Goals need to be accompanied with a good dose of embracing fate

Goals are important, but shouldn't be the sole driver of your growth. Some ideas on this:

• Hopping from one goal to the other can be a defense mechanism to avoid the discomfort of not feeling enough.
• Slowing down your growth path can lead to:
  • more enjoyment
  • long-term stickiness of the changes
  • less costs (less books you buy and courses you take)
• Productivity based solely on SMART goals is less effective than that which embraces drifting and letting fate carry you (as long as you still keep a general direction in mind and act to prevent going too far from that).
• Doing "unproductive" tasks just for the sake of it is a way to make good use of the privileges your growth has brought you.

This idea was sparked by reading Tiago Forte's My 12 Biggest Lessons Learned in 2020. Specifically, lesson 4 - Once you know you’re going to succeed, the most important thing is to savor every minute spent getting there.

Once I have a goal I tend to go after it so aggressively that I forget to even notice the experience of getting there. But I’ve done enough of these reviews to notice that reaching a goal is mostly empty. As soon as it’s within reach, it stops being interesting. The impulse to immediately set yet another, even more ambitious goal is mostly an effort to get back to the feeling of wanting, striving, reaching. There’s nothing wrong with that, but it’s healthy to appreciate that it’s not the only feeling worth having.

Another idea sparked from this post: Loss and grief shouldn't be the only instigators that push us to better enjoy the people in our lives