I Failed ALL My Goals Before Turning 30 but Found Something More Valuable in the Process

I turned 30 yesterday. Now it’s official: I didn’t reach a single major goal I set for myself to reach by this point in life.

But I am also more proud of myself than I ever was, and I love life more than I ever thought was possible.

How can both be true at the same time?

The failure to reach any of the “before 30” goals is pretty simple.

I set some highly ambitious but inauthentic goals in my early 20s. As it turns out, extrinsic motivation isn’t the most sustainable fuel source for long journeys. Even with adequate structure, discipline, and consistency, the pursuit of inauthentic goals is a failure waiting to happen. When you encounter challenges along the way, as you inevitably do, you get disproportionately discouraged because there’s no greater meaning tied to the goal. After enough challenges, you either go back to the drawing board to set some more authentic goals, or you entirely give up on the idea of making something more out of your life than what society planned for you. I chose the former.

However, setting authentic, personally relevant, meaningful goals doesn’t guarantee success. Sure, now you have a more sustainable fuel source. Now you can keep going despite the challenges because you have your “why.” But life still happens. On the pursuit of my authentic goals, I didn’t expect I would:

• be a target of an assassination plan

• spend 2 years living with a bulletproof vest

• experience panic attacks that left me questioning my sanity for years

• leave everything behind and restart my life on the other side of the world

• come to the verge of ending my life

• go broke

• end up in addiction recovery meetings

Yet all of those things happened. And more. But none of these are excuses for me not reaching my goals. They are rather necessary and invaluable context to the story of my life. And this context explains some of the reasons why I haven’t reached my goals yet.

Hopefully by this point you can see there is something for you in this text - It’s not just a self-indulgent reflection on my journey so far. Do you look at your life as a story? That is the question. Because even though my life resume can seem dramatic and extraordinary, I’m never so foolish to think that all of you listening to this haven’t faced your fair share of film worthy obstacles that need to be integrated into your life’s narrative.

If you look at your life as a story, you learn to appreciate your character development rather than just your external achievements.

Even though you fail to reach a certain goal, you can see how much you’ve learned about yourself in the process, how much wiser and empathetic you’ve become, and how priceless the connections you’ve made are.

But if you lack the imagination to author and mythologize your life, you’re doomed. By being stuck in the achievement-focused, hyper-rational idea of life, you only get to celebrate those milestones that can be quantified. You end up rarely giving yourself credit for the journey you’ve been on.

Because I look at my life as a story, I get to celebrate my growth despite failing to reach my most ambitious external goals. I get to acknowledge that, before 30, I:

• Didn’t get killed

• Didn’t kill myself when I lost trust in my sanity and life’s meaning

• Started living life

• Started loving life

• Started laughing once again

• Started regularly choosing growth and challenge over fear and safety

• Learned to use anxiety as a vitalizing force

• Experienced what it’s like to be unconditionally loved

• Earned the respect and loyalty of men and women who are morally far superior to me

• Remembered who I was when I was a kid and made him proud

• Gathered the courage to follow my curiosity until I found my calling

• Developed discipline and consistency to turn my calling into a living

• Built an unshakeable belief in my capacity to face life’s challenges and come out wiser on the other side

Friends, your life is a story. And no part of it should go to waste because, as Nietzsche said,

“all experiences are useful, all days holy, and all people divine.”

Thank you for reading.

Stay strong, love life, and never feel sorry for yourself.