Goals

"Goals are overrated. Too many variables that can cause you to fail. And I’m not certain if the goal you are trying to meet is the same goal you want to accomplish."

A good friend told me that once. Actually, more than once, in so many words. We’ve had a few conversations about goals over the years.

We weren’t talking about the big goals here – the ones we set for ourselves to give us the end result we want in life. Those goals are important, and whether we ever achieve them or not doesn’t matter. What’s more important with these is their ability to give us purpose on our path to the finish line. They give us a reason to push forward and accomplish something.

No, we were talking about the smaller goals. Those little ones we set during our days to get little things done (or not done in my case). These are the overrated ones; the ones we need to not put too much weight on, for in the big scheme of things, they barely matter.

In this case, the goal I set was for something I didn’t want to do. Actually it was something I wanted to do but was trying to not do. I gave myself a frame of time, and if I made it, I would reward myself. Not that I would necessarily punish myself if I failed, and what’s worse, the reward was nothing more than allowing myself to do what I’d been trying to not do. Therefore, if I failed in my goal, it was by taking the reward I sought sooner rather than later. So really it was a win-win, or lose-lose, depending on how you view things. Accomplishment brought reward, as did failure.

And in retrospect, my friend was right. The goal I was trying to meet was not one I really wanted to accomplish. Well, I suppose I did, or I wouldn’t have set it, but it wasn’t something that would propel me forward or help me in the bigger picture. All it did, for fail it I did, was leave me without a sense of accomplishment (not that it mattered, for either way I was going to get what I wanted). 

But then I think, if I failed to accomplish something I didn’t really want to accomplish in the first place, isn't that accomplishing it in the end?