how to chase your goals without destroying yourself

There’s a specific kind of suffering that comes from wanting something and not knowing when it will arrive.

Not whether it will arrive, when.

A project, a business, an investment, a romantic partner, a child, a specific result…

When?

This question can become a form of torture if you let it.

Your mind doesn’t know how to sit still in uncertainty. It starts calculating. Counting. Comparing. With others. Especially with not-so-social media going around.

Your mind becomes obsessed. Looking at the calendar. Looking at other people. Looking at your own life as if it were…

Late.
Delayed.
Behind.
Wrong.

You start living as if your life were failing simply because the result hasn’t arrived yet.

(not yet)

And little by little, without even noticing it, the goal stops being something you love and starts becoming something that punishes you.

That’s where many people suffer endlessly. They’re trying to force certainty out of what was never fully theirs to control.

I have a question for you.

Are you trying to achieve a goal?
Are you pursuing a great mission?

But there’s a problem, right?

Timing is always a problem.

A big concern about “what if I don’t achieve it?”
I guessed right, didn’t I?

Time just keeps moving forward, and the desperation and frustration of still not seeing the light is killing you inside.

It’s good to know, and to be clear, that you’re going to achieve it, that you’re achieving it. But the timing you impose on yourself isn’t fair.
It simply isn’t fair.

It doesn’t matter whether the timeline is realistic or not, that isn’t the point here. You simply can’t try to achieve a goal at the expense of your health. Physical or mental.

Of course you’re going to achieve it, because you’re already on the way there.
But there’s one aspect you need to let go of, you need to [restrict paid=”true”]let go of control over time. And very firmly, you need to remind yourself, I leave it in God’s hands.

God’s plan.

Call it God, call it the universe, call it the stars aligning, call it nature, call it destiny, call it Life. I don’t care what you call it, your personal beliefs aren’t the point here.

What you need to be clear about is that you can control everything except timing.

Timing is left in God’s hands. Again: Timing is left in (fill in the blank)’s hands

You only need to concern yourself with working, with giving the best of yourself, which is a lot and very valuable, no matter what.

And with making sure you don’t fall into avoidance behaviour or procrastination out of fear. That’s something you do have to deal with. It isn’t something you need to obsess over, but it’s something you need to take responsibility for.

Always know that there should be nothing about yourself that you can’t admit to yourself.

Whether it’s that you’re lying to yourself and not doing the right things; whether it’s that you’re doing an excellent job and underestimating yourself; whether it’s that fear produces such anxiety in you that you keep avoiding doing what you have to do while time keeps passing.

And this matters because when fear is left unchecked, it doesn’t just make you suffer, it makes you act badly.

It makes you rush. It makes you freeze. It makes you procrastinate. It makes you pick fights with yourself. It makes you talk to yourself in a way you would never tolerate from another person.

Meaning, the danger isn’t only the delay. The danger is what you do to yourself while the delay is happening. That’s why self-honesty matters so much here.

You do need to ask yourself hard questions:
Are you avoiding?
Are you hiding?
Are you pretending to work while actually circling around the real thing?
Are you demanding perfection because perfection gives you an excuse not to move?
Are you doing far more than you admit and still treating yourself as if it were never enough?

That part is yours, it’s under your control.

And there’s another part too, one that matters just as much: how you regulate yourself when panic starts taking over.

When your nervous system is overwhelmed, everything feels urgent. Everything feels catastrophic. Everything feels like proof that something has gone wrong. In that state, you don’t think clearly. And, of course, you can’t work clearly either.

So when that inner desperation begins, stop for a second.
Breathe properly.
Come back to the body.
Come back to the task in front of you.
Come back to the day you’re actually in, not the imaginary future where everything has already failed.

You don’t need to solve your entire life this afternoon, you just need to stay with yourself long enough to do the next thing that’s actually realistic right now.

Fear is inevitable, it’s part of the path of those who want to go beyond what is expected. But despite the fear, one must keep walking forward.

The timing of when the fruits you are planting today will materialise isn’t your business.

Not your business.

It’s God’s business. Leave it in God’s hands.

