Can You Have Too Many Goals?

If you found your way to this blog, chances are that you’re quite ambitious and have big plans for your future. You probably have quite a few goals in mind, both big and small.

I totally get you. There are so many things I want to do in the future, but so little time to work on all of those goals!

Now, the question of the day is: is there such a thing as too many goals?

And I can answer this straight away: yes, there is such a thing. Not because you can’t do many things in your life or because I think you can’t work hard and efficiently, or because every goal is super duper hard to achieve. No.

But goals do take time, energy, and focus, and that’s why you can’t have too much on your plate.

That’s why you need to know which goals matter the most, and put the others on the back burner, at least for a while.

To reach your goals, you need to give them 100%

If you are serious about your biggest goals, you need to give them your all. If you let other things come in the way, you might very well lose precious time and end up not reaching the goal at all, or only reaching it much later in life.

It goes without saying that how much time you need and what kind of sacrifices you need to make (if any) depends on the goal. It’s very different to want to backpack through Australia once or become a Broadway actress.

But whatever your biggest goal is, you need to go all in, sooner rather than later. You never know what will change in the future and what extra challenges you will be battling a few years from now.

What if you’ll have less free time then? What if you will want to set new, equally important goals? What if you’ll have less energy then?

I hear people talk about things they want to do in life all the time, and normally these stories are accompanied by comments about how hard it is and how they don’t have enough time or money to change their lives.

Now let me tell you, that can’t be you.

You have to find the time, energy, and money to go after the goals and dreams you’ve been thinking about for years and that you know are right for you.

Small goals deserve time too

Of course, everything I’ve said applies to the biggest goals in life, the ones that take years to reach and make you question if you have what it takes to reach them.

But smaller goals deserve attention too. Maybe you want to start going to bed earlier, or you want to get into poetry (that’s one of my plans for this year). Goals like these might not make or break your life, but they do make a difference.

I myself have many times gotten a little too excited and set way too many small goals at once, only to abandon them in the first week. Making changes in your life and consistently sticking to them is not easy. That’s why you can’t just set goals willy-nilly.

You need to prioritize the most important goals

Now, I know you want to set and reach all those goals constantly swirling in your head.

But (and I really mean this), you have to prioritize what matters most to you. That one goal that you have been thinking about for a long time, possibly for years. That goal that your mind always returns to when it wanders. The one that you know would make you happy and is right for you.

That’s the one that has the right to trample over the smaller goals, at least for now.

I really love making videos and wish I could go all in on my Youtube channel, but it’s very much on the backburner because my writing just has to come first. And honestly, prioritizing it just makes my life easier and has helped me get much more writing done than I would have even imagined before I set my goal of writing 1000 words a day.

Little exercise

It can be hard to know what is the goal you need to prioritize. Sometimes there are a couple of very strong contenders, and if you are still quite young, you might not know what’s right for you yet. That’s all right, you’ll find the answers eventually.

Now, I want you to do a little exercise to find out where your priorities lie.

Take a pen and paper, and list the ten most important goals and dreams you have, no matter how crazy or difficult they are.

Then, underline those five that matter the most.

After that, circle the two most important ones. The ones that you’d be willing to sacrifice the other ones for.

And after that, I want you to choose the one that matters even more than the other one. That’s the goal you need to prioritize above everything else.

Start with one goal, add more later

I know it’s hard to pick only one goal and ignore the rest for the time being, but I promise you, this will make your life much easier. If it’s a big goal that takes up a lot of time every day (like my main daily goal), you need that simplicity to build the habit of working on that goal day after day.

There will undoubtedly be difficult days and you might feel unmotivated from time to time, even for weeks or months at a time. Being inundated by a slew of goals and daily habits, some of which matter much less than others, will get you burned out fast.

That’s why you need to make sure you can handle the first one before adding the next one.

Once sticking to your most important goal starts feeling almost like second nature to you, it’s time to introduce the next one.

Whatever you do, at least try

I hope that I don’t make setting goals sound too demanding because I know you can stick to your goals. It just takes some practice.

You don’t have to have it all figured out yet, from the schedule to the next steps. It’s more than ok if you’re not quite sure if that goal that you have in mind is even right for you. Sometimes you just need to start and see what happens. You’ll figure it out along the way.

And if it so happens that this goal isn’t right for you, at least you’ll learn something. It will be worth it in the end. You’ll have a better idea of what you want in life, and you’ll have some extra skills in your toolbox, waiting for the future.

Which goals have you been thinking about setting? Would be fun to know!