Setting Impossible Goals
Setting Impossible goals seems to be the in-thing to do. Run a marathon this year (though you've never run in your life); make $1million dollars (though your current income is only at $40,000/year); set up my own home-business/website (though you have no knowledge in the field of entrepreneurship or web designing skills). All of the goals can be achievable if you set them up correctly instead of setting up dreams as goals and confusing the possible right now with the impossible.
We tend to confuse setting impossible goals for the dreams and fantasies in our lives. It looks so easy on TV or that interview you read about someone who made it in the business or entertainment world. But the reality is that behind that success story is probably a lifetime of dedication, pursuit and unquestioning determination. These successful people didn't just take one step in the right direction and reach their destination. They took many steps to arrived at this point of success in their lives.
While the eventual goal of earning that million dollars or becoming a famous movie star were probably serious intentions in the beginning for these people, they figured out that in order to have the courage and determination to persevere they had to more than just setting impossible goals. They had to go about it in a very different and clearer way. They did that by understanding that goal setting is a process.
The Process of Setting Goals -vs- Setting Impossible Goals
Setting impossible goals is really about not understanding the process. Everything in life is a process. You are constantly engineering and constructing your life, your career or business and your relationships. It's very easy to understand this concept in relationships because we inherently know you can't set "goals" for personal feelings. You know you can't set a "goal" to become best friends or lovers upon the first meeting of someone.
For example, you can understand that building a relationship is a process of bonding over time. You can't skip a step. You might argue that people do fall in love at first sight. But that doesn't mean that they've built up the trust of really getting to know that person in three days. And you definitely can't compare three days of relationship to three years of relationship. There is no comparison to having known someone for three days versus knowing someone for the past three years. The time factor is a key element here.
Setting impossible goals is like going from a three day relationship to a three year relationship in three days. Can't happen. At least not in this lifetime. What you need to focus upon in order to avoid the impossible goal-setting trap is to realize that when you set a goal, it has many smaller goals, steps and processes within that one goal you think is your target.
Setting Impossible Goals and Breaking it Down into Smaller Parts
So when you realize that you can break down big, fat and huge goals into smaller goals, you've unlocked the magic of actually being able to attain this goal. The key is to ask yourself, is there a smaller, more attainable goal within this goal which would bring me closer to that ultimate goal? If so, then that's the goal you need to set, work toward and finally attain.
To break down your goal into more realistic goals is to look at each new goal as something that should feel slightly out of range and need of your attention to get to it but not so much of a step that it feels far-fetched or, well, impossible. Having mini-goals that feel like little victories can turn the impossible into the possible.
Take the example of running in a marathon. From the non-runner to the marathoner, you're setting impossible goals if you haven't broken it down into smaller, more comfortable steps. First you have to set the goal of getting into the habit of running. Another more attainable goal might be to run a few smaller races, 5k or 10k to see how it feels to be running in a race as opposed to dreaming of it. Another step would be to run for a couple of hours, not focusing on the distance but rather on the length of time you are running. If you intend to run a marathon and you're a newbie to the running world, you probably won't run your first 26.1 miles in 2 hours. It will be more like 4 or 5 hours. Can you run for 2 or 3 hours? Have you ever tried?
As you can see there are many smaller goals that you can you should aim for before you attack the monster race. You are fooling yourself if you think that in a few short months you can train your body to go from sedentary to a 4 hour running machine. Sure, you might say you've heard stories of other people doing that but at what price? Do they still run today? Did they run the risk of injury and damage a knee beyond worldly repair?
When you set a goal it shouldn't be at the loss of something else. You shouldn't aim to run that race if it means damaging your body. It should feel like a next logical action. And you build up to the next logical action through time. The time factor is very important in being able to set real goals versus setting impossible goals.
Setting Impossible Goals: Missing the Time Factor Link
Going back the relationship example, there is this time factor that you just cannot deny. Even if you could tell someone everything about yourself within that three day period, it still would have the same feel in the relationship if you had known each other for three years. Time is a secret ingredient to success. It's what bridges all the next logical steps together to form the dream into a successful goal and reality.
Let's take my personal experience with setting the goal to be a (really) good guitar player. Coming from zero experience (can't even hold the instrument correctly) to playing complicated pieces of music and doing so within a year would be setting impossible goals for that time period. I didn't factor in the time element.
From my own experience I have noticed that people who have been playing the guitar longer than me have a different level of success than myself. I've only been playing for just about two years now and I practice a lot. I mean a lot, at least a hour every single day, many days much more than that. But the success or rate of improvement that I can accomplish in a specific time period doesn't completely compensate for the ability that this more mature guitar player has. What I mean is that the person with longer exposure to the guitar can pick up a tune or piece quicker and with more dexterity than myself.
Just within the first and second year of practicing, I have noticed a huge difference in the dexterity of my fingers and how much more natural the chords feel now versus a year ago. But despite the practice, the focus and the desire to play well, I can just feel that the time element adds a dimension to the playing skills that you cannot rush, force or cheat to acquire. Perhaps it's the mind that needs this element to chew on the idea and get so used to the new idea that you're a guitar player, runner.... that it finally accepts it over time and factors it in when you perform that task or skill.
To tie this all back to setting impossible goals, this is what trips most of up with confusing the realistic goal from the crazy and impossible one. You know you're setting impossible goals when you haven't correctly calculated the time element to acquire the knowledge skill or physical means into your goal-time equation. When you can understand that you cannot go from A-Z without going through all the other letters in the alphabet (i.e. Mini goals) then you're just setting yourself up to fail.
True success is based on being realistic. Keeping your dreams as the fuel that feeds the everyday actions to reach the smaller and more realistic goals without forgetting that you'll get there when you get there but what's most important right now is what is your next step, your next action. Set crazy and wonderful goals but be realistic in how you are going to get there and how long it might take you. It will keep you out of the funk of not reaching the goals you set and seeing yourself as a failure. You are not a failure, just setting the wrong time element into your goals.
Remember that setting goals as opposed to setting impossible goals is about setting your sights on the next logical step in the process of where you are going. Sure, you can say that "one day I'll run a marathon". That can be a dream perhaps instead of a goal. Dreams don't seem to have that constraint of time that goals seem to inherently carry along with them. Within that one 'goal' is a whole stairwell of steps that you'll need to accomplish in order to reach the Big Race Day with certainty and success.
Just like Setting Impossible Goals, what are the Drawbacks to Goal Setting?
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