Everyone of us has goals in life. It might be living more healthy, starting a business, becoming an author or winning a competition.
It’s important to have these goals and to have a vision of what you want to achieve. This gives you the energy you need to actually achieve something. Keep on dreaming.
Still when it comes down to doing the work required to reach the goal we are paralyzed. We think that this large goal is so far out of reach that its impossible to achieve.
The good news is that there is a strategy how you can avoid to be paralyzed, despite setting large goals. It comes down to a change in mindset.
Aiming To Achieve Goals vs. Aiming for Progress Towards Goals
There is a large difference between these two mindsets.
- Imagine you are an entrepreneur aiming to achieve the goal of having a large business. Now imagine to make progress towards building a large business by getting to work today.
- Imagine you are living an unhealthy lifestyle, you could aim to only eat healthy food. Now imagine to make progress towards only eating healthy food by eating some fruits and vegetables today.
- Imagine you are a runner, you could aim to run a marathon. Now imagine towards make progress towards it by going for a run today.
Do you see the difference between those two mindsets? If you aim to achieve goals, this leaves you paralyzed seeing the challenge ahead. If instead you aim for progress towards goals, it seems easy and achievable.
Here are three more reasons why it’s better to focus on progress instead of aiming to achieve a goal.
1. Aiming for the goal will make you feel small
Don’t make yourself smaller than you are. Achieving something comes down to the process and not to the final goal. When you think of a you have not achieved yet, it will might make you unhappy to be so far away. And why postpone being happy in such a way when instead you could feel great completing small milestones every day.
It will also make you more stressed, as your goal is too big to fail. If you fail to run the marathon you promised to run, what will your friends think of you? What will you think of yourself if you fail this goal? When instead you only miss workout once in a time it’s not a big issue.
2. Aiming for the goal will not motivate you in the long-term
Setting a goal once will not be motivating in the long-term. Often people that set goals are motivated for some time after getting started, still with time the motivation disappears. It’s because despite working on the goal for months you have not yet achieved anything. The hard work you did yielded no results. So why continue?
When aiming for progress instead of aiming to achieve the goal, you get small wins every day. Those small wins will keep you going. Why give up when you have already made that much progress and gone so far? It pays off in the long-term to aim for progress.
3. Aiming for the goal will be disappointing if for some reason it doesn’t work out.
You can never know what will happen in the future. Maybe the stock market crashes and you planned to have an IPO with your company. You put in all the work to make it happen and now you failed your goal.
By aiming for the goal you assume that circumstances will stay the same and your plan will fully work out. However, when being honest we all know that circumstances change and plans tend to not work out as planned.
When aiming for progress it won’t feel that disappointing not reaching the final goal. You know you have made progress towards it every day. Every single step you completed was an achievement. Even though the final goal was not achieved it feels good: You never aimed to achieve it. The aim was to make progress towards the final goal.
Go For Many Little Achievements Instead of One Large Achievement
You should aim to achieve goals in your life. Its good to chase your dreams! Still as I have shown, it does not pay to go for the goal all at once. It’s better to make some progress every day. Progress will make you confident, happy, keep you motivated in the long-term and will not be disappointing should it not work out.
When setting goals, mindset is important.
Just taking another point of view towards it can make a whole lot of a difference.