If you are anything like me, you found yourself at least once overwhelmed by the goals you had set for yourself. Maybe you found yourself in a situation where your own expectations of yourself were higher than what you were able to manage and achieve. As my year was kinda chaotic so far, I felt like I somewhat had lost track of my goals. I couldn’t even remember the last time I sat down to think or write about them. So I took a day off the previous week to reflect and especially to think about goals and goal setting in general.

As I sat down I couldn’t let go of the thought that living up to my goals would eventually cause me to do things that would make me unhappy on the way. For example moving to a different country, working too hard and neglecting friends or my girlfriend, or just cancel simple activities that are fun to me to do something productive instead. So I questioned the idea of goal setting itself and searched for a framework that would fit for me.

What I realized was that every long term goal I would achieve would not be worth it if I would not have fun on the way there. After all, being happy and being able to do what I want means being really successful. Don’t get me wrong, I still aim to be financially successful too, but I would rather make less money and do more of what I like instead of sacrificing life to earn regret. And the essence of this idea really is that (for me!) it should not be about goal XYZ that I want to have achieved on 01.01.2030, but rather about the accessibility of an activity.

On the other hand, I also understood that setting short term goals and reviewing them every few months helps me navigate through life. Also, I can keep better track of my development, which is a good thing.

This is what I will use during this year and hopefully beyond:

For my so-called state-goals I simply say to myself: What activities should be accessible for me? And apparently, on an honest level, this is not driving a motorboat and owning a Ferrari, but rather playing chess, being able to do sports, having time to learn something new, having a quiet place in my home to relax, etc. For these, I set myself actions in an unordered list. These actions should ensure that this activity stays accessible for me in my life. In the example case, I need to work out regularly, do medical check-ups every now and then, and so on in order to be able to do any competitive sport.

For short-term goals (I call them Defined goals), I look ahead a short timeframe (max. 3 years) and think about what I want to have achieved. These goals are actually achievable ones. I set myself an ordered list of actions that I need to do. As I am currently learning how to do fancy stuff on the Internet, I have created a Web Development learning roadmap for myself. Maybe my example isn't the best as you are never done learning Web Development, so I did set no date for this one. However, there are short term goals I do still set a date for, e.g. finishing my bachelor’s.