Plant the seeds of greatness in your mind. - James Clear

Problem #3: Goals restrict your happiness. The implicit assumption behind any goal is this: “Once I reach my goal, then I’ll be happy.” The problem with a goals-first mentality is that you’re continually putting happiness off until the next milestone. I’ve slipped into this trap so many times I’ve lost count. For years, happiness was always something for my future self to enjoy. I promised myself that once I gained twenty pounds of muscle or after my business was featured in the New York Times, then I could finally relax. Furthermore, goals create an “either-or” conflict: either you achieve your goal and are successful or you fail and you are a disappointment. You mentally box yourself into a narrow version of happiness. This is misguided. It is unlikely that your actual path through life will match the exact journey you had in mind when you set out. It makes no sense to restrict your satisfaction to one scenario when there are many paths to success.

“Do not mistake a confident explanation for an accurate prediction.

An engineer can predict how much weight a steel bridge will hold and you can be quite sure reality will match their calculation. That's an accurate prediction.

Meanwhile, strongly held opinions about what will happen in markets or sports or politics have little predictive power. A lot of what you hear can be summarized as: confident, but inaccurate.”

(Inspired by a recent conversation with Morgan Housel.)

Ultimately, the only way to truly be in control of your life is to be in control of your thoughts.