One of the unalterable rules I live by is this: “You can accomplish anything you want in life, but you can’t accomplish everything!” Therefore, you have to know what you want to accomplish before you can decide what you should do next. In other words, you must have a Preferred Future.

60 Minutes’ Mike Wallace once said to Texas Billionaire H.L. Hunt, “It’s been rumored you make 17 million dollars a year.” H.L. responded, “If I only made 17 million dollars, I’d starve. Making 17 million dollars is easy. All you have to do is learn to give up something.”

All highly successful people have learned to say "no" to opportunities of lesser value than those they are currently pursuing. As a business owner, you have to know when to say "no" to perceived opportunities that do not help you achieve your Preferred Future. And to do that you have to know what it is that you want. If you don’t know where you’re going, you won’t know what decisions along the way will help you get there, nor will you know when you’ve arrived.

Understand that when you build a business, the business becomes a tool to help you achieve what you want. It isn’t the be-all and end-all. Your business is the means to an end, not the end itself. We all have unique talents, gifts, and a destiny in life. Having a successful business will help you achieve those things and reach your Preferred Future.

If you look at the creative geniuses in life (Bach, Beethoven, DaVinci, Renoir) many of them were able to achieve what they did because they had benefactors, people who supported them while they achieved their Preferred Future. Unfortunately, those days are passed; most of us live without the support of a benefactor. Unless you make your business your benefactor! If your business earns the income you need to do what you want, then your business has become your benefactor and you can achieve your Preferred Future.

When you clarify what you want to accomplish in life, you equip yourself with motivation, inspiration, energy, creativity, and the ruthlessness to say no to things that disrupt you.

So, what’s in your way? Why don’t you take time to clarify your Preferred Future? Easy. You get consumed making a living and creating a livelihood for yourself, your family, your staff, and your business. You focus on survival – how to get through the day, the week, the month. And you sneak in the creative, pro-active stuff when you can, things like customer service, client acquisition, staff training, computer upgrades, and so on.

This behavior is defusing. Our three resources - time, energy, creativity - are consumed with creative solutions for today’s problems as opposed to being used to create our Preferred Future.

Charles F. Kettering, the inventor of the auto-self starter and electric cash registers, said, “My interest is in the future because I’m going to spend the rest of my life there.” I suggest that if you’re going to spend your life in the future, why not create one you desire? Generally, peoples' futures tend to be clones of their past. We think in incremental steps about improving what we already have, doing more of what we’re already doing, without evaluation whether or not we should even be doing any of it. If we’re going to live there, we should have our own Preferred Future.

Brent Dees teaches entrepreneurs from around the world how to set and achieve personal and business goals in his Focus Four classes. He is sought after by business, professional and civic groups as a keynote speaker, provides continuing education training to CPAs, and delivers programs on practice management to dental study clubs. Dees is the author of numerous articles on entrepreneurialism and financial planning as well as previous host of the popular radio program Financially Speaking.