Why I Stopped Caring about Goals

How to Stop Missing Your Goals (For Good)

Author

Valentin Farkasch
September 06, 2024

Oh hello there, September.
Are you still hanging on to the summer sun or longing for crunchy fall leaves?

This week has been an dramatic finale to a season of consistency. The last episode of season two is out but there was a very real chance it could’ve never come out.

Meanwhile the interview with Maqaroon went through the roof crossing 16K views and pushing the channel past the 1000 subscriber mark. Now it’s just missing about a thousand watch hours before that sweet AdSense money can come our way 😅

💛 Valentin

New in Orbit:

Pick a Theme for Success

I just hit a huge milestone on the channel—1000 subscribers! 🎉 
You are a huge part of that journey and today I want to share one idea with you that helped us get there.

Give yourself a Theme not a Goal.

A clear goal can point you in the right direction.
But it also creates a big problem—either you reach it, or you don’t. What happens if you fall just short? Is all your progress suddenly a failure?

Instead of a rigid goal, what if you gave yourself a broad direction to follow?
A theme acts as a guiding line for your long-term plan, more like a compass than a map. Instead of rigid directions, it helps you navigate with flexibility as you make decisions along the way.

The idea of setting themes come from CGP Grey—probably the most influential YouTuber to me.

For example,
if you decide to make it the 'Year of Creation,' you might find yourself choosing to spend an afternoon working on a new project, instead of watching another random YouTube video.

But a year is long and priorities change which is why you can give yourself a theme for any time frame.

I just completed the summer of consistency.

Sure, I had a goal of publishing 12 videos in 12 weeks, but I could’ve easily missed this mark. The theme of consistency kept me focused—not just on hitting a number, but on staying true to my values, format, and workflow, no matter the distractions.

This comes as part of the Year of Structure.
Guiding me to constantly building supports around me that make creation easier and life better.

But why is this relevant to you right now?

While you might wake up on Jan 1st and boldly commit to a theme,
coming up with one that resonates with you often takes time and reflection.

After the leisure of summer I find September to be the perfect time to check in with yourself.
Despite being long out of any classroom, the back-to-school season still signifies a new start, to me.
It’s ideal to, recalibrate and take a moment to reflect—are you still on track with the intentions you set earlier in the year or do you need to course correct?

The next four months are the best time of the year to answer these questions and give you enough time to make meaningful progress in an area that matters to you.

But now I’d like to hear from you.
Have you ever set a theme before?
What themes could you explore in your life, right now?
Let me know by hitting reply.

Further “reading”

My favorite things this week

Lummi is a fascinating evolution of free stock images.

Sarah Adam found one answer to the best day of posting

Darendarendaren documenting his journey out of NYC

Joshua Lim making his dream lamp

Clickpilot is one of the tools that helped me reach 1000 subs*

*Affiliate link

What are you watching, reading, listing?