Accomplishment Is A Trap

Goal.

End-result.

Finishline.

All those words create pictures in our heads. Pictures of something pleasant and exciting. When we hear words like end-result or finishline we anticipate something good. After all – we worked hard and accomplished somthing.

We reached a goal.

But let me tell you, that’s not always as good as we believe. Let me explain.

Early on we get told, that reaching a goal is always a good thing. As kids, every time we learned something new or mastered a new skill people applauded us and that made us feel good about our self. Later in school we tried our best to get through these years of forcefully stuffing knowledge in our brains. The ultimate goal for most of us at that time was getting our final exams done and quitting mathematics for ever.

The next big thing on our lists was getting a job. Living live to the fullest, always in search of something new to accomplish, we where haunting opportunities after opportunities.

We rushed through life always looking for a way to finally catch up with our dreams and hopes. One day – we told our selfs – all of that hard work will pay of. We dreamed about having a nice house, writing that bestselling novel and a nice family.

So far so good.

And there is nothing particularly wrong with that kind of life. That’s pretty much the path that most of us choose. This is also not going to be another post about, how you should live unconventional or how you should follow your passion. (Though I would recommend doing that.)

What you wanna do after all – is none of my business, do the things that suit you the best.

What I care about tho, is that you don’t get to much fixated on archieving your goals. That now must sound strange to you I know. After all nowadays we get told frequently to never give up trying until we reached said goal. And that we of course can do everything we set our mind too. Well we can try.

But some things are just out of our control. For an example, if your novel will become a bestseller or not, has not always somthing to do with your talent or passion. Sometimes it’s just luck. As simple as that. But that shouldn’t be stopping you from writing that novel.

,,But what’s the point if it doesn’t get published?”, I hear you cry. After all, that was maybe your life goal and now I’ve crushed all your hopes of ever becoming an author. Well I’m sorry.

But if your goal was becoming an author thorough publishing a book, it was maybe the wrong thing for you anyway. Because you should be in love with the process of writing – not with the endresult.

And that’s really my problem I have with people who are so fixated on accomplishing there goals. They dream big and put all the effort into reaching that goal – even though in the process there unhappy. For me I don’t see the difference of being unhappy in an 9 to 5 job or being unhappy while working for your ultimate goal.

Personally I think it’s way better to enjoy what your doing while your doing it. Everyone can dream of being an author. That’s easy. But not everyone loves the pain of writing four ours a day – and that’s fine too. Sometimes we just want things because we are in love with the idea of it, but not so often with the real process of doing said things. People need to realise that it is not about finding the one thing you wanna reach in life – but more about finding the one thing you wanna do.

So if you choose that you wanna do something in life – don’t try to be fixated to much on accomplishing it. Concentrate on the joy of the process.