Again: fill in the blank with whatever feels more natural to you, this is just an expression!

Call it something else if that language isn’t yours. Call it life. Call it reality. Call it the universe. Call it the order of things. Call it the part of existence that doesn’t obey your schedule.

“Your schedule”, meaning: the tyrant of your schedule, imposing imaginary, unrealistic deadlines.

Things take time. Worthy things take time.

What time? How much time? Not your business.

There is a margin here that is not yours to command, and trying to dominate it will only turn your desire into suffering.

Show up. Work. Take responsibility for what’s yours. Tell yourself the truth. But stop trying to squeeze certainty out of time itself.

That’s where obsession begins.

Obsession feels productive for a while, but it isn’t. It’s just fear in a smarter outfit. Beware:

There’s nothing more unfair than mistreating yourself for not achieving certain goals by certain dates.

Don’t mistreat yourself.

Fixing dates on the calendar for when you must achieve that very difficult goal is something you can’t control.
Fixing dates on the calendar for when you’re going to meet the love of your life.
For when you’re going to earn X amount per month.
For when the social relationships that are more aligned with you are going to appear in your life.
For when you’re going to become a father or a mother.

Just to give a few examples. Apply it to your case.

The only thing you can control, the only thing that’s in your hands, is to show up every fucking day and do the best you can given the circumstances and resources you have at this very moment.

Nothing more, nothing less.

Dates must be eliminated. Forcing yourself, subjecting yourself, and obsessing over certain fixed dates is a form of mistreatment.

Yes, I know.

I know that what you want most is that goal, to reach that thing you long for so much. I know that it brings you a lot of sadness, it gives you a lot of anger, it gives you a lot of frustration to be where you are, to be at the point in time where you are.

There are lessons to learn. There are certain experiences that are going to give you certain learnings. But above all, learning to love yourself.

To put yourself above everything. To prioritise yourself above everything. Even above that thing you long for so much.

Taking care of yourself above everything, treating yourself well above everything, even above your own goals.

I’m not talking about being lazy, or giving up, or becoming passive. I’m talking about refusing to build your future through self-violence.

A lot of people think the only way to get where they want to go is to pressure themselves harder, insult themselves more, scare themselves more, deny themselves more, tighten the grip more.

But this strategy comes with a cost.

Yes, you might get movement towards your goal. But you also get exhaustion, anxiety, resentment, disconnection from yourself. A life built in permanent inner hostility.

And then even if one day you achieve the thing, you arrive there damaged.

So no, the answer isn’t to stop wanting what you want. The answer is to stop turning the desire into a weapon against yourself.

You aren’t going to work towards your goals from a place of mistreatment, you aren’t going to put your health at risk for any goal.

None.

Your health, your care, comes before everything, and you aren’t going to subject yourself to random deadlines, whether they’re met on those dates or not, whether it’s before or after those dates that you have set for yourself.

As long as you take care of what is yours, of what is under your control, you must leave the rest.

Do your part. Leave the rest.

Leave the date. Leave the obsession. Leave the fantasy that if you suffer enough you will gain control over time.

You will not.

What you can do is protect the way you walk through the process.
What you can do is refuse to abandon yourself on the way there.
What you can do is keep faith, in God, in life, in reality, in the larger order of things, that not everything unfolds according to your preferred schedule, and that doesn’t automatically mean it’s going wrong. Sometimes it simply means you’re being asked to keep going without guarantees.

Yes, that’s hard.

But, it’s still not permission to mistreat yourself. If anything, it’s the opposite.

It’s the moment to become even more loyal to yourself.

More disciplined where discipline is needed.
More compassionate where compassion is needed.
More rested when rest is needed.
More playful when play is needed.

More willing to release what was never yours to command.

Your job isn’t to control the whole unfolding. Your job is to remain intact enough, clear enough, and steady enough to meet it when it comes.

Because it’ll come, but it should never come at the cost of destroying yourself along the way.

And if you’re tired of chasing what you want like a maniac and paying for it with your own wellbeing, you can join the waiting list for a psychological consultation here, so you can learn how to pursue what matters to you without becoming the thing you sacrifice to get it.