I’m going to rant today: I hate it when a debate is started over whether a goal is achievable/reasonable. Why do I find this situation ridiculous, besides the fact that it doesn’t help make progress towards the relevant goal? Because I think goals can be limiting, and setting them at the lower threshold of possibility doesn’t help anyone. How did most of our modern technology come to be? How did NASA get to the moon? Why are certain well-known names in technology, today or in past decades, considered “visionaries”? Because when a limit is imposed by other people’s idea of plausible or achievable, you’re going to achieve average results. Allow me to elaborate.
I believe that if a set of people decide upon a reasonable goal, like running a marathon this year, there will still be many goal-seekers who fail to reach that goal. There’s a laundry list of reasons, but some won’t make it. Just for fun, let’s say only 50% succeed at meeting this reasonable goal. Now, if you bump this goal up to some extreme level, like qualifying for the olympic marathon while running your very first marathon (humor me!), the odds of success shoot down dramatically. But if you set yourself on a training path for this olympic marathon and fail to make the qualifying time by several minutes? The result is an amazing first marathon regardless! I will add a caveat that if the goal needs to be achieved within a certain amount of time, or by only putting in 5 minutes of effort per day, then maybe the word reasonable should be brought back into the discussion. But for anything that is a personal mission or the deadline is months in the future, then I have no pity – aim higher!
In short, I believe if I set a reasonable goal, then I might have close to a 50/50 chance of success. Unfortunately, that means I compromise my ability to perform at my best because that 50/50 chance is based on expectations before any of the work is done. Not only does that mean there’s a lack of experience in the difficulty of the challenge, but there’s also a lack of practice, and increased practice could easily move the needle in the right direction. Failure is a far, far more likely option for most goals than overachieving is. For this reason I always try to set my personal goals high so that even I shoot for the stars, I can crash land on the moon. I have yet to see a NASA press release stating they were aiming for low earth orbit but accidentally made it to Mars. Yet when the bar is set high, and when my mindset equalizes to this level, even a marginal chance of success in a lofty goal is worth venturing towards.
Weekly Extreme Exception
I coincidentally just wrapped up my first marathon this month, and if I’m being honest, I considered it the first meager step on a path that could potentially lead to this (or perhaps “THE”) adventure race: The Red Bull X-Alps. The race is a 1000+ km route over the Alps, where the athletes must hike or fly to the destination. If you thought a marathon sounded grueling, this race takes places once every two years and only features about 30 athletes willing to race for days on end (though they do sleep). Watch it starting on July 2nd!
