I am fan of goal setting big time. I have built my whole life around it.
I am very enthusiastic, I speak everywhere I go about it and I enjoy tremendously ticking off tasks of my daily list every night.
I keep preaching how important it is to set goals in life and follow our dreams. And I will continue doing that for sure.
Setting goals can be deliberating, allowing you to get out of your comfort zone, discovering strengths within you that you didn’t believe they existed. You can really achieve everything in life if you stay persistent and consistent.
But there is a catch.
A catch -hidden so good behind the euphoria of achievement- which can become really demotivating and can take its toll on your health.
This catch, is the “fatigue of setting too many goals“.
I have come across the “One thing” philosophy too many times in my life but to be honest I didn’t pay much attention to it. You know I have so many interests, ranging from blogging, vlogging, singing, publishing books, learning new languages, speaking in front of a crowd and so many others.
And all that, next to my 9-5 job which pays the rent. As you can realize, there is limited time and too many interests.
The last three years, I managed to keep up doing a little bit of everything at the expense of my sleep, my social life and subsequently of my family and health.
But I have learned my lesson. One of the characteristics of personal development is to learn from your mistakes and failures.
And I believe that you have to fail in order to succeed.
Fatigue hit me head on and I felt it fully. I experienced reduced motivation, inspiration and energy. My reduced capacity to keep up with all my goals affected my psychology and my mood as well. I experienced stress and anxiety and some times anger which I could not justify. Luckily I found out that the pain of giving up something is smaller than the pain of trying to catch up with everything.
I am now in the process of postponing certain goals of my list which is absolutely heart-breaking. But I know I am on the right track.
Setting only a few goals -I believe three works fine with me- allows me to free up some time for sports, family and recreation, giving me time to recharge my physical, mental and spiritual batteries.
At the same time focusing only on a few goals helps me achieve them quicker and with higher quality.
An advice to all of you goal-setters out there.
“Take it easy and focus on the most important goals first“.
There is enough time to go after all your goals but only a few at a time.
So how about setting a goal, to avoid setting too many goals simultaneously?