The Surprising Truth About Ambitious Goals No One Tells You

Once you know this, you will start setting unrealistic goals

Most people play too small in life. I used to be like that. When I went to college, my only goal was to get a job after graduating and live a comfortable life.

10 months into the job, I realized that this life was boring. There was no excitement in the job. Although I was getting a good paycheck, I was not satisfied with my life.

I realized that I had to work for 40 years here. This thought scared the shit out of me. I did not want to work for the rest of my life.

That’s when I took the risk and I quit the job. I applied for a Ph.D. program in the U.S. and landed in the U.S. in 2018. Since then I have been living in the U.S.

I believe that coming to the U.S. is probably the best decision of my life. During the first year, I had never been so uncomfortable in my life. Everything was so different here. However, this discomfort taught me to take risks in life.

I decided to take more risks and get into more uncomfortable situations.

That’s when I started setting ambitious goals for myself, like:

1. Running 3 miles everybody, considering I had never exercised at all before coming to the U.S.
2. Learning a new instrument
3. Starting my blog.

All of these things scared the shit out of me and I doubted myself many times. However, with persistence and hard work, I was able to achieve my goals in 2 years.

After setting these ambitious and unrealistic (at least to me) goals, I found that there was no competition at the top.

Because 99% of the people want to play the mediocre game and if you are setting average goals then you have to compete against 99% of the people.

On the other hand, if you set unrealistic goals, you are competing against only 1% of people.

There is no competition at the top. It’s so lonely here.

So the truth is:

“Setting ambitious goals reduces your competition by 99% such that your chances to achieve them are much higher than you think”

I am not stopping after realizing this truth. I am setting even more ambitious goals from now on:

1. Running a half-marathon (or a marathon someday)
2. Playing in a band
3. Become one of the best medium writers

I don’t care if I achieve them or not. I am loving the process of chasing ambitious goals so much that I never want to stop.

I will keep raising the bar higher and higher because once you start enjoying the process, goals don’t matter that much.

Thanks for reading.