I believe there is a common struggle the vast majority of humans face: an inability to truly focus.
It's everywhere: in early-stage companies, personal lives, relationships, and creative pursuits. We find it tremendously hard to focus in the sea of opportunities, distractions, and external stimuli.
Focus, by definition, means saying no to other things. True focus means narrowing it down to one thing. If there's only one thing you are focusing your life's energy on, you will achieve it. However, when many initiatives interfere, and you find yourself unable to truly focus, things become hard, and you become stuck.
What is truer than ever is that you can be anything, but not everything. You can extend this to: you can achieve anything, but not everything.
This thinking implies an explicit need for choice. One needs to become clear on what their one goal is at any given time—their focus. If one cannot succeed in this, one won't succeed at anything else.
The method that works for me is this: write down the top 10 things you want to accomplish in the next year. Write it in the form as if you had already achieved it (e.g., reached 100k listeners with my music). Then, sit back and see which goal jumps out at you. This can be difficult or easy. In any case, there will be one goal that is more meaningful to you than all the others. Choose that one. The last step is to make a step-by-step plan on how you will reach that goal. Then, start working on it every day.
It's incredible to see how much one can achieve in a short amount of time if true focus is present. But it requires you to say no to many other things. Focus.