Setting lifegoals undermines your happiness
We place our emphasis too much on life goals as if we are here only to pursue our goals. We learned in schools that everyone had to choose an aim in life and we could only be successful when we would reach our objectives.
We start to set our goals at a very early age when we don’t know the world well. Honestly, we don’t know how the world will shape in the future. We even don’t know how future jobs will be. We set goals for the future, despite so many unknown factors.
We are so occupied in chasing our life goals that it creates a constant burden on our shoulder. We can not get relaxed. All the time, it is in our mind, we are worried about if we can reach the goal. Pursuing goals make us stressed and kill our joys. We become unhappy.
We have become wealthier, and we have now the more purchasing capacity than ever before. We have become a lot richer, but we have not become happier. We cannot be happy without eliminating fundamental reasons for unhappiness. The fear of failure to reach goals is hindering our happiness.
Setting goals is a never-ending process. When you reach one goal, then you set another. You cannot achieve all your goals. When you fail, you become sad. If you succeed, you have temporary joys. Then you get involved in another goal. Thus goals suck your happiness.
People generally consider setting goals as a positive thing. But the rate of failure of achieving goals is very high.
Research conducted by the University of Scranton shows, only 8% could achieve their goals and the majority 92% don’t succeed. These failures make people frustrated and depressed.
We are naturally driven by ambitions. Every one of us wants to become something big. Since childhood, some want to be the billionaire; some want to get even a Nobel prize. Every one aims high but does not think much about how to achieve goals.
It takes time to realize how difficult it is to reach goals. We often forget to assess whether we are capable of achieving our goals. If you follow a strict daily routine for your purpose, your life loses its charm. Life becomes boring.
The worst thing is to set an unrealistic high target which increases the chance of failures.
All successful companies carefully guide their outlooks because they know that company share price tumble if their target is not achieved.
If a target is not achieved, then share price tumbles.
The same thing is true for human beings. Let me tell you about my experiences.
A couple of years ago, I was working for the Danish refugee council among the Syrian refugees who crossed the Danish border. I was a mentor for many who expressed their unhappiness for being in Denmark.
Many times, we do not set our goals based on our desires. Instead, we set goals in our early lives based on the desires of our parents, and we are later influenced by the conventional notion of achieving things that offer social prestige.
We only think how to beat others in the social competition. That influences our goal setting.
When we set goals based on desires that are not our own, it makes us frustrated and unhappy. In this case, you will not be happy even you reach your goals.
We are living in a very fast changing society, where it is difficult to predict the future. It is, therefore, a good idea to set sever short-term goals instead of a long-term Those goals are easily achievable and do not involve a lot of uncertainties.
Knowing yourself is essential to do any planning. You must know what are you are capable of doing. You must assess if you can achieve your goal.
