Falling short of meeting your goals and dreams? Start thinking of them as quests.
A little switch in perspective can change your life.
A woman on a quest.
Have you set out lofty goals only to come up short? You deeply cared about the goal, made a plan to achieve it, but somehow felt short along the way. Does it feel like it’s now harder to re-attempt the goal because you couldn’t make it work the first time?
If you feel frustrated that you haven’t been able to achieve your aspirations, the key to achieving them may be in reframing how you think of them. If you dream big, your goal isn’t simple with a starting point and a target outcome. It’s something more dramatic, dynamic, and fulfilling: it’s a quest. When setting out to achieve a goal, many quit when things get frustrating, but when you’re on a quest, that’s when things start getting interesting.
How to turn your goals into quests
David Cain, creator of Raptitude, a blog dedicated to getting better at being human, perfectly described the difference between a goal and a quest in a 2024 post.
“A quest is an adventure, and you expect it to be one. You expect a quest to take you into a new and unfamiliar landscape. You expect there to be puzzles, surprises, perils, and curious encounters. A bridge you counted on will be out. You’ll meet an interesting stranger on the path. You’ll hear wolves howling at night. This is all part of the fun. The goal mentality frames this stuff as setbacks, problems, pains—stuff in the way of the goal,” Cain writes.
Having a quest, instead of a goal, also comes with the promise that you will experience a significant positive personal change by the end of the journey. In Star Wars, Luke Skywalker learns to embrace faith over technology to defeat the Galactic Empire. At the end of The Wizard of Oz, Dorothy and her companions realize that they already had what they thought they lacked. What will you learn about yourself on your quest?
“A quest is personally transformative—the endeavor itself shapes who you are, and what you’re capable of. It’s not only the reward that does this, it’s your inevitable encounters with the unfamiliar, and the new capabilities you gain as you handle these encounters,” Cain writes. “You don’t just get the novel started, you become a writer. You don’t just declutter the house, you get your house in order.”
How to handle barriers on the way to achieving a goal
Another way to understand the “map” of your quest is through this cool visual tool, the infographic, The Emotional Journey of Creating Anything Great, which shows how every good idea eventually leads to a place where it seems unachievable, before you push through the challenging parts and reach the finish line.
Ultimately, a quest is all about embracing change to achieve your goal and become a better person. Baked into the idea of the quest is the understanding that you have to change; therefore, recognizing that there will be pitfalls on the road is all part of the deal. This understanding could give you the extra spike in resilience that you need to slay any dragons, climb a misty mountain, or send that one email to ask a publisher to put your book on the shelves.
Yes, that's where they filmed the famous drag race scene in "Grease." Image via David Broido, used with permission.