The goals that I set for myself were
related to myself as a musician and song-writer. It included things
like releases, tours, songs, demos, and more stuff like what kind of
life I would like to have in 20 years time; where I'd like to live,
the work I would like to do. I even made sure to make it as specific
as possible. So I broke it up into different time scales such as 10
years, 2 years, 6 months right up to this week. I then put
concrete numbers like 50 songs written, or 1,000 twitter followers. I
did my best to follow all the guidelines that I remembered. I'm
pretty good at following advice from other people!
I must admit that having all my goals
right in front of me did make me feel better about my career. It made
everything feel a bit more real, not just a fantasy. It made me feel
like I was going to be approaching this the right way. I could start
and hit the ground running. I started to notice how so many people
never have their goals clear. Even established bands and people don't
go about it this way. I felt like I was ahead of the game on this
level at least. I now know exactly what I need to do.
After passing a few days with my plan
sitting on my mind, I've started to become a little more pessimistic.
I'm wondering if having my goals planned out is that useful after
all. The first problem that I have with setting my goals is that I'm
not very imaginative. When I think of an ideal life, I struggle to
some up with an images or ideas. The only things that come to mind
are typical media-peddled 'success-stories' with big houses and fast
cars, or my own escapist fantasies inspired by my love of sci-fi and
revolutionary politics. There is some conflict between what life can
offer and what I really want that I am still struggling with. Besides
that, I can hardly find enjoyment when I plan a for a day out, how
should I know what I'd like in the long-term?
This leads me to my second problem. The
things that I find most enjoyable in life are those things which
happen spontaneously and unexpectedly. I love to go out and just see
where the night takes me. The two most memorable nights that I've
had, I started with a list of parties and places to go, I picked one
to go to first and then I tried to hit them all but inevitably took
many de-tours and always ended up somewhere I never planned, meeting
people I have no logical connection with. This is my idea of fun.
This goes for other areas of life as well. I thrive on change and
novelty. I get tired of things quickly. I'm not quite as giddy and
excited as someone with ADD, but I have a sort of long-term attention
deficit.
So when I look at my plan for the next
20 years, it excites me for a few days, but then it bores me. I
really don't want to know where I'm going to be in 20 years time.
Even if I planned for my wildest dreams, it would take all the fun
out of the journey. Having a plan is supposed to keep you focused and
determined, but it seems to kill my enthusiasm. Maybe I just haven't
found my passion yet. But I have found a lot of things that I enjoy
doing.
When I started thinking about this I
searched google for 'negative effects of setting goals'. As expected
many results were just guides like the ones I read originally. Others
were about mistakes when making goals, but very few negative about
the entire concept. I shall conduct further research on this!
Right now, I feel like many of the
problems I've highlighted are quite personal. They may be peculiar to
my perspective on life. Maybe goals are just not for me. I'm sure I'm
not the only one though. I might have to forget about goals and
resign myself to rebelling against the absurdity of this world a la Camus. Or I
might get used to my idea of success and end up in that nice house in
20 years time.
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