Do your ambitious goals often fall flat despite your best intentions? What are the advantages of being reasonable with yourself?
Learning how to set realistic goals is a crucial skill explored in Oliver Burkeman’s Meditations for Mortals. The author presents three methods for maintaining a balanced approach to goal-setting while avoiding the common pitfalls of overwork and perfectionism.
Discover how being reasonable with your time, energy, and expectations can help you achieve what matters most in life.
How to Be Reasonable
One of the most important parts of taking action toward your goals, according to Burkeman, is learning how to set realistic goals—don’t overwork yourself or focus too much on your problems. He offers three practical methods for being reasonable with yourself; let’s explore each.
First, Burkeman explains that consistency is key when it comes to accomplishing goals, but being too strict can be unrealistic—so you should build in some leniency. Life happens and people are imperfect, so forcing yourself to meet perfect guidelines is unlikely to work. For example, instead of striving to work toward your goal every day according to schedule, give yourself some leeway and work on your goal five days a week.
(Shortform note: In The 12-Week Year, Brian Moran reiterates the importance of being both consistent and realistic in dedicating time toward your endeavors; however, rather than having a work goal for your week as Burkeman recommends, Moran argues that you should be creating a structured work routine. Your work routine will be based on your day-to-day habits and patterns—when you’re the most and least productive, when you like to take leisure time, and so on. Creating a routine based on your life will help you be realistic, as Burkeman recommends, while avoiding pitfalls that come with having a loose work goal such as simply allowing yourself to quit when your day feels too overwhelming.)
Second, spend your time wisely—Burkeman says that people can only concentrate intensely for three to four hours at a time. Forcing yourself to do high-level work for longer than this will likely lead to burnout; you’ll likely be less productive or produce lower-quality work. To make the most of your limited focus time, avoid interruptions, and when your window of focus has closed, don’t push yourself just for the sake of finishing a task.
(Shortform note: This high-focus mode Burkeman discusses is commonly referred to as “flow.” In Ikigai, Francesc Miralles and Hector Garcia provide instructions on how to reach a state of flow. First, choose an activity that’s challenging but possible. This will keep you interested in the task at hand; you won’t get bored if something’s too easy or anxious if it’s too hard. Next, set an objective for your session, such as meeting a certain word count if you’re writing. Then, as Burkeman recommends, avoid distractions. Finally, focus on only one task—multitasking prevents you from focusing on one thing long enough to reach flow.)
Third, Burkeman reminds you to take problems in stride. People tend to hold the belief that they’ll eventually reach a point in life that’s free of problems. This isn’t true, and it causes people to stress over not only the problem at hand but also the fact that there’s a problem at all. Instead, remember that there will always be problems in life—this is natural.
(Shortform note: Adhering to the Stoic principle of logos can help you follow Burkeman’s advice. In Meditations, Marcus Aurelius explains that logos is a guiding force in the universe that ensures everything happens as it should. As such, everything that happens to you, good or bad, is essentially fated. Even if you make good and logical decisions, you can’t prevent problems from arising in your life that are out of your control. You can, however, make peace with the fact that everything is happening as the universe prescribes. This belief may encourage you to follow Burkeman’s advice—stop striving for an unrealistic problem-free life and instead embrace life’s ebb and flow.)
