Extrinsic Vs. Intrinsic Goals

Day 219 / 365

One of the most important things to find happiness and be content in life is to have well-defined goals, both short-term and long term. Goals give our life a purpose and a sense of purpose. But there’s more to it than that. Setting the right type of goals can make you enjoy putting in the effort, while the wrong ones can make you question whether it's even worth it.

We can put goals into two broad categories — Intrinsic and Extrinsic

Intrinsic goals are about getting something that’s personally meaningful to you. These are things you are passionate about. Things that satisfy your core needs. If you are learning the guitar not to impress others but because you love to play it, that’s an intrinsic goal

Extrinsic goals are about pursuing something outside of yourself. Using the earlier example about the guitar, if the reason you want to learn it is to impress someone, that’s an extrinsic goal.

Studying a subject because you want to get good grades and impress others is an extrinsic goal. Studying something because you actually find it interesting and want to learn more about it, is an intrinsic goal

If you pursue Intrinsic goals, the whole journey towards achieving the goal would be a fun and satisfactory ride. On the other hand, extrinsic goals are all about the destination. Whatever you are doing at present is just a means to an end, and no wonder your minds not into it.

So the idea is simple. Evaluate your goals and set new ones. Try to pursue more intrinsic goals and less extrinsic ones. As you do that your happiness and contentment will increase, whereas your anxiety, which