Holy shit.
Those were the words that came to me.
A slap to the face. A red-cheeked wonder.
In this little private FaceBook group, I’d written about my goals for the future. The things I wanted to do. Films to create. Money to make. That sort of thing.
A short while after hitting the publish button I got that little pocket buzz and then:
Once again … holy shit.
James Altucher is a bit of a hero of mine. He’s one of the many mentors-from-afar that I go to. One of those guys whose had a huge influence on my life, but would never know it.
So when he commented on my post and said to focus on themes rather than goals I had to listen.
He told me that having goals will kill you.
People tend to set their goals too high. They tend to say “I will be a millionaire by the time I’m 25” or “I will climb Everest before my voice breaks” or “I will be the first person to circumnavigate Mars”.
And when they don’t reach their goals, they crumble. Suddenly life doesn’t make sense anymore. How can they be that super successful Bilzerian booby-magnet if they didn’t reach that ridiculous goal? What does this mean? Who are they? What’s the point of trying anymore? Screw it, let’s get shit-faced.
Better yet, to live by themes.
Rather than setting yourself up for failure it seems a much smarter move to live by themes.
You wake up in the morning. Drink coffee. Remember who you are and what themes you’re living by, and then set the goals for the day accordingly. The goals can be small. Just a few simple steps.
e.g. write 100 words, do 5 pushups, e-mail that client.
If you’re consistently moving forwards, you’re likely to reach a few of those bigger goals anyway, but you’ll be much happier along the way too.
Here’s the themes that keep me sane:
1.) Write, Publish, Repeat — to always be working on the next story idea. Be it a book, film, comic, whatever. To consistently create. To make myself the storyteller I want to be.
2.) To become independent of finance and location — by this, I mean to be able to live around the world. To be free of that full-time office job. To be able to spend time on the things that I want to spend it on. As long as I’m moving towards this, I’m happy.
3.) To make Cat happy — that’s the fiancée. Pretty simple. But it’s nice to remind myself.
But small goals aren’t exciting!
Yeah I know what you mean. It’s nice to have those big dreams to keep you moving forward.
And I have those too. I want to publish a trilogy of novels by June next year. I want to Kickstart a comic book series with my publishing company Hawk & Cleaver. But I’m not going to beat myself in the nostrils if I don’t hit those targets. As long as I’m moving towards the goals by living true to my daily themes I know I’ll get there eventually.
Festina lente … or … make haste slowly.
Oh and remember ...
WANT MORE ADVICE?
Then go Google it or something. I don't know nothing.
... soon I’ll write about how having goals saved my life.
Luke Kondor is a filmmaker and writer. He started writing on his computer in his early teens and never looked back, and now he’s got really sore eyes.
He’s part of the digital story studio — Hawk & Cleaver where he helps to create the best new stories for you to watch, read, sniff, and absorb. Go grab a free book here
Originally published here