Goals

• Chuckle because of my stupid intro
• Drop the mindset of “I need to set big, ambitious goals. Otherwise, I’ll achieve nothing!”
• Learn why continuously setting small goals will get out of hand quickly, in a good way

Introduction

Better watch out! At this time of the year, there’s a certain species of vermin practically around every corner. They have special organs to sense the guilt you have due to those love handles you’ve acquired over the holidays, and feed on your momentary motivation to turn your life around. Afraid of the light, they dwell in the darkest corners of the internet: Twitter, Instagram, and Youtube. And although they are not a recent phenomenon, the scientific community has just started to classify them, and has given them the name “Gurus motivatus”. Let’s hope our brightest scientists will be able to find their weakness and invent a deterrent, trap or straight-up poison to rid our society of this plague: Motivational gurus trying to sell you their “one secret trick to keep your resolutions!”. All you need to do is sign up for their newsletter, buy their online course or join their online retreat. That’s how they get you. Be careful out there!

Try new week’s resolutions

I’m a firm believer in slow and steady progress. You can of course take a fancy course on goal setting. You can learn the ins and outs, come up with an ambitious 5 year plan to get everything you’ve ever wanted. But for most of us trying to do so will look more like this:

“Hmm, what do I even want?”

“Everybody wants to travel more, so I guess that’ll be one of my goals”

“Of course, I want to be rich and famous, work less, get fit but also eat more fancy food! Let’s add that to the list”

“I have no idea how I’m gonna get there...”

And then, another year later:

“Setting resolutions is total BS! No one ever keeps them anyway!”

The way many of us (and I’m definitely including myself here) go about setting goals is similar to a kid that just learned how to walk immediately signing up to run a marathon. You gotta dream big, but let’s be real kid, you’re setting yourself up for failure.

If you’re motivated, but can’t seem to find the right goals, start with baby steps.

Don’t set new years resolutions yet. Set new week's resolutions. What can you do next week? How can you make it a great week? Maybe finally cleaning the clogged gutter on your garden shed? Last year’s taxes are probably due as well.

You can of course use your big dreams as guiding stars, nothing wrong with them. But I’d say refrain from putting achieving them on your to-do list for now, especially if you’re still quite new to this whole “goal setting” affair.

Consistency is key. And a long-winded mountainclimbing metaphor...

Whether or not you even have any bigger goals for your life (yet) doesn’t matter as much as the consistency with which you go about achieving the small ones. You don’t even need to bring your A-game every day. As long as you inch your way forward every week.

Chasing some big dream requires confidence and competence when it comes to breaking down and following through on your goals. And you build them by doing these exact things consistently. Even if you don’t yet know where you’re headed.

Imagine two people trying to climb a specific mountain. Both of them were given a rough description of what the mountain looks like. It’s quite tall, the ascent is treacherous and there’s a big gold cross on the summit. Engraved on this cross it says “Congrats, you made it!”.

One of them climbs the first mountain they see. It’s not easy, and once they’ve reached the top, they found it desolate, no golden cross to be found anywhere. But from their new vantage point, they spot another peak, and there’s something that reflects the sunlight up there. Could this be the golden cross? They make their way down the mountain, ready to climb the next one.

Meanwhile, the other person keeps on looking for this golden cross from ground level. They’ve done some research on about a dozen mountains, none of them seem to be the one they’re looking for.

A few years later, the first person has become quite the pro-climber. Whenever they hear of a mountain that might hide this legendary golden cross, they make it to the top in record time. So far they found a few silver ones, and even one coated in shiny gold! But it was missing the engraving. Still, they remember this particular summit with great fondness and pride.

The other person has grown quite bitter. They’ve stopped looking eventually. While they can’t boast with their climbing prowess, at least they didn’t make a fool of themselves by wasting time ascending all those mountains for nothing!

Which one would you rather be? And which one will make it to the top first should they ever find the legendary mountain with the gold cross?

To bring some realism to this metaphor: The whole golden summit cross thing was nothing but a big lie! You’ll never get to a point where you know that “you made it”. But in one of these scenarios you can look back on a life filled with adventures and a whole list of mountains you’ve successfully ascended, while in the other one, you’ve spent your whole life looking for the right thing to do, but ended up doing nothing at all.

Set small goals, get shit done, review, repeat

To bring this weird mountain climber metaphor from someone with zero mountain climbing experience home:

It doesn’t matter if you already know what you want to do with your life. Learning how to set small goals and continuously achieving what you set out to do will pay huge dividends over a lifetime. You can change your career or even your whole identity as many times as you want, but these skills will always give you the edge.

And how do you get there? Set small, achievable goals, fail a bunch at first, get the hang of it, fail less, set bigger goals, change course a bunch, gain clarity, become more ambitious and proficient, and off you go. Simple.

Start by setting goals every week. If you stay consistent, the rest will fall into place. So what are your new week's resolutions?

‍