Goals Win!

Our world is full of goal-setting, dream-achieving, challenge-accepting rhetoric that motivates the fast-paced lives we live. In a place that seems to change so quickly, moving on and moving forward are crucial to chasing that carrot of our big, lifetime aspirations dangling in front of us, ever-present and ever just out of reach. We might achieve one goal, but there’s always another on the never-ending to-do list of modern America.

 I’m at a point in my life where I feel this way—overwhelmed by a future of endless goals—especially acutely. With a little over a year left of college and my friends and family starting to discuss what’s coming next for me, it can be challenging to set the right goals, the smart goals, the attainable goals. If you know me, then you know how I feel about structured goal-setting, and New Year’s Resolutions in particular [not a fan]. At the same time, however, I feel that it’s important for me to have some sort of trajectory in my life and some sort of plan for achieving my dreams. For the purposes of this post, I want to distinguish between dreams and goals. When I talk about dreams, I’m thinking of the big stuff. Dreams are large scale, maybe even existing on the scale of your whole life. For instance, one of my dreams is to publish a book. That’s not going to happen tomorrow or next week or even next year—but one day, I hope it might, and I plan to work towards that dream. Dreams are also often outside of one person’s direct control. This applies to the publishing example as well in that I personally, by my own devices, can write a book and edit a draft and perfect that draft, but once I submit it to a publisher [or whatever you do with a completed manuscript, I actually don’t know the process—but researching it is another thing I can do!], it’s really out of my control whether or not my book is chosen to be published. Even if I do everything that I possibly can to increase my chances of reaching that dream, there’s no guarantee that it will be manifested.

 Goals, on the other hand, are mainly smaller-scale plans, and ideas or actions that one can control. Often, they make up the set of processes that increase one’s chances of achieving their dreams. I’ve already mentioned a few that pertain to the book example—for instance, in pursuit of publishing a book, I might set a goal to write a book or to submit a book that I feel proud of and confident in to a publishing entity. Yes, these sounds similar to my dream, but I’ve honed in on only the parts of the language connected specifically to me. These are great goals—they are things that I can certainly do, actions that rely on me and depend on nobody else, processes which can only fail by me neglecting to do them.

 To break this down further and complete the discussion at hand, I also want to talk about the hierarchical level below goals, which I’ll here call “steps,” and which function as actions that work towards the goal. In the example we’ve been working with, these could be things like writing ten pages per week of said book or reading more fiction in the genre I intend to write in to get a better feel for what’s already out there. I might decide to learn more about the process of publication and, when the time is right, get in contact with people in the industry who could help me out as step towards my goal.

 Alright, so now I’ve made a semantic division [and it’s up to you to decide if it’s a relevant one] between the concepts of dreams, goals, and steps. I’ve decided to separate them so as to have the opportunity to discuss using them differently in your life. My personal philosophy is to find motivation in my goals rather than in my dreams. When I talk about what I want to achieve, I aim to use the language of goals rather than dreams so as to center my actions around what’s attainable for me and what I can do, finding satisfaction on that level rather than relying on others (as dreams tend to do) to achieve things in life.

 While I’ve applied this concept to one of my personal life goals, I also find it extremely applicable in the realm of sports and fitness. I’ll use another example close to my own experiences [you guessed it – rowing]. Imagine that somebody has the dream of medaling at the national championship for collegiate rowing clubs [not my personal dream, but definitely a possible one]. Sure, they could motivate themselves and their teammates by talking about this dream at length and using it to push through challenging workouts. But guess what? Every other team and boat and person they’ll be in competition with has that same dream. What makes one individual with a dream more special or more likely to achieve it than any other person with the same dream? In my opinion, it’s the structuring of their goals and steps.

 A corresponding goal for this situation might be “race my best possible race at the national championship.” It may not sound as immediately powerful or strong, but this goal is action-driven rather than thought-driven, like its dream counterpart. It will be supported by steps such as increasing rowing meters every week, practicing and perfecting the start sequence, or adding more cardio to workouts to maximize endurance. If you’re working towards the dream of medaling at nationals, there’s so many other factors at play. Other teams will be training likely just as much you are, and maybe they have different strategies and strong points in their races. Everyone else will be attacking that dream with equal persistence and grit. You can do everything you possibly can and someone else might still win instead of you—it’s just not within the bounds of things you can control. Putting out your best possible race, however, is absolutely within your abilities. You will be able to achieve this goal, and you’ll have done something worthwhile that you can find satisfaction in even if you don’t achieve your dream. If everything rests on achieving a dream, however, your best efforts can be worthless because of factors you can’t control.

 It’s not about giving up on your dreams or lessening them in any way. My philosophy here is centered around making the most of your life in a world where you can do your best and still ostensibly “fail.” If you’ve met your goals, even if you haven’t reached your dreams, that shouldn’t be considered a failure. And if you didn’t reach your goal, then try the f— again. By virtue of the nature of goals as I’ve described them, you’re the only one holding yourself back. We live in a society where we can’t control everything, and that’s just the way it is. For me, pursuing goals rather than dreams is deciding to be happier, deciding to reclaim control over my accomplishments and my life. Pursuing goals is demanding agency, accepting responsibility, and making progress. It’s okay to recognize your dreams, but motivating yourself through your goals will, in my opinion, provide much more fulfillment.

 I’m interested to hear all of your perspectives on this mentality—definitely let me know what you think. Now get out there, appreciate your achievements, and be happy!