Goals

In a rather brilliant interview with Stephen Fry (‘What I Wish I’d Known When I Was 18’), he says that the worst thing you could do in life is to set goals as it will either lead to feeling like a failure or feeling a bit lost if you do reach your goals (e.g. ‘I finally bought this fancy sports car, now what?’). I usually agree with his opinions, but in this case I have to disagree.

I’m the kind of person who needs goals. If I’m not working towards anything I struggle to feel motivated - the fact that I’m working towards a career motivates me to revise for an extra hour or two when preparing for an exam; working towards passing the practical driving test motivates me to not give up if I’ve had a particularly bad lesson; working towards a debt-free future motivates me save money where I can.

I think that if you don’t want to set goals for the fear of failure, you’ll have that fear in other aspects of your life too and that’s not really a good way to live. You can’t be scared of thinking bigger just because you might not get there, because as I’ve said before: if you never try, you’ll never know. Failure isn’t the be all and end all - the important thing to remember when setting goals is to remember that it’s okay if you don’t reach them. Nothing horrific is going to happen to you if you fail.

Applying for the Samaritans was a risk for me. It was completely out of my comfort zone to go for something like that, and although I wasn’t successful I know that it’s something I’ll be much better equipped to do when I’m older and have a bit more life experience. At one time, it was a goal to become a listening volunteer – getting through the selection day was a goal – and I suppose I failed, but I don’t look at it like that. It was an experience that I can learn from and lessons in life are always a good thing.

Maybe the bigger things in life shouldn’t be made into goals (such as to get married by 28, children by 30 etc) but I think having smaller, achievable short-term goals can be incredibly helpful. Then again, everyone’s different and you just have to go with what works for you.