your goals will hurt you.
People who cannot attain their goals become consumed with disappointment.
You must let your goals evolve with your life circumstances. Update your goals over time as you consider your changing priorities and resources.
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University of Michigan psychologists have found great evidence that while goals are important, goals can do us a great disservice if they are not flexible. Here's a typical story. Jimmy proposed to his girlfriend when he was only eighteen. She accepted, and they were married a year later. At the time, Jimmy promised that he would buy them a house before he turned twenty-four. Jimmy took the first in a series of jobs.
None of them paid very well. Jimmy and his bride lived in a modest but comfortable apartment. As the clock ticked on, though, Jimmy saved as much as he could, got down-payment
money from his parents, and eked out a mortgage approval. Jimmy and his wife moved in, and then they celebrated. The payments were more than he could afford, though.
Soon he took on a second job. It wasn't enough.
Jimmy took another part-time job, his third.
He worked himself sick and over time began to resent both the house and the wife that he had promised it to. Instead of continuing a life he found satisfying and continuing
to save for a house someday, Jimmy rushed the process to meet his declared goal. He let a rigid goal change his life, which was the same as letting a rigid goal harm his life.
If a person's goals are incongruent with his or her abilities, then the goals will contribute to disappointment and disagreeableness, and will quadruple the likelihood of being dissatisfied.
Pavot, Fujita, and Diener 1997
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