musina, at the very top of South Africa, all the way to Cape Town at the bottom. Over 3,000 km on two wheels, no support car, self-sufficient; nothing but determination and a deep need to rediscover myself.
While training and preparing for the journey, a friend suggested that I add a cause. So, I partnered with Barefoot No More, the same non-profit that delivered over 20,000 school shoes for Mr Beast. If they could raise 20,000 school shoes, surely I could raise money for 10,000 pairs, I thought to myself.
The road was brutal. Long days in the sun, endless hills, aching muscles, and moments of doubt were a constant feature. On day seven, while crossing the Drakensberg Mountains, from Barberton to Badplaas, I ran out of water and food while still climbing a treacherous mountain pass. There was no signal, and my body had long given up. Positive self-talk gave way to self-doubt. I stopped the bike, sat at the edge of the road, high in the mountains, and sobbed like a baby. I soon realised that no help would come—I had to keep going.
Somehow, I summoned the will to keep pedalling. Two hours later, I saw a glorious sign, indicating that it was downhill from there. I stopped and took a photo of the sign and even dedicated a shot of whiskey to whoever erected the sign. By then, I was talking to myself aloud. It was a huge relief and reassurance that no matter how far, Cape Town was inevitable. Incidentally, this became my first big insight. Some goals only require effort and the will to keep going.
Three weeks later, I was in the Western Cape, and while I had covered more than 2,000km, I was nowhere near reaching my goal of raising money for 10,000 school shoes. My wife, whom I spoke to every day on the phone, started receiving an influx of phone calls from radio stations and local newspapers. As it turns out, people were spreading the word on social media, the more I racked up the miles. As soon as media outlets caught on to my mission, tens of thousands in donations poured in, some of which were from the largest companies in South Africa. It struck me, once again, that my goal of raising money was a different type of goal altogether—it depended on influence more than effort.
By the time I rolled into Cape Town, exhausted but transformed, I reflected on my journey and realised that the success was a combination of two entirely different types of goals. I took this idea and applied it to my startup, skybookings.com. I started the company with no funding, no savings and insurmountable financial pressure. Today, skybookings has generated over R700,000 from 12 months of operations. Just like my solo cycling journey, I am also a solopreneur, enjoying a growing business with no burden of paying salaries or carrying heavy overheads.
I have since shared this insight with many friends, some of whom asked that I write it down. So here it is: My success from cycling 3,257km from Musina to Cape Town was based on a few insights and life-changing discoveries that I will unpack for you here.
I have prepared this article in three parts. Part 1 unpacks the two types of goals. Part two, cracks the code of motivation. Part three, is about choosing goals that align with one’s mission and purpose in life. Full disclosure: I added a workbook you can download at a small fee at the end if you want to go deeper. But this article has all the core principles. So let’s get started.
One more thing—you will need a blank sheet of paper and a pen. We are going to actually do some work together.
Most people beat themselves up for not achieving their goals. They think, “If I just worked harder, I’d be further along.” But here’s the truth: not all goals are the same. And if you don’t know the difference, you will remain frustrated, working hard with no signs of progress. As shared above, there are two types of goals, and I have dubbed them (a) Individual and (b) social goals. Let’s unpack them:
An individual goal depends only on you.
My cycle from Musina to Cape Town was a perfect example. If I stopped pedalling, the goal stopped. If I kept going, the goal became more achievable. Progress was completely tied to my personal effort. Weight loss, shooting the next episode of your podcast, finishing a book, running a marathon — these are all individual goals. They rise or fall with your discipline, energy, and consistency.
However, as you have seen, some goals do not depend on effort alone. In fact, this is a serious source of frustration for many people who believe consistency is the goal key to success.
During the same trip, I also had a fundraising mission: to raise money for school shoes for children in need. To succeed, I had to persuade other people to believe in the mission, trust me, and take action. That’s the key difference: social goals require buy-in from others. But how do we persuade people?
In my more comprehensive Achiever & Reinvent Yourself Workbooks, I go into a lot more detail. However, let me share the three most powerful principles I picked up during my journey and how you can apply them immediately:
When you apply these principles, you unlock the power to move social goals forward.
Most people fail because they treat every goal like an individual one. They double down on effort, get burned out, and feel like failures when nothing changes. But once you learn to distinguish between individual and social goals, and use the right tools for each, you start to see real progress.
So, take a blank sheet of paper and fold it in half. At the top of the first half, write the title “individual goals”, and do likewise on the other half with “social goals.” Then make a list of all your goals in each half. Upon reflection, you will see that some of your goals were in fact not in the right category.
For instance, getting a raise is a social goal—you do not get a raise from working harder. Winning your dream client is also a social goal. On the other hand, making products, losing weight, and investing your money instead of spending it—these are all individual goals that require effort and consistency.
But even with clarity about your goals, the next challenge is remaining motivated to keep going. So, in the next section, I will deal with motivation
You’ve probably experienced it before. At the beginning of a new goal, you feel unstoppable. You buy the gym clothes, download the apps, make the lists. For a while, you’re on fire.
And then… life happens.
Deadlines pile up. The kids get sick. Your energy dips. Suddenly the goal you were so excited about just weeks ago is gathering dust at the bottom of your to-do list. This is where most people quit — not because the goal wasn’t right, but because motivation fades.
By day 17, when cycling from Harding to Kokstad, I just didn’t want to do it anymore. My body was tired, and there was nothing I could do to shake off the demotivation and negative self-talk. So, I called Neil and Johan, a 60-something-year-old who had cycled from Durban to Cape Town and a 50-something-year-old who had cycled from Johannesburg to Durban and other places.
Neil asked where I was. For a moment, I thought he would fetch me. When I told him, he said, “Are you crazy!? You are cycling the toughest stretch in the country, climbing at an extraordinary rate with a 50kg bike—you have to slow down!” I dragged myself to the next town and dropped like a sack of potatoes and slept for 12 hours.
When I woke up, it dawned on me that the mind cannot tell the difference between a small win and a big win. I was so focused on making huge progress, since I was on a big mission of cycling the whole country. But the brain is too dumb to tell the difference. All it registers is the goal and whether it was achieved—it’s a binary system. If the goal is achieved, the brain releases endorphins, dopamine and other feel-good hormones, encouraging you to do it again. However, if it is not achieved, it releases stress hormones, which make you feel like an old broken truck climbing a steep mountain.
So, here’s the solution
The key is to shrink your goal down to the smallest possible action you can take and achieve today — something so easy it feels almost laughable.
An outsider might think you are lazy or not “pushing yourself” enough. But that is precisely the point. The point is to nurture a productive mental state—a positive voice in your head. Then, over time, as confidence, motivation, and momentum grow, you can scale up the size of the goals. But even then, be careful not to overextend yourself.
After discovering this rule, I reduced my distances each day from 100-150km to about 70km. I suddenly had time to gaze at the mountains, feel my body and enjoy the journey. I can truly say that my journey began in the Eastern Cape, when I was relaxed and feeling good.
The point isn’t the size of the action. The point is to keep moving forward, no matter how small the step. Small wins create momentum, and momentum beats motivation.
I am not a fan of motivation. It works like the weather, sunny today and rainy tomorrow. A far more powerful fuel is momentum, which starts slowly—laughably slowly—but builds up over time. Better still, momentum requires less effort over time.
When I started training, for instance, I could only run 500 metres before my asthma kicked in. So I ran whatever I could, and then walked. Within two months, I was running 10km per day, and within six months, I was cycling up to 140km per day.
So, take one of the goals you listed from Part 1. For individual goals, ask: What is the tiniest action I can take in the next 15 minutes to move this forward? For social goals, consider how you can add authority, social proof, and create affiliation. This could be as simple as creating a WhatsApp group or asking friends and customers for testimonials.
Again, I go into much more detail in my workbooks, but I hope this gets you started. Critically, start now and repeat tomorrow. But even with a clear system for building momentum, you might know the expression about spending a lifetime climbing a ladder only to realise it was leaning against the wrong wall.
Unfortunately, this is what happened to me. I became very good at doing work that depleted me and was not aligned with who I wanted to become. So, let’s deal with that in the next section. Let’s unpack the process of finding oneself and realising one’s purpose in life.
You can build momentum. You can even achieve your goals. But here’s the question: Are they the right goals? One of the greatest tragedies is to spend years working hard, only to realise you are working on the wrong things.
That happened to me, and I hope to help you avoid or fix this mistake. Look, I made the money, I had the chauffeurs, and someone constantly worried about what I should eat at work. But in the final analysis, my energy levels remained low, and I knew deep down that I was not happy. In fact, I often left the office to work at a cafe, just to beat the feeling of misalignment.
Here’s the truth: Goals without purpose lead to burnout—always. But you could work tirelessly on a purposeful mission, and you will wake up energised, stronger and readier for the next step. So, here are two steps to finding your alignment and purpose.
You don’t need a grand revelation. You need honest reflection.
1. The Energy Audit
2. The Legacy Question
3. The Alignment Test
It’s not good enough to merely think about all this. Get your journal and write your thoughts in as much detail as possible. Examine yourself and dig deep to figure out who you really want to become. Then write it down. This is your personal mission statement. Share it with three of your closest friends, spouse or family and ask them to hold you accountable to what you have written.
I learned this technique from a great friend who has led three listed companies, achieving remarkable success over his career. And guess what, he carries his personal mission statement everywhere he goes, even after 30 years of having written it.
I shared my mission statement with my wife and close friends. I also included it in the pack alongside my workbooks I have on offer. It might be helpful to see my version, in the process of writing yours. But of course, this will become your document—so make it your own; write it as you please.
Let’s recap.
In the previous section, we looked at one of the greatest mistakes you can make: spending years climbing the ladder, only to realise it was leaning against the wrong wall. That’s the alignment problem.
But here’s the next trap — and it’s just as dangerous:
👉 Even if you know the difference between individual vs social goals (Part 1)…
👉 Even if you’ve mastered micro-wins and momentum (Part 2)…
👉 Even if you’ve aligned your goals with purpose (Part 3)…
Most people still fail because they do not have a guide, a map, a North Star. So, when it gets rough, they give up, often not knowing how close they are to succeeding, or overlooking that the solution is easy. For instance, my guides, while cycling from Musina to Cape Town, were other cyclists who had done it before. A simple phone call, whether for mechanical or mental reasons, brought clarity and courage.
So, here’s your guide — download it here.
If you want to go deeper and give yourself the highest chance of success, the next step is to use the workbooks I created to help guide your understanding and process. I have two workbooks. The first unpacks the process of reinventing and discovering your true calling in a lot more detail. The second workbook goes deeper into setting and achieving your goals, including separating them according to the different areas of life, i.e. personal, professional, and family, while remaining aligned in all areas.
After buying the workbooks, on the downloads page, you will also see the option of booking a one-on-one appointment with me so I can help on your personal journey. Note, however, I get hundreds of requests. I am a faculty member at Duke CE, and I am building a startup. So, there’s a fee and a waiting list of up to six weeks for a one-on-one session. But my responses are faster and free of charge via email.
The workbooks come in an easy-to-print PDF that you can download to start immediately. If you do not agree that these workbooks and the mystery bonuses I have in store for you are thoughtful and transformative, then I am also happy to give you a full refund.
This is a bundle of two workbooks—The Achiever and Reinvent Yourself. Individually, I will sell them for R497 each, making it R994. In this case, you can get both the Achiever and the Reinvent workbooks (in a bundle) for R69—our launch price that ends on 06 September 2025.
Click here to get started, or click here to learn more.
I hope this article has been helpful on your journey to achieving your goals. If I can help in any way, let me know.
With Warmth
Vusi.
P.S. My goal now is to acquire a PhD in philosophy in the next five years and buy a farm where I will focus on doing academic work. I also plan on composing music more and transitioning from being a startup founder to becoming an investor—but this will take another 12 years or so. Importantly, I am using the same system I just shared with you, with the added advantage of deeper insights from experience.
So, what are your goals? What will it mean for you and your family if you achieve them? Sit back and really think about it. Don’t waste another day—start small, start now.
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