How High Is Too High?
Practical tips for setting your goals in 2022
I set a goal to read at least 50 books in 2021.
To help me perform better, I broke down the goal into reading five books per month. This means that if all went according to plan, I'd have read 60 books at the end of the year.
Awesome.
But guess what happened?
I read… some books. But I did not reach the 50-book mark.
It is said that the road to hell is paved with good intentions. You get the urge to do some great and nice things, but you often find yourself miles away from your intended destination.
It is common to hear people asking, “How did I ever get here?”
Now we are in 2022, I have realized two mistakes I made that affected my performance toward my intended goal.
Mistake #1 — Too Detail-Oriented
First off, I am meticulous by nature which means I sweat the little details. This is not a bad personality trait, but it sabotaged my efforts toward reading 50 books.
How, you may ask?
I wanted to read and summarize each book I read. I wanted to read and take notes as though I was attending lectures. Then I planned to go over the written summary of each book periodically to freshen up my memory.
Uh-oh.
Let me tell you a big secret.
Unless writing book reviews was your full-time job, this is not a sustainable goal.
This goal was just a tiny part of my self-development goals. I had other self-development goals. There were also a myriad of personal projects I was and am still working on.
I know I read fast but doing the summary on each book and making sure I had key takeaways from every chapter slowed down my reading speed to snail’s pace.
Besides, these were not fiction books which were fun and interesting to read.
I know I have slept off reading many self-development books, and I know how much discipline is required to read one till the end.
So my meticulous nature put me in trouble this time.
Mistake #2 — Too Much Volume
Secondly, 50 books is quite voluminous. This was my first time setting such target for myself but I think I may have overstretched myself just a teeny weeny bit.
I know people who have a hard time reading three books a year, yet I wanted to read five in one month.
When you’re beginning something for the first time, it is advisable that you start at the bottom, and not try to take on the big guns head on.
One advantage of setting this goal and failing to meet it is that I have a better estimate of what I can and cannot do as a person.
Is the 50-book goal impossible to meet? Of course not.
But I am not starting by setting 50 books as a goal. That would only discourage me when I fail to meet it.
I still have the 50-book goal in mind, but what I’ll do is start with a smaller goal — like read 12 books in a year.
Then as I get comfortable with that level of performance, I will slowly increase my target goal over time until I can comfortably read 50 non-fiction, self-development book every year without breaking a sweat.
Another important lesson I have learned from this experience is the importance of making an effort. Trying and failing at this goal has opened my eyes to the fact that this goal was unrealistic in some aspects.
I am setting my goal again for the year 2022 and I’m beginning with one book per month.
I know I can sit down with a book and complete it in five hours.
But it is better to start small and exceed your expectations than to aspire so high that you feel discouraged when you do not meet your goals.
Key Takeaway
It is better to get started and make mistakes along the way than to try to do everything just right.
Progress over perfection.
When it’s obvious that the goals cannot be reached, don’t adjust the goals — adjust the action steps that lead you to the goal.
Cheers and happy new year!
P. S. Need to reach out? Send me an email at praiz.united@gmail.com
