Join me in making this another underwhelming year with mediocre accomplishments and unattained goals. Year after year, we start January 1st with a clean slate and hopes for a better 12 months than previously experienced…well, I say BULL PUCKEY! We repeatedly over-imbibe on New Year’s Eve and shout out to our fellow revelers all the ambitious changes that will begin the following day. Then, the first day of the “new me” begins with Pepto Bismol, burning soup-ass, and the shakes. Guess we’ll REALLY get after it on the 2nd.
No more! You are stuck in your life with no escape. You don’t have the grit and desire it takes to make lasting, meaningful change. Below, I have listed 10 sure-fire ways to fail at your goals and stay exactly where you are in life. It will reduce the stress and anxiety that are associated with striving for excellence and improvement. You are welcome. I had the intention to provide 50 sure-fire solutions, but life kicked me in the head at number 7, and it was all I could do to hang on by my fingernails and crank out this miserable memorandum.
- Never write down your dreams, desires, or goals. There is a magic in the written word that drives your subconscious mind to work constantly on the things you most want. Allow your reptilian mind to focus on other matters such as social media, Candy Crush, and Netflix.
- Suck it up and realize you do not have what it takes to accomplish your dreams. Success is reserved for people with money, confidence, connections, and luck.
- Do not set a time limit on the things you want to accomplish. You can’t predict what other more important things will pop up in your life. Things like the Dancing With the Stars series premiere, or an impromptu beer pong tournament. A wise person once said: “Why do today what you can put off until tomorrow?”
- Definitely, definitely keep your goals to yourself. Read that again, it will save you a ton of heartache and embarrassment. If you go spouting off all the amazing things you intend to accomplish, you just look like a supreme ass-hat when nothing changes. Your friends and family will poke at you with the sharpened stick of your own proclamations.
- It is impossible to set meaningful goals…so avoid it. You are like a bit of fluff blown and buffeted by the slightest breeze. As an obsessive-compulsive hobby-hopper with serious commitment issues, what is dear to your heart today is but a fleeting distraction tomorrow.
- Hold tight to your limiting beliefs. They are all that separate you from intense discomfort and disappointment. There is only so much that can be accomplished with your meager reserves of energy, intellectual capacity, and financial resources. You are where you because that is where you are “meant” to be.
- The first step of any undertaking is always the scariest, so skip it. You can avoid the icy shards of fear that accompany trying something new, by just doing the same things you have been doing. There is comfort in the familiar. No person has plunged screaming to their death, twisted and mangled upon the rocks, who did not first leap off the cliff.
- Do not look back to see how far you have come. When engaged in any task you set for yourself, keep your eyes on the horizon. You will soon see that the horizon never gets any closer, so you might as well lay down. Tracking your progress in any way will only give false hope that you are closing the distance to your unicorn.
- It is unnecessary to reward yourself for accomplishing your goals or achieving mileposts along the way. In fact, attaching work to the attainment of something you desire can be detrimental to your mental well-being. Studies show that after a period of failed attempts to grasp the carrot dangling in front of you, you are 7 times more likely stop liking carrots…or become a heroin addict.
- It is far better to get by on emotion than habit. Think about it: people are often turned off by smokers, nose-pickers, and nail-biters. What do those things have in common? They are habits. Let the excitement of a new goal carry you forward and don’t get caught with your finger stuck in your nose…or anywhere else.
Hopefully, by now it is obvious that goals are for suckers, and you are pretty much mired where you are with no hope of improving your situation. Rather than dwell on your shortcomings, focus instead on everyone else’s. Bring them to light by tirelessly accentuating and illuminating all negative aspects and downsides. This focus will make your mediocre existence seem bearable. If you can knock your circle of influence down to your level, you’ll have company. Remind them of the words of the great Homer Simpson: “Trying is the first step to failure.”
Author’s Note: If it is not obvious, this is intended as a humorous article that still conveys the key points of goal setting.