Speaking with my Gracie jiu-jitsu coach the other night, I realized that I don’t aspire to a ton of expensive things.
When it first came out in 2007, I did Tim Ferriss’s worksheet from his groundbreaking book, The 4-Hour Workweek: imagine the moonshot goals of what you want to have, to be, and to do.
Always lusted after a Ferrari? Write it down.
Becoming a base jumper for the Red Bull team? On the list it goes.
Speaking Gaelic and playing bagpipes while touring the UK? Cool, man, me, too.
It’s a useful exercise for quantifying your dreams, and creating a plan to achieve them. But it’s most useful in freeing-up your mind: thinking in ways that you, embedded in family, work, and community responsibilities, may not be used to. Namely, about your own wants, needs, and dreams.
Personally, my wants have been modest. I really wanted to have…a weight room in the garage (done). I really wanted to do…martial arts on a regular basis (doing). I really wanted to be…adept at martial arts as a way of life (getting there ever’ day).
The bagpipes will have to wait.
Is it OK to have modest goals?
Business and life coaches will say No, that’s your worker bee upbringing talking.
But if you’ve been around and accumulated various and sundry resources — or maybe you just know yourself — you get it.
Modest goals are fine.
I remember a Martina Navratilova interview shortly after she retired in 1997 as the winningest women’s tennis player of all time: she had won more singles titles than any man or woman, and had won more titles than any other woman in tennis history.
What’s most important about tennis, she said, is to go out there and have fun.
That struck me as incredibly odd, coming from a player whose style was more Terminator than Mr. Rogers. But if sincere, it was a strong argument for deeper meaning, which can often appear “modest.”
The Marianas Trench is invisible on the ocean surface.
I have with my own eyes seen things that are priceless
A Masamune sword on loan from Japan that looked like it had been cut on a laser lathe from a bar of aircraft alloy, that was ancient when Columbus’ grandparents were making eyes at each other.
The gold funeral mask of King Tutankhamen.
I also have personal and professional experience of things that are worth more.
Better to own a legendary blade, or to know how to wield it?
Better to lust like a dragon over Egyptian gold, or to see the artifact in books while not succumbing to cancer?
If you’re not crazy-for-riches like Daffy Duck in that genie in the lamp cartoon, you already know. When your health goes sideways, all that glitters turns to ashes in your mouth.
“Happiness,” Ingrid Bergman once said, “is good health and a bad memory.”
While I don’t (usually) aspire to blissful ignorance, the so-called modest goals of glowing health, solid companionship, boundless energy, and a sharp mind sound like a really good start and finish to me.
But I want to get ahead
Does that mean for yourself, or for others?
If for yourself, the process to make yourself a better human is simple. Do what it takes to improve a bit every day (preferably in an accelerating, exponential, way).
If acquiring resources or changing yourself for others, it’s more complicated. You’re aiming to hit external marks, like saving enough for the price of that property, or that tuition, or that investment. Or working to impress or appease others, like your boss or your family, with limited control over their judgment.
Can you make things happen — hitting external marks for others — without having your inner Jedi dialed-in? Of course; you see examples every day of people running around like nuts and looking like it, or worse, sounding like it (what the late Scott Adams referred to as the “word salad” people spout when confronted with a challenge to their world view).
I’d argue that it’s more important to get yourself dialed-in, if not as your sole priority, then at least your main one.
Like Martina, if you run around long enough, you’ll come back to the deep universals, anyway.
And beating out the competition doesn’t take much
This is one of the very few times when you can have your cake and eat it, too: work on yourself AND get ahead of most everyone in the room.
There’s the joke about not needing to outrun the bear, just your camping companion.
But you don’t need to beat your friend by competing with him. You can pull ahead by competing with and incrementally improving yourself — since nearly no one “in the room” is likely to be doing that.
In his 2022 book, Radically Simple Strength: A Practical Plan To Help Average Guys Build Awesome Bodies, the Starting Strength trainer Paul Horn makes a compelling argument: most people around you aren’t working on themselves. By putting in consistent effort based on sound principles, a realistic goal for anyone is getting stronger, not fat, and not hurt.
You don’t need a Marvel Avengers-level physique, which I’ve argued requires non-sustainable regimens, a professional support crew, genetic blessings, and/or PEDs. You can get modestly stronger and leaner than your old self and still stand out compared to 90%+ of those around you not doing anything effective.
For health, the steady self-improvement approach delivers lower blood pressure, cholesterol, body fat, insulin resistance, and by implication, lower risks of heart attack, cancer, memory problems, and all-cause mortality.
Action items
- Realize that you can categorize any goal into that which makes you better vs. that which you’re doing for others — for others usually involves a lot more chasing
- See if you can identify goals that do double-duty: improving you that carries over into doing for others
- Understand that consistently improving yourself will put you ahead of 90%+ of the world
- Fantasies are fine for entertainment, but eternal goals like health are final
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