Take a tennis ball and throw it as far as you can.
...NOW...
Take a tennis ball, throw it as far as you can, and try to throw it into a small sand bucket, maintaining at least the origional distance.
That's the difference in my opinion between those who reach the distant goal and those who go the distance and end up in the desert. Everybody's willing to go the distance, but nobody's willing to do the navigation.
Imagine a person taking off in a spaceship and saying, "I want to go as far as I can!" He takes off, goes further than anyone else has gone, and ends up somewhere in the abyss with no food, oxygen, fuel, and is isolated from any known civilization beyond the point of rescue. Me, I'd point somewhere on a three dimensional star map and say, "Take me to this planet." Thus, my crew has both the distance and the correct azimuth to determine.
Moral of the story, don't fire yourself into outer space without an intended destination, you'll only hurt yourself. Go to the outer edges of the trumpet universe, find your specific goal, and commence on your journey.
That usually works for me with anything.
