By Astonished Andrew
Hey guys, I’m just adding a prelude here, to tell you this post is a two-for-one read. I started out writing this article posing the question of “What is your ultimate goal in life” with some concrete steps you can take to tackle that. But to be frank, as time elapsed between when I first wrote this article to now, life happened and I realized I was trying to develop a slightly different mindset. I discuss this towards the end of this post. What is it about? I can’t tell you – you gotta keep reading! Well, actually, fine, I’ll give you a one sentence preview: ultimate goals can be fun to have, but during times like this, don’t stress if your ultimate goal is to just make sure you’re laughing enough. Intrigued? Onwards to the original post!
What is your ultimate goal in life?
What’s up guys! I hope you are all doing well. I wanted to talk about a question that’s been on my mind lately – what’s your ultimate goal in life?
Let me first set a spot of context. I’m a huge Formula 1 fan. For those of you not familiar, Formula 1 is the peak of motorsport racing. It’s what racers dream of being in from a young age. Racing in Formula 1 is the equivalent of playing in the NBA, NFL, or MLB. It is what children dream of when they first start out their racing careers go-karting. It is what drives them from practice to practice, morning to night, through race after race, aching to improve their race times and understanding of their car, so that one day they can rise through the ranks of Formula 3, Formula 2, and then to Formula 1. Parents sacrifice their time and money, while children sacrifice their childhood to achieve their ultimate dream, their ultimate desire. I apologize in advance, if I sound a little obsessed, it’s because – well I am. But there’s something else that I find so fascinating about this. This whole process of rising through the ranks of junior racing leagues with go-karting to Formula 1 takes about a minimum of 10 years. Keep in mind, a lot of these athletes that enter Formula 1 nowadays are anywhere from 19-22 years old; that means they started racing from the age of 10 or younger.
When I was 10, I didn’t even know if I was going to do my homework later that night (yeah I was a rebel), let alone deciding I wanted to dedicate my whole life to a career. How the hell do you do that? I’m not sure, but it got me thinking about what I wanted in my life. What is my ultimate goal?
To be honest, I don’t know what my ultimate goal is. Does your ultimate goal have to be altruistic or can it be self-interested? I guess that comes down to how you define ultimate as. Let’s do that – I want to define an ultimate goal is one that provides you with a level of happiness and satisfaction worthy of your life’s efforts.
Awesome, now that we’ve defined what an ultimate goal could be, I pose – what is your OWN ultimate goal? Is it starting your own business? Is it making a million billion dollars? (Good luck with that, although I’m sure Bezos is probably on his way). I really just want you to sit down and think about what DRIVES you. What drives you when you wake up in the morning? What drives you to keep pushing when things get tough? It can be anything.
Next, I want you to start thinking about what it will take for you to get there. To be fair, it can be difficult and daunting to think about how you want your LIFE to be like, so I encourage you to think about where you want to be in shorter intervals. What does your life look like in five years? Too long? Fine, how about two years from now? Is that too intimidating? How about what you want your next day or week to look like?
The point of this exercise is to two-fold. Firstly, it helps to remind you that YOU are in control of your life. When you think about what you really want, it will make the path clear. You will take the necessary steps to make your dreams come true. Don’t believe me, try it for yourself. Second, I think it helps to inject some optimism. It serves to remind all of us that we had a life before this global pandemic, and we will have one again. Everything will get better.
Finally, now that you have thought about what you want in life, and how you’re going to get there – it’s time to start taking action. Remember, it’s easy to think about what you want, but it’s a lot harder to actually start doing it.
Don’t worry – all you need to do is take one step at a time. What are some small ways you can take action on your goals consistently? It doesn’t matter at what pace you go at, as long as you don’t give up.
What’s your ultimate goal? I have to admit I’m not quite sure. But I’m sure as hell going to try this exercise out (cheeky endorsement I know). Try this out yourselves and let me know in the comments section below what your ultimate goal is!
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Keep on Keepin’ on:
Editor’s note: I figured out what my ultimate goal is.
Now originally, I was going to type out this whole thing about wanting to be successful in my career/owning a few businesses/having a couple of cool cars. I still want those things, but I’ve realized in the past few months I’ve been concerned with one thing – being happy/staying positive. I’ll admit things have been weird here in the U.S and it’s definitely been draining. It’s part of the reason why I’ve been away for a little bit, and I apologize for that.
Now I still stand by this article, 100%, because I think it’s important to have these big goals that always keep you striving. But re-reading this article, I realized this isn’t where I’m at all at this point of my life. At this very moment, I do not have an ultimate goal of going after that promotion, or developing my own business, or making that impossibly intimidating move halfway across the world. My ultimate goal is to retrain my brain to develop a positive mindset and to keep on keepin’ on. I know during all of this, people are using this time to get ahead, and if you are, more power to you. But if you’re not, that’s ok. So, I just wanted to include this editor’s note to say, you don’t have to have a crazy ambitious ultimate goal – it can be simple as making sure you laugh at least five times a day (which is a fun goal btw).
So keep on keepin’ on.
Love you all,
Andrew Gavin