Once upon a time, some friends and I decided to share our goals. One wanted to run a full marathon, another wanted to go to university abroad and I wanted to write a book. It’s been five years and none of us are closer to our goals. We give ourselves leeway, at least two years, because of the pandemic but since then every New Year’s resolution has been a list of all the plans we failed to see through. We didn’t give up because having a goal to look forward to means that our lives have meaning. However, the constant disappointment from failing to meet these goals has me wondering if we should give up.
As adults, we’re conditioned to believe that the only way to succeed is to persevere. We have turned adulthood into a series of quests that we have to accomplish. Weight loss, job upgrades, and makeovers are a constant part of life. The self-improvement industrial complex always has something you need to work on. This, in turn, makes adulting an obstacle course. One that you can never fully accomplish because if you meet that one goal, another awaits. If my friend runs that marathon, he’ll now have to maintain that physique. If my other friend goes back to university, she’ll then have to struggle through school. After a master’s degree, she’ll get a PhD, and after that maybe another PhD. And when you are unable to meet these goals in the first place, you make yourself feel bad. For the next new year, what should we do? Different Types Of Goals You Should Have At The Beginning Of The Year
Why we need to stop struggling
In this New Yorker article, it’s suggested that we stop pushing against our circumstances to aim for goals we simply can’t meet. It suggests acknowledging our limits to enable us to accomplish what we can while still enjoying life. Struggle is borne as a result of constant planning and preparation. Say you want to lose fat, you start by downloading apps to help you depending on the method you choose. If you want to use intermittent fasting, there’s an app for that. You then go buy the foods in the nutritional profile you want. If you decide to do the 10,000 steps a day method, you invest in a smartwatch, running shoes, sports bras, and knee pads.
Every goal that you fail starts with an intricate plan and it assumes that your life is smooth running. When you come up with a very stringent plan, the moment something goes wrong, you find yourself unable to adjust to meet your goals. Say your New Year resolves to start a project like crocheting. You end up buying all the items you need to start. However, your company does a round of layoffs which means you have to do extra work until they can restructure. Your items end up in the back of a closet until your favourite niece finds your items and takes them for themselves.
When you come up with elaborate plans to meet your goals, it’s almost like you’re setting yourself up to fail. When you don’t follow that plan, it feels like failure and it can also damage your mental health and your quality of life. Giving yourself permission to stop struggling means taking a realistic look at your situation and starting with what you can. If you want to lose weight, start with a daily habit that you can realistically add to your routine, like walking from your office to town or taking a walk during your lunch break.
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Become grounded
In addition, think about what your life needs rather than what you want. You want to lose 30kg, to go back to school, to buy a car, or to become a CEO. But your life needs something different. When you take a moment to self-reflect, what is it that you need to focus more on? Perhaps it’s to become more disciplined. Creating healthier habits for yourself piecemeal so that eventually, without giving yourself a deadline, you can run that marathon.
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If your life needs you to take more risks, then you need to take that chance. Don’t wait for the opportune moment. Don’t give in to your anxiety. Send that cold email to your dream job even when you feel uncomfortable but don’t let it define your self-worth. Don’t start your New Year’s resolutions with rigid goals. Take that chance whenever you can. Risk-Taking For Personal Growth And Success
When you stop struggling, you’re doing a trade-off. Instead of focusing on things you can’t accomplish, you start focusing on what’s most important in the present. Sometimes that’s just giving up. There are days you wake up and your mental health is in the pits. Nearly every self-improvement expert would tell you to “power through” but sometimes what you need is to just turn off your alarm, ask for a sick day, and dig deeper into your blankets. Giving up is acceptance of your present situation and pivoting to help you enjoy your life a bit more. Unlocking Your Potential: The Power Of Life Coaching In Personal Growth
What can giving up do for you
There’s a difference between giving up and becoming defeatist. To give up, in this instance, doesn’t mean to stop trying. It means to let go of a future for the sake of your reality. For example, you can give up a dream to become a surgeon and then end up becoming a public health officer who creates a bigger impact in your community.
The last few years have created an environment that makes it harder to take businesses off the ground. You can choose to keep struggling until you destroy yourself because it’s more noble. Or you can give up and reorient your life in a way that helps you find a different career that’s just as rewarding. For my friends, that looks like joining a running group and applying for schools now then worrying about money later. For me, that’s getting a writing habit rather than worrying about completing a book in a year.
Can giving up go wrong?
Because it’s not an exact science, to give up can lead to regret. If you give up on pursuing that master’s degree and you do something else, you could always wonder if that was the wrong thing to do. They say you shouldn’t weep for roads untravelled, perhaps because you’ll never know where that journey would have taken you. It’s heartbreaking to think about the lost opportunities because you decided to stop struggling.
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The human condition is designed to chafe against uncertainty. We focus on goals and dreams because we know they’ll have a binary outcome. But when the result is a lack of success, we feel bad. We stop trying rather than stop struggling. We stop participating in our well-being and stop taking initiative. To give up, to stop struggling, is to embrace uncertainty. Nearly everyone you ever meet has a cemetery of broken dreams and failed accomplishments. They never really address what they learned along the way. The good things that came out of simply trying. Adulthood is one long participation trophy and you should stop to reward yourself every once in a while, rather than piling on goals and resolutions. For the upcoming new year, spare yourself the struggle, give up, and see what new adventures lie ahead.
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