Read or listen to this article about how creating the goals of goals can keep you happy!
Creating, practicing, and achieving a specific goal is a source of pride felt within a moment of time, after which memories of the hard won success fades.
The goal of a single, strong goal is to take pleasure in the knowledge that the skills and resources upon which the goal was mastered can be used for other things.
Change happens, especially when striving for goals. By focusing all your resources on a single overriding subject or task, ending that task can leave some people with limited options, fueling feelings of confusion and emptiness.
No matter what a goal represents in sports, art, music, academia, etc., a single-minded goal is like taking a stiff drink. No matter how much you enjoy sipping it slowly, eventually you end up with an empty glass.
To stay emotionally and intelligently strong, all major goals need multiple, interrelated goals.
Metaphorically, a single-minded goal is like running a farm that grows a single crop. If the crop fails, the farm can go bust. If the farm grows a variety of crops, however, it can better balance the loss of some against the success of others.
To subdivide a primary goal into multiple goals, identify how the skills and resources of your primary goal can serve other activities. Even if you achieve or change your primary goal, question whether the skills and resources you acquired to achieve that goal can be used for other things. If not, the time and money you are spending on your primary goal might not be broad enough to support you emotionally over time.
Briefly, ask yourself:
What primary goal do I want to achieve?
What skills do I need to achieve this goal?
What resources (including money) do I need to achieve this goal?
How many of these skills and resources can I use if I am no longer involved with the goal, whether I achieve it or change direction?
Considering your answer to question 4, list all the things you can do with your skills and resources when your goal ends.
To be happy, your primary goals should build upon many interrelated and sustainable activities. Yes, you can try to shoot the moon and achieve the seemingly impossible, but the absence of variety in a goal can lead to depression, or at least confusion when faced with the ultimate issue, "what should I do next?"
Links:
Forget About Single-Minded Goals, Focus on This Instead, by Madelyn Blair, PhD for Psychology Today
Why Setting Goals Can Actually Make You Less Successful by Stephanie Vozza for FastCompany.com
Forget About Setting Goals. Focus on This Instead by James Clear for JamesClear.com
How Setting Goals Can Help and Hurt Your Mental Health by Alex Moore for TheBestBrainPossible.com
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Written by Karen Little of Sketch-Views
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