Having no goals is a good thing

if the opposite is causing inaction.

Dear Authentic Introvert,

Sometimes when you have too much to do, you end up doing nothing at all.

Ever been there? Me too.

That’s why having a massive goal constantly hanging inside your brain does more damage than good.

Everybody talks about the benefits of having goals in life and I get it. This gives you direction.

But the problem starts when the anxiety of how to achieve something that big starts crippling you.

You keep procrastinating until the last minute and then you either rush through stuff in stress or give up because it’s too late.

What good is a goal if having it feels like Superman facing Kryptonite.

I am not religious, but I read the Holy Gita last night (the Bible for Hindus) because I wasn’t able to sleep, and I found something very profound.

Long story short, there is a guy named Arjun who must fight his cousins, uncles, and teacher to get his empire back that was taken from him through unethical means.

He looks at his relatives, gets emotional, and decides not to fight. He says he doesn’t want an empire tainted with the blood of his own.

To this, Lord Krishna (God), who is acting as his charioteer, advises him to detach from the outcome of his actions and look at it as performing his duty as a warrior.

The whole book is a compilation of the God’s teachings on what life truly is and how a person must focus on performing duties in order to ultimately find and connect with the Almighty.

If we apply the same principle to our work and keep ourselves detached from the outcome – treating success and failures with the same calmness, we can be unbeatable.

Here’s the thing: getting emotionally attached to a goal makes you really feel that you have a long way ahead of you – its vastness, its difficulty level, and the underlying uncertainty.

But if you only focus on your work and the process,

and work on it not for the outcome but to make sure that you’re doing your part,

the whole thing will feel a lot less stressful.

This will in turn make working on it a lot easier, which should result in a better outcome.

It’s a good hack, isn’t it?

Key Takeaway:

While working on something, keep yourself detached from the outcome or the end goal so the anticipation of the challenges involved doesn’t slow you down.

Your charioteer in the journey of Introversion,

Sachin Sharma