February 18, 2014
I do not know what goals a person should pursue. However, I do think that there are some goals that people choose that are misguided. The first one that comes to mind is happiness. Happiness is not really a goal. Happiness is a measurement of our satisfaction with life. If we are happy, it is because we are satisfied with whom we are and what we have done. Have you ever met people that are very unsatisfied with life that look extremely happy? Not possible. As such, when we set our goals it is important that we focus on what we need to achieve to make us feel satisfied with life.
However, we need to do that without considering the goals that would make our loved ones feel good about us. Our goals should not be about making our loved ones happy. For example, do not make the goal of applying to medical school to become a doctor because it is what would make your loved ones feel happy and proud of you. Do not set goals with the purpose of making anyone proud. Goals should be about us not someone else’s expectation of us. If it is difficult for you to do that, then you are not living your own life. If you are not living your life then you lack the freedom to be yourself and you cannot expect to be happy. The key to feel satisfied about life is to experience the freedom of being yourself without any regrets or fears of what your peers or your loved ones might think about you.
To achieve that freedom, the first step you should take is to let go of any emotional attachments that you might have to anyone’s expectation of you. Set yourself free and ask yourself what it is that you could achieve that could make you experience great satisfaction. Think about all the areas of your life that are important to you. Visualize how you could make things happen and how it would feel to achieve that level of satisfaction. Once you have done that pursue them with resilience, tenacity and determination.
Another goal that should NOT be on your list is to make millions of dollars so that you can live happily ever after. Making millions of dollars is a goal that is unlikely to make you happy. It will more often than not magnify your problems and, therefore, your unhappiness. For example, if you feel unhappy because you are lonely, winning millions of dollars will make you feel lonelier. You won’t be able to relate to people that don’t have money and you won’t be able to relate to people that became millionaires through hard work. There are plenty of people who thought that by winning the lottery they would live a happily ever after and ended up living in misery ever after winning millions. Their number one and biggest problem? They can’t trust anyone. They begin to believe that every acquaintance, friend, and family member they know just want their money. They wake up feeling paranoid and go to bed feeling paranoid. Not exactly the recipe for happiness.
The other side of that scenario is that those who have decided in becoming millionaires as their primary goal, because they feel that it is the only way to be happy and proud, often feel the need to do it at any cost. That means that they may set up scams or start cheating money out of people. I do not know if anyone can experience a great sense of satisfaction about committing fraud, hurting, and fooling people, but those who do sooner or later end up taking their pride to jail. The bigger they become the bigger the display of their foolishness and incompetence become when their fraudulent activities are exposed. Obviously, not a good way to feel satisfied about life.
On the other hand, if you look at some of the biggest billionaires of our times, you will find that they did not start out by setting the goal of making millions of dollars and then looked around to see what could get them there. Mark Zuckerberg, the creator of Facebook, did not make the goal of becoming a billionaire before age 30 when he started the company. He just set out to work on a social media website that he felt passionate about. Making billions of dollars was just a byproduct of the hard work that he put in creating a website that ended up appealing to over one billion people. Did he plan on getting over 1 billion people to use his application just so that he could make billions of dollars from it? The relatively modest life that he is living today tells us that money was the last thing in his mind. Would he have quit if it had not made him a lot of money? Again, there is no evidence that money was his motivation.
Steve Jobs is another example of someone that made a lot of money but becoming rich was not his primary focus. After he was ousted from the company, the CEO’s that replaced him failed to turn the company around because their primary goal was to find ways to be more profitable. When Steve Jobs came back onboard as a CEO again, instead of focusing on making more money he focused in making better products. He found great satisfaction in making products that people could enjoy rather than finding ways to make more money out of people. Mark Zuckerberg and Steve Jobs are just examples of many who have become millionaires or billionaires by not making money their primary focus but by pursuing goals that gave them great satisfaction.
There is also no reason to think that money is the only tool that can make us happy in life. There are other ways to achieve great satisfaction. For example, scientists make discoveries that can sometimes change or save people’s lives. However, they do not get paid millions of dollars for their discoveries. Their reward is as simple as becoming recognized by their peers, and sometimes by the world, as pioneers that provided answers and solutions to some of the challenges of our times. There are also people like Chad Pregracke. If you read my previous post you know that Chad Pregracke found a great deal of satisfaction in cleaning U.S. waterways. However, he never made it his goal to profit from it. His reward was just receiving global recognition for a job well done by being selected as CNN hero of the year. Nevertheless, no one can say that he is not a happy person even though he does not make millions of dollars from his passionate work. He is in fact an example of what it takes to be happy in life. He is living and pursuing a goal that brings him a great deal of pride and satisfaction.
Thus, if you ever want to set up goals to live a happier life, remember that what you actually need to do is set goals to live your life to your satisfaction.