I Hate Goals
I’ll do a daily Snapchat story, I’ll write every day, I’m going on a diet, I will clean the flat every day… I’ve so often not achieved my goals, that I’m terrified to set new goals. Failing every day feels horrible.
I don’t know why, but this semester wasn’t great at all. I took a semester off from medical school to focus on my dissertation. I thought I would get a lot of stuff done, but I didn’t (I’m sorry if I spoiled the story now). My dissertation is about the history of child psychiatry, which means I’m a lot on my own sitting in archives and libraries reading and writing. Writing… I don’t write at all. Starting every day thinking about that I should write and then when the day ends I’m just embarrassed, that I didn’t do anything. It’s scary, the empty piece of paper. Knowing people will judge what you write down. I don’t know why I can handle exams, but can’t handle this stupid dissertation.
Yesterday I heard a great sentence: “Throughout our education we become masters in criticizing the works of others, but we have a hard time becoming makers.”
I mean I’m not a complete failure. I achieve things as well. I’m an avid reader. I founded a small startup. Medical school’s going quite well and I started to run every week at least once for an hour.
I really enjoy the idea of a “fuck it”-list mentioned by Jesse Itzler in the Tim Ferriss Podcast. Itzler says that everyone should have a list of things he should or has to do, but hates. And then should start emptying the list. At least that’s how I remember it. I think it’s an awesome idea, because most tasks are annoying just because we avoid thinking about them.
Our gut feels bad about them.
But when we start setting up the list and pressuring us to do this, perhaps we find ways. This worked for me at least for minor things. I hate running, but by putting it on the list I found a way to tackle it.
Still this doesn’t work for everything. Big goals feel scary.
Goals. Goals. Goals. I hate that word. Because it’s such a construction. It obstructs my view on every new day. And the obstruction doesn’t only work through fear. Something much more subtle keeps me from doing the things I want: achievement porn.
That’s a weird phrase, I know, but I think it sounds as bad as the thing it describes. Basically, it’s the trojan horse of feelings: The moment we want to start our task, for example go running, I think how awesome it would be to win a marathon, how I would feel in the moment of achievement. What an exciting feeling. Wow I feel great! Even the thought about it makes me feel wonderful for a short moment.
Now the sad part: Turns out this little endorphin explosion reduces my willingness to actually do the little hard task, because in my mind I’ve already lived through the achievement. It’s like getting the trophy before you started the tournament. And everyone knows that’s a stupid idea.
The worst part is, I get this feeling very frequently. And it’s not like fear, it doesn’t stick with me until I find someone who explains me how wrong my thought process is. I don’t recognize that it’s a hurtful feeling and it sticks for hours with me. It just switches from running to writing to reading… What a toxic feeling.
Scott Adams is a big advocate for a systems view instead. Create systems in your life. Don’t think about the goal to run a marathon or run every single day, but instead try to build a system where you just integrate the activity not caring about the outcome.
I love the idea of systems. Today I started the day with a systems view. I thought: Go running as long as you want, just to wake up. Also just start to write maybe you get into the flow and then move on to your dissertation.
For me it’s really hard to develop a feeling for the moment. “Carpe diem” in a less extreme way. “How will this make me feel?”, instead of “How cool does that sound afterwards?” I don’t know if people mean this when they say ‘be present in the moment’. It’s so difficult to be present throughout daily life. Usually I’m trapped far away in thoughts and in this realm the pleasure of the moment doesn’t exist.
If there’s not the big goal blocking the view tasks become quite small and achievable.
I had this epiphany a million times. Albeit, “goal thinking” just seems to be my default mode.
Even while finishing this story, I start to think what it would be like if this post is recommended by a lot of people. Blablabla. It’s insane even in the moment of reflection my mind drifts off. Toxic thinking.
I have to publish this story now, otherwise it’ll never be published.
Thanks for reading my story – it means a lot to me!
