Set Unachievable Goals

The human mindset toward goal setting is backward… do this instead and your life will change.

As you receive this, I’m somewhere in the mountains of Idaho, chasing elk with my bow. Ever since getting into hunting a few years back, I’ve done a trip like this at least twice a year (this year I have 3). But for me, hunting isn’t about one day or one week I circle on the calendar… It’s a year-round pursuit.

Sure, the trips themselves are as little as 3 to 4 days or as long as 10. But the amount of planning that goes into them, the training to stay in shape, the training to be proficient with my weapon, the taking care of business at work and at home so that I don’t have any worries while I’m out there - that is all a year-round pursuit.

To do this every year, I need to change how I approach my day-to-day life.

However, I have noticed that other people do treat it as a specific date on the calendar. On the hunting forums, guys and gals post about planning a trip in 2025 or 2026 to do what is likely a “once-in-a-lifetime hunt”. 

I always wonder, if these people love hunting so much, why are they not living their lives in a way that allows them to do it more often? Why do they set a goal centered around a specific date for something they plan to do only once in their life?

Then it struck me… Most people structure their lives this way for every goal they have. They want to lose 20 pounds, run a marathon, be promoted at work, or chase an elk. Just once in their life… Then, they’ll be happy.

Or will they? 

Honestly, probably not. When you set goals around a specific date, you are more likely to fall back into your prior habits once that event is over.

Which, unfortunately, for most Americans, likely consists of working 40 hours a week for a job you hate and spending your weekends watching sports while drinking beer, making that the thing you become.

Unfortunately, this is especially common for health-related goals because people see them with a vanity frame to look good for a specific date, like a wedding, instead of wanting to be healthy for life.

After all,

“We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit”

- Aristotle

To be excellent at anything, it needs to be who you are year ‘round - Not just until you turn the page on the calendar.

Goal setting before we needed to set them

Listen, I get it - life is different in today’s world. As much as I would like it, we aren’t returning to a colonial-era America where we left the dredges of imperial rule and big cities to live simple, rural lives with minimal government.

A world where we didn’t need to set goals around getting in shape because life back then demanded you be in shape or you’d probably die. 

We didn’t need goals that we had to fit neatly into a two-week period every year because most people worked for themselves and enjoyed their lives enough that they didn’t feel the need to escape from it.

We certainly didn’t need to set goals for going on a hunting trip as that was simply called grocery shopping.

Shoot, back then, the goal was to simply survive to see another day! Humans didn’t have the time to hate their lives or dig for a deeper purpose because they were so busy trying to provide for their families.

But today, in a world where everything we could ever want is literally a click away, you need to manufacture some of this difficulty and struggle to reclaim the parts of you that yearn for that adventure and sense of working towards something.

So, we set goals. Goals to become healthier, goals to embark on an adventure, goals to grow a business, or whatever your case is.

As hard as some of the goals I listed above are, they are still infinitely easier than ever before in history. In fact, life itself is easier than it’s ever been in history. So it’s easy to “breeze” through, relatively speaking, and check off accomplishments as if they were a grocery list.

I suggest changing the way you frame your goals. I believe this will lead you to pursue them for a lifetime as opposed to simply a date on the calendar.

Reframe your current mindset

There’s a saying out there that runs the risk of sounding cliche but is so true:

“If your dreams do not scare you, they are not big enough”

Too many people set realistic achievable goals, which I’m not saying is a “bad” thing, but if/when you achieve them, you’ll just end up like everyone else.

And to quote me in just about every article I write, don’t be like everyone else.

Your goals can be similar to other people’s but you have to start reframing the way you speak them into existence. Let’s look at the ones I referenced above and do a simple reframing exercise.

I want to lose 20 pounds. —> I want to live at a weight where I feel strong, fast, lean, and capable as I age.

I want to run a marathon. —> I want to be able to run a marathon on a day's notice just because I can.

I want to be promoted at work. —> I want to be financially free.

I want to go hunt elk someday. —> I want to structure my life so that I can go hunting multiple times every year.

See what I did there? I reframed the same goals so that they don’t have a time stamp on them. They are goals you can never truly conquer because they’re ongoing. The clock resets every day on them and you have to keep putting in that work every day, likely for the rest of your life. 

Pick up hobbies where you can never be perfect

Another strategy you can employ is to set goals that are centered around hobbies in which you can never be perfect.

Martial arts (jiu-jitsu in my case) is one example. Sure, you can set a goal of achieving a black belt which is extremely difficult to do and can take many years to accomplish.

But let’s say you do it in 10 years… Now what? Are you done? Are you the ultimate badass? I mean you are a certified badass, but you aren’t the baddest, I can guarantee you that!

You will ALWAYS have more to learn and there will always be someone who can teach you something. You will simply never be done learning and that is a beautiful thing!

Archery or bowhunting, as I’m doing now, is another great example. If you’ve ever picked up a bow, you know how insanely frustrating it can be sometimes. One day you can’t miss and are hitting bulls-eyes on every shot and the next, you’re completely missing the target and breaking your precious arrows. 

The same goes for bowhunting - I can kill an elk on this trip (cross your fingers please), but then what? The very next day, the score goes back to 0-0. What I did on this day has no effect on the next trip. Sure, the learned experiences will help, but you start every trip with a score of 0.

Now, I’m choosing the hobbies that I happen to pursue. Think about your hobbies and how you can reframe them to give you that lifelong pursuit and continuous challenge.

Take action: Write down the things you wish you could do more of. Then, write down your limiting beliefs around those goals. AKA, what’s stopping you from doing those things every single year? How can you overcome those roadblocks?

It’s an interesting exercise and one that Maddie and I talk about often so that we can continue pursuing the things we like to do together and as individuals for as long as we are physically able.

If you have goals and passions in life you shouldn’t let them flame out just because you get older, your family grows, or your boss won’t let you.

Find a way. 

Just like I’m hoping to find a way to put an elk to rest. Either way, for me, the best part is that the score is 0-0 after this hunt is over. Win or lose, there’s another hunt to prepare for and work towards.

-Sebastian

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