Recently while writing an answer on Quora I had a side thought: why media is so obsessed with personal growth goals?
Researching a topic of personal goals on internet brings myriads of articles. 95% of those are about growth-related goals. It may be inspiring to read all those lists of big life-changing goals and hundreds of examples. But it’s not practical.
I mean, if you never juggled balls before, you would start with 2 or 3, not with 8. That’s just common sense.
Yet, media push us to start with big and hard goals. Moreover they steer us to personal growth goals while personal development in general is really hard. Personal growth requires changes not only in the way we act, but crucially in the way we think.
Even when they talk about small goals, main idea they give us is that having small goals is just technique to achieve large goals.
In reality big and ambitious goals make sense only for very small amount of people on the planet Earth.
Don’t take me wrong. I’m not advocating for refusing to have big goals. I’m simply saying that focus should be not on the size of a goal, but on its meaning for you.
Living happy and fulfilled life doesn’t require achieving big goals.
It needs support from meaningful goals. And they are actually not that big when taking practical approach.
You don’t need to own Ferrari to enjoy driving it. You can rent. It’s much cheaper.
You don’t need to retire early to enjoy performance of school team where your child participates. You just need a job with flexible schedule.
Big and ambitious goals will take lots of your time and energy. They may take years to achieve. It could be that this is exactly what drives you up and how you want to spend your days. Then I wish you all the best and hope you’ll nail it down!
If however pursuing big goals makes you feel depressed and overwhelmed, think about making a 180 degree spin and live enjoying present with occasional small meaningful goals.