Official portrait of President Barack Obama in the Oval Office, Dec. 6, 2012. (Official White House Photo by Pete Souza) This official White House photograph is being made available only for publication by news organizations and/or for personal use printing by the subject(s) of the photograph. The photograph may not be manipulated in any way and may not be used in commercial or political materials, advertisements, emails, products, promotions that in any way suggests approval or endorsement of the President, the First Family, or the White House.

Today we’re writing about goals.  Most people claim that your goals should be obtainable and realistic, but how do you know what is obtainable if you haven’t yet tried?  You could base what obtainable is on your family background, past experiences or what other people have obtained.  But this doesn’t seem to cut it either because you’ll be held back by past accomplishments of yourself or of others.

Goals are the drive for why we wake up early and why we hustle.  Some winters, I sign up for races in order to make sure that I have a goal, and I don’t get out of shape due to lack of concrete objectives.  When you’re looking to set goals and wondering how big your goals should be, go back to childhood and think, “How big were my goals when I was a kid?”

When I was a kid, I wanted to be

1. President of the United States
2. An author of a book
3. An astronaut
4. A Ninja Turtle

While my tastes for politics and turtles have changed over the years, I need to ask my kid self for advice on how to set goals because, if you haven’t noticed, this world will drag you down.  It’s like gravity worked on me all these years and slowly brought my goals down from President of the United States to making enough to pay rent, feed myself and go out every other Saturday (because every Saturday is too expensive).

Recently millennials have been hit with a lot.  Despite having left the recession, the global economy will never bounce back and be the same.  But that doesn’t mean we need to reduce our goals, hunker down and try to survive.  Instead, we need to set higher goals and achieve more.  In a world with plenty of uncertainty, we need to strive to be the best instead of listening to the voices saying, “It’s ok.  The economy is tough.  Life is hard for you and everyone else.”

What are your goals?  Do you even know what they are?  Are they big enough to inspire you and your kid self?  If not, re-write your goals and inspire us all.