The importance of having goals, big goals, and huge unachievable goals.

Goals, we all have them. Big goals, small goals, goals that are basically a pipe dream, and goals that are as simple as "today I'm going to fold my laundry".

Will we achieve those goals? Well yes, of course you will, and hey maybe I can too!

Let's talk about our small goals first:

I have a running notes page on my phone called To Do's. It's pinned to my apple notes so I can access it via any of my devices. To Do's, but that's just the title. The first sub-category is called To Due and under that, Today and under that one Later with a bunch of bullet points underneath both.

Basically it's a running list of goals that I "Must accomplish" either (like the title) Today, or I can do Later.

Creating a check list for my To-Do list somewhat gameify's the whole experience. I get a reward of checking off Today To-Do's and can reward myself with checking off a Later To-Do when I finish my Today To-Do. Make sense?

For example:

Today

o Finish Letter of Rec for Kenny

Later

o Look into new meal planning software

Obviously, one of these is more important than the other. I need to finish the entire Today column before jumping into the Later list.

Today's goals have to be finished today (or sooner rather) before I can start on my next list of Goals.

Examples of Today items would be: paying bills, work meetings, calling companies, folding laundry, prepping for dinner, workouts, etc.

Examples of Later items would be: Looking into new software or technology, shopping on Amazon for products I want, posting and editing videos and working on this website, etc.

The MUST FINISH comes before the WANT TO DO.

Gameify

Reward

Repeat

Small goals accomplished every single day.

BIG GOALS

These are things I WANT but also are definitley achieveable. For me, for you, for anyone lucky enough to be healthy!

The big goals I write down yearly, (my childhood and closest friend have a ritual where every January we go into the nature with just a notebook and write down our goals for the year)

They do ebb and flow over the year but mostly the goals for the year are big items that I want to accomplish that I knowingly dedicate time to.

Specifically I like to focus the big goals around Health, Finances, Relationships, and me.

This year (which is almost over) my goals were:

Complete a Full Ironman
Save a significant chunk of money and have an investment portfolio
Get closer and take steps to move in with my girlfriend
Get the MinimalSubstance website and social media off the ground

Proud to say that 3 out of the 4 goals have been accomplished and proudly checked off.

Obviously, the website works (how else would you be reading this!)

I've moved in with my gf and we're closer than ever (and yes she knows about me living with her)

I'm consistenlty saving money and investing into the right portfolios. Although it's not a humongous fund of money, it's sizeable enough that if I were to lose my job tomorrow, I wouldn't panic that week (I'd panic the week after though!)

I'll break down the BIG Goals and why I think these are categorized as BIG and not small or unachievable.

Having goals like these are purposfully not possible in one day. I can't just power through it one sitting. As awesome as that would be, life doesn't work like that.

Getting closer to my girlfriend takes TIME, and lots of trial and error and communication. Back and forth's and fights and makeups and apologies and dances and movies and inside jokes.

Saving money and learning how to invest also takes TIME, but also tons of trial and error. At first I said I'd invest 400 from every paycheck directly into my savings and $200 a month directly into the Fidelity Money market fund and reinvest the money from there. The first month, sure no problem. Every subsequent month afterwards I had to crawl that money back into my checking and rethink the dumbass meme stocks. I was a little overzealous about the saving and investing but now I've learned a good mechanism to keep me in check. (Which I'll do a deep dive into later - this deserves it's own full blogpost)

Completing a full ironman is one of the goals that hopefully I'll be able to write about here soon. The date of the Ironman Triathlon is 7 weeks away as of writing this post (November 17th) (wish me luck!)

I couldn't jump into any of these things. It takes TIME to train for an ironman. EFFORT to wake up and choose to invest more time in my relationship. DRIVE to want to sit down and learn about website creation and blog posting. and PERSEVERANCE to learn how to invest and save (+compound interest).

None of these goals could be done in a day but all of these goals are absolutely achievable. If you're willing, and it's important to you, then it's big enough.

Now lastly, the best.

HUGE UNACHEIVEABLE GOALS

These are borderline silly, but the point of having goals that are HUGE are motivators for me.

It's what I daydream about when I want to do nothing else.

When I'm laying in bed restless and sleepless, this is what I want to dream of. It's goals like these that are basically pipe dreams that I likely can not achieve.

My list below, in no particular order and what I've done to achieving these goals:

- Compete in the Olympics as a long jumper 
	(done nothing towards this goal)
- Become President of the United States 
	(Looked into local elections once) 
- Become a movie star and win an Oscar
	(Took an acting class in college... that's it)
- Become the first man on Mars
	(done nothing, watched Apollo 11 as a kid)
- Move to Paris and own an art studio
	(Nope, done nothing, painted like twice in my life)
- Own a vineyard in Italy
	(Done nothing, haven't even been to Italy, or a vineyard)

See?

These are pipe dreams. Not reality.

but then again...

What if I were to put one of these items on my BIG Goals list? What if every day I applied my same amount of time, dedication, drive and perseverance to one of these goals? It's not impossible? It would definitely be something, but not COMPLETELY impossible.

Something to think about... while I fall asleep, dreaming of being the first ever Oscar-winning, olympics competitor who owns a vinyard, lives in Paris, and current POTUS... who's heading to Mars.

BB 2024.