What if one day we woke up and all of the things we set out to do in life were done? Would we be happy or sad?
This actually happened to me in the past year, and it's been freaking me out! But it's also been a cause for a ton of reflection.
As Founders, we set a ton of goals for ourselves and our startups — obviously. We work tirelessly toward those goals with the anticipation that once we accomplish them, something magical will happen.
What we rarely consider is what happens on the other side of these goals once we've crossed the finish line.
### What Were Our Goals Supposed to Accomplish?
Early in my life, my goals were simple — I was broke and hungry. My goal was to be "not broke and hungry. In fact, my benchmark for success was so incredibly low, that even having a paying job at $5 per hour was cause for celebration.
In short order though, I started raising the bar higher and higher. I went from "If I have just enough money to eat" to "I want to be worth millions" in less than a couple of years. In my mind, that goal would be a universal solution for anything that was ailing me. I'm 100% sure I'm not alone in that feeling.
We set goals in life because we fundamentally believe that once we get to the other side of those goals, life will be significantly better. We make health goals, financial goals, relationship goals, and of course, startup goals. But if we surpass those goals, is life so incredibly different? It usually is not.
### The Problem With Accomplishing Goals
The problem with accomplishing your goals is you are forced to reckon with whether they were worth the effort, or if they were, whether it's worth more effort to keep going.
Let's use a simple visual here — a nice car. If our goal in life were to own a $100,000 BMW, and we get that car, do we reset our goals to own a $250,000 Bentley? Is the value of that additional goal worth the extra effort?
In my experience, it's not. That BMW gives us 90% of the satisfaction of that goal, and no matter what we reset the goal posts to next, the next 10% of satisfaction never has the same excitement or novelty. It makes the ROI on additional goals kinda shitty, which makes being on the other side of accomplished goals somewhat confusing.
### Can We Run Out of Goals?
I've been asking myself this same question because I'm kind of a goal-setting nerd.you I'm the guy who makes a task list 7 days a week because I love the dopamine hit of checking off goals.
But in the past few years, I've found myself in a place where all of the things in life that I've wanted — my family, business, health, and even the things I've dreamed of doing — have all been checked off that list. I can't begin to tell you how insanely grateful I am to be able to say that.
Yet, I've never been more anxious about my goals! As it turns out, the goals themselves were just a passing moment. It wasn't the goal I was after; it was the challenge of playing the game.
It turns out the goals were never the goal. It was playing the game that brought me so much pleasure and excitement. So I'm not after another goal — I'm after another game.
In Case You Missed It
We Need a Strict Definition of Personal Success Every moment we spend pursuing an undefined goal is a complete waste of time — especially personal goals.
Why No One Tells Founders "It's over, move on." No one ever actually tells Founders it’s okay to quit. No one except other Founders, of course.
Retiring Early is a Broken Concept Retiring isn't really our end goal, so we shouldn't aspire to it. What we really want is to shape our life the way we want it to be.