Why Live 2.7

2.7 Have Few Goals

The beginner in anything isn’t a master.

That should seem obvious to you but most of us have been caught up in setting expectations of our performance that is way above our current ability.

“Everyone has to start somewhere.”

“Start where you are.”

“A journey of a 1,000 miles starts with 1 step forward.”

Make yourself think of a goal you currently have.

Maybe it’s to win over your crush or to pay off some debt or to lose 10 lbs.

Whatever it is, think about it.

If you feel emotion when you think of it, keep that goal. If you don’t, think of a different one until you hit upon one that generates emotion in you.

Focus is best.

The goals that are emotional to you will keep your attention longer. Increasing the odds that you’ll finish your goal.

At the end of the day, for most of us, we still have several items on our To Do lists and they keep getting pushed off without any negative effects in our lives.

I have learned I get more done when I give myself only 2-4 goals for the day.

Focus is more productive than quantity. 

It was an adjustment for me at first because I had come to associate a long list of tasks accomplished with my self worth.

I went through all sorts of depressed states when I started keeping my To Do list limited at 4 goals.

See I had set the expectation internally that I should be doing 30-50 tasks a day to be happy. So I had set myself up to get depressed.

Once I learned what messages my emotions are actually telling me then it became easy to anticipate how I would react. I was already prepared to feel sad and had things in place to counteract it.

Day 1 of starting I knew wouldn’t be that bad because I was just “trying it out". So Day 3 I booked a massage. Followed by a lunch date with a good friend on Day 4.

Emotions are going to happen, don’t try to stop being human. Learn to understand the feelings, to anticipate them, and to cope with them so you can keep focused on your life goals.

Emotions are a part of life so work them into your goals.

I actually assign a feeling with each daily goal as a guess about how I will feel. It’s become a fun mental game to me- how well do I know myself?!

Sometimes I’m right but sometimes I’m surprised by the emotions that come up. And I love when I’m surprised because the emotions (now that I’m not fighting them) are telling me my core expectations and standards.

When you know where you are then you can make a better plan on how to get where you want to go.

When I was in the mindset of having a ton of goals a day I wasn’t aware that I was pushing off the big important goals just so I could tell myself that I was doing a good job.

It wasn’t until I only allowed myself to focus on 2-4 goals a day that I became aware of it.

Instead of making a YouTube video I’d run the store then take out the trash then food prep for the week and then do a workout.

The things I were doing were healthy tasks. But they weren’t moving my life forward.

I’ve come to ask this 1 question of every single goal I set “Is completing this task moving my life forward or just running me in circles?”

Life will waste your entire life if you let it. And most people do.

You aren’t fighting them, your real enemy is entropy. 

All of life, the very definition of life, is organisms that can resist entropy. Because we can’t defeat it. One day, we all die. So make your efforts count. Focus.