Why Unreasonable Goals Are Actually Easier to Achieve

Today I'm going to make the argument for why unreasonable goals are actually easier to achieve. I wrote about this topic this week in my newsletter. I think it's a very important idea for us to wrap our heads around because all entrepreneurs, even if you're just starting out in your career or if you are a little bit more advanced, everyone around you is going to tell you to be reasonable, to be realistic, and I'm going to make the argument that even though their intentions are good, that idea is hurting you more than helping you and ironically, reasonable goals are harder to achieve than unreasonable ones. Now, this starts with two words, be realistic. How many times have you heard that bullshit? Every time you shared an ambitious dream, someone has probably hit you with those two dream-killing words. It started when you were young. Your parents, when you said you wanted to be an astronaut, your guidance counselor, when you aimed for an Ivy League school. Your friends, when you talked about starting a business, your partner, when you mentioned quitting your job to pursue your passion, and they all say it with such conviction, and they all mean well, and they all say it as if they're doing you a favor by saving you from disappointment. But the dirty secret that no one tells you is that the people who are telling you to be realistic are usually the same ones who gave up on their own dreams, and even worse, the advice itself is completely backwards. 99% of people are convinced they're incapable of achieving great things, so they aim for reasonable goals. But the irony is that this makes mediocre goals the most fiercely competitive, and therefore the hardest to achieve because the level of competition is fiercest for quote unquote realistic goals paradoxically making them the most time and energy consuming. I'm going to say that one more time because it's so counter to everything we've ever been told. Unreasonable goals are often easier to achieve than reasonable ones. This isn't motivational fluff. It's strategy. Let me explain. First, I want to talk about the mediocrity trap. I was 23 when I fell into the mediocrity trap. Fresh at a college, I did what everyone told me was smart, right? I applied for the entry level positions that matched my qualifications. I crafted the perfect resume, tailored cover letters. I went through dozens of interviews for reasonable jobs, and six months later, I was still unemployed, competing against over 300 applicants for each position. Meanwhile, I had a friend with Column Jake, who everyone called Unrealistic a very entrepreneurial kid. He decided to start a very, very highly specialized consulting business. It was targeting a very, very specific problem in an industry that for some reason he was very passionate about. He had no formal credentials. He just saw a gap and went for it. And within three months, he had four clients and was making more than the salary that I was desperately chasing. And the difference was that Jake was fishing where a few people were casting their lines. And society has programmed us with this very dangerous equation. Small goals equals achievable. Big goals equals unrealistic. But here's what actually happens. Small goals equals intense competition. Equals harder to achieve. Big goals equals less competition. Equals often easier to achieve. And the school system, again, is all comes from a very young age. So it's really hard to deprogram our minds around this topic. The school system teaches us this broken model. Get good grades, but not too good. That's showing off. Get a decent job, but don't aim too high. That's unrealistic. And then buy a reasonable house. But not too nice. You can't afford that. That is what we are taught. We are conditioned to swim in the middle of the river where the current is the strongest and everyone else is fighting for space. Now, what we end up doing is we end up creating this invisible prison of reasonable thinking. And before we talk about how to set on reasonable goals, I need you to understand the cognitive prison that most people live in. Because your mind doesn't create your thoughts. Your environment does. If you've been surrounded by reasonable people your entire life, you're going to think reasonable thoughts. You're going to set reasonable goals. You're going to achieve reasonable outcomes. The unreasonable thinking required from massive success isn't taught in schools. It isn't promoted in most families and it isn't celebrated in most social circles. And the average person, they absorb around 10,000 messages per day from parents, teachers, friends, media, society, and 99.9% of those messages reinforce reasonable thinking. The reasonable mind, first of all, it is built by your environment by 99.9% of the messages that it intakes every single day. But it's also an evolutionary adaptation designed for survival, not thriving. Because your ancestors, they survived by not taking unnecessary risks, by sticking with the tribe, by not standing out too much. But the same psychological adaptations that kept your ancestors alive, they are now keeping you average. And the first step to unreasonable achievement is deprogramming. It's recognizing that your realistic thinking is a condition pattern, not an objective assessment of what's possible. I'm going to say that one more time, it's very important. Realistic or reasonable thinking is a conditioned pattern, not an objective assessment of what's possible. Now, let's go back to my early story. When I finally abandoned my quote-unquote reasonable job search and decided to pursue something that genuinely excited me so it was a role that was way out of reach, but something strange happened. First of all, the competition thinned out dramatically, which is great, that helps. But more importantly, my energy transformed. So I wasn't dragging myself through applications and interviews. I was energized. I was working longer hours with more focus than ever before. Now, having this unusually large goal is this adrenaline infusion that provides this endurance that you need to overcome the inevitable trials and tribulations and stress and anxiety and hard work that go along with any goal, especially with unreasonable ones. But you don't get that if you're just going for reasonable. That comes with unreasonable goals. Now, this leads to why most people misunderstand what motivation actually is and where it comes from because motivation isn't something you have. It's actually something you create through your targets, through your environment, and through your internal dialogue, and your brain reacts completely differently to massive goals than it does to boring safe ones. So when you set reasonable goals, the realistic safe bet your brain barely releases any dopamine. It's like, yeah, whatever I can do this easily. And that's exactly why you put in minimal effort. But unreasonable goals, they flood your brain with dopamine. Your brain lights up like holy shit. Imagine if we actually pulled this off. It goes into full on hunter mode ready to work harder, because the prize actually matters. It isn't some woo woo self help concept. It's how your brain is literally wired. It won't get off the couch for a 5% improvement, but it'll move mountains for a 10x breakthrough. I think about it in your own life. When was the last time you felt genuinely excited about a realistic goal? When was the last time a sensible target got you at a bed before 5 AM? Realistic goals create realistic effort unreasonable goals create unreasonable effort and to live an uncommon life and all the people that you look up to, that is uncommon. That is not the norm to live an uncommon life. You have to set unreasonable goals to create unreasonable effort. One of my favorite stories you may have heard this before, the story of Roger Bannister, who broke the four minute mile when experts said it was physically impossible or Elon who started building rockets when everyone said only governments could do that. Were they more talented than anyone else? Yeah, they had some talent, but more importantly, they aimed for targets that others dismissed as unreasonable and they found less competition there. As Tim Ferris puts it, the fishing is best where the fewest go and the collective insecurity of the world makes it easy for people to hit home runs while everyone else is aiming for base hits. Now let's talk about the three psychological barriers to unreasonable achievement, because if you understand these unreasonable goals leading to unreasonable achievements going to be way easier. The real reason we don't set bigger goals isn't that we can't achieve them. It's that we're afraid, but not in the way that most people think. There are three specific psychological barriers that keep people locked in mediocrity. The first one is the identity barrier, your current identity. How you see yourself is the invisible force determining what goals you'll consider reasonable. If you see yourself as not the type of person you can start a business or not the type of person who can get an amazing shape, you will never set unreasonable goals in those domains. Most people never overcome this barrier because it requires the painful process of identity disillusion letting go of who you think you are to become who you could be. Now the second psychological barrier is the social validation barrier. Humans are tribal creatures. We are wired to seek approval from our tribe. Setting unreasonable goals by definition means that most people won't understand or support it. This triggers a primal fear of rejection, more powerful than actually most people realize. The desire for social validation, it keeps millions locked in mediocrity pursuing the same goals as everyone else just to hear that makes sense instead of your crazy. And the third psychological barrier is the comfort zone barrier. This is the most insidious barrier because the masquerades is wisdom. You're going to say things like I'm just being realistic, I'm just being practical, I'm just being responsible. These phrases are comfort zone protectors disguised as maturity. They're your brains way of avoiding the discomfort that comes with unreasonable goals. Realistic goals fuels comfortable effort. Unreasonable goals demands uncomfortable growth. The path beyond these barriers isn't motivation. It's not willpower, it's not even discipline. It's understanding the game being played and consciously choosing to play a different one. Now I mentioned motivation before, I want to go back to motivation. I want to tell you why I hate motivation because motivation is what nobody tells you about motivation. It's designed to die. Motivation is an emotion and like all emotions it fluctuates, it comes and goes. That's why realistic goals are doomed from the start. The moment your motivation dips, which it inevitably will, you'll quit because realistic goals, goals restricted to the average ambition level are uninspiring and will only fuel you through the first or second problem. After that, you're going to throw on the towel. Unreasonable goals, they operate differently. So they create something more powerful than motivation, way more powerful momentum. When your goal is so compelling that it pulls you forward even on your worst days, you've created momentum and momentum, unlike motivation builds over time. Think about the difference. Motivation is deciding to go to the gym today because you feel like it. Momentum is going to the gym today because that's just what you do now, regardless of how you feel. Unreasonable goals create identity shifts. You stop being someone who tries to write a book and you become a writer. You stop trying to build a business and you become an entrepreneur and that identity carries you when motivation fails. Now let's talk about setting and achieving unreasonable goals because it's not just about positive thinking or believing in yourself. It's about understanding the strategic psychology of human achievement. So most people use a linear approach to goal setting. They assess current abilities. They set a goal slightly beyond their current abilities and they work incrementally towards that goal. Now this approach seems logical but it's fundamentally flawed for three reasons. First reason, the ceiling effect. When you set a goal based on what you can do now, the you box yourself in. You can only see improvements that make sense based on where you already are. But the thing is, real breakthroughs never come from just doing a bit more of what you're already doing. They come from completely reimagining what's possible. Second issue with this is the survivor ship filter. Incremental goals create incremental effort which is very easily derailed by life's inevitable obstacles. Every obstacle becomes a potential endpoint because the goal itself doesn't generate enough psychological momentum to power through unreasonable goals have built in survivor ship filters. They're difficult enough that only the truly committed persist. And this is why the completion rate for marathons which is an unreasonable goal for most people is over 90% while the completion rate for a simple New Year's resolution is under 20%. The unreasonable commitment filters out everyone but the committed making success more likely. Not less. And the third reason is the paradigm lock. Reasonable goals keep you locked in your current paradigm. Your way of seeing and approaching the world. That's what your paradigm is right now. They encourage you to do more of what you're already doing just slightly better. Unreasonable goals, they force paradigm shifts. They require you to completely re-imagine your approach, your strategy, and your identity. And this is how innovation happens. It's not through incremental improvement but through paradigm shifts. Now, let me give you a practical framework for setting and achieving unreasonable goals. First, the 10x mind shift. Whatever your instinct is telling you to aim for and whatever you're doing in your life, multiply it by 10. It isn't about being delusional. It's about escaping the crowded waters of mediocrity. When I first started my first business, initial goal was to make enough to replace my salary. That put me in competition with every other side hustler and freelancer. Now, when I 10x my goal, I had to completely rethink my approach. Which, in turn, leads to much faster growth. So, you don't just make the goal bigger. You make it different. The 10x mindset shift isn't just about size. It's about category. So, instead of trying to be 10x better, try to be the only one in a new category. For example, this is what Peter Tiel means when he says to go from zero to one instead of one to n. Now, the second strategy is the would you laugh test? Okay, so forget the reasonable test. Apply this would you laugh test instead? What does this mean? If someone told you they were going to achieve your goal in half the time with half the resources, would you laugh at them? If not, your goal isn't unreasonable enough. The most successful entrepreneurs I know all share one thing. Their goals, their early goals, they sound laughable. They sound comical. They sound crazy to most people. So, apply the would you laugh test? And the third framework I want you to understand is the expert blindness advantage. The greatest advantage of pursuing unreasonable goals is that you don't know what's impossible. Experts are usually the worst innovators because they're constrained by what they know to be true. You are a non-expert. And as a non-expert, your naive and your naivete is actually your superpower. Virgin Airlines, for example, succeeded because Richard Branson with no airline experience asked questions that no industry veteran would ever ask. His lack of experience and expertise was his advantage. So, what industry rules can you break because you don't know they exist? Fourth framework is the anti-average alliance. So, you know the saying, you become the average of the five people you spend the most time with. It's true. If you're surrounded by people with conventional goals, you'll be pulled toward conventionality and mediocrity. So, the solution isn't just to find positive people. It's to find people with unreasonable goals of their own. I like to call this the anti-average alliance. A group of people committed to unreasonable achievement. So, when I wanted to become a better writer, I joined a mastermind where everyone was already successfully publishing. Their expectations became my new normal. The fifth framework is the daily unreasonable action. I want you to break your unreasonable goal into daily actions that compounded over time, make achievement inevitable. But the key is that the daily action should feel slightly unreasonable too. So, if your goal is to build a million dollar business, a reasonable daily action might be make five sales calls. An unreasonable daily action might be have one conversation that scares you or solve one problem no one else is solving. The daily actions should look different from what someone with a realistic goal would do. That's the point. So, five frameworks when you're setting unrealistic goals. The 10x mind shift, the would you laugh test, the expert blindness advantage, the anti-average alliance, and the daily unreasonable action. This is what you have to apply in your life. Then, one of the most overlooked aspects of unreasonable goals is their asymmetric risk reward profile. I know I don't have to convince you anymore, but I'm going to. With reasonable goals, what's the best that could happen? Small win. Worst case, small failure. Boring is hell either way. But with unreasonable goals, the best case is you change your life forever. Worst case is usually the exact same small failure you'd get with a safe bet. It's like gambling but rigging your favor. Here's an example. A safe bet, risk 100 bucks, maybe win 150. Unreasonable bet, risk 100 bucks to potentially win 10,000. Any investor, trader, or gambler will tell you bets with asymmetric upside are the only ones we're taking. Yet, most people choose symmetric bets every single time, not realizing that they're actually making the risk your choice in the long term. Playing it safe is always the riskiest strategy of all. And here's where it gets even more interesting. When you make the asymmetric bet on an unreasonable goal, there's one invisible force that will try and sabotage you every single time. So I just want you to be careful about this. What is that force? Your timeline expectations. So most people think they can conquer the world in a year and they get pissed when it doesn't happen. Meanwhile, they completely underestimate what they could build in 10 years. This screws people up. They think that if they can't achieve their massive unreasonable goal fast, it's not worth doing at all. But every overnight success you've ever heard it was actually years in the making years of grinding when no one was watching Jeff Bezos spent years building Amazon before it became profitable. Steven King wrote for years before publishing his first novel LeBron James practice thousands of hours before entering the NBA. The time illusion leads so many people to abandon unreasonable goals just before the exponential payoff arrives. So the solution isn't to set more reasonable realistic timelines. It's a commit to the long game while maintaining the day-to-day urgency of short-term execution. The unreasonable goal is your north star. The daily unreasonable action is your spacecraft. Time is just the distance between them. And then this leads us to the most powerful paradox of all. The paradox of achievement. So why you win even when you quote-unquote lose. This is the final paradox. Even if you don't fully achieve your unreasonable goal, you still go farther than those people who aimed for reasonable ones. The person who aims to build a billion dollar company and only, I say only in air quotes, only builds a hundred million dollar company has still accomplished more than someone who aims for a million and achieved it. The person who aims to write a best-selling book and only sells 10,000 copies, they've still outperformed tons of writers who never finished their manuscripts. By aiming unreasonably high, you give yourself permission to achieve what other people consider remarkable and unreasonable, even if you fall short of your ultimate vision. The higher you aim, the higher you'll land when you fall. It's not just some nice philosophical concept. It's a very practical strategy. If you're going to put in the time and effort anyways, why would you aim for something that won't change your life even if you succeed? And let's be brutally honest, most unreasonable goals are delusions. But the secret is that all great achievements started as delusions. The most important innovations in history came from people with unreasonable goals. The Wright brothers believed humans could fly. Steve Jobs believed computers should be beautiful and intuitive. Mary Curie believed a woman could excel in science once society said otherwise. These weren't just big goals. These were paradigm shifts that faced enormous resistance until they succeeded and then they became the new normal. So what delusion are you willing to believe in long enough to make it real? The world that doesn't advance through reasonable goals. It advances through unreasonable ones that eventually become reasonable in retrospect. So your unreasonable goal, it might be exactly what the world needs next. So let me bring it full circle. Remember how we started 99% of people are convinced they're incapable of achieving great things. That's not because it's true because they've never tested the limits of the capabilities. You are better than you think. The competition is worse than you imagine and your unreasonable goal is more achievable than you know. The fishing is best where the fewest go and the collective insecurity of the world makes it easy for people that home runs while everyone else is aiming for base hits. There is just less competition for bigger goals. The only question is what unreasonable goal are you going to pursue?