Ryan Daniel Moran stopped setting goals because missing targets like $10M creates a demoralizing gap that kills motivation. Instead, he focuses on enjoying the work itself and feeling proud of what he's built over six months, which he says restores energy and makes bigger wins more likely.
I've gotten away from goal setting and New Year's resolutions because when I don't hit them, I look back on them and I feel like a loser. Instead of saying that I want to make $10 million this year, I'm saying that I want to be proud of everything that I do and work. The reason I'm doing that is because I've set so many goals that I feel this gap of what I haven't hit yet. And I beat myself up over that gap. And that makes me feel de energized. It makes me not want to sit in front of the computer and do work. When I'm thinking about the gap that I have between where I am now and $10 million, this is not the case with everybody where I'm at right now. I need back to really enjoying the process. I will then have the belief to be able to say, yeah, that goal over there, I can hit that goal. Oftentimes we just see the gap and we see the reasons why we can't and we beat ourselves up and it gets worse and worse and compounds over time. I just want to spend the next year thinking about how much I want to look forward to my work, to be proud of everything that I create. And I know that after like six months of that, I can point to any goal that's on my invisible vision board and say, yeah, that's next. Let's go.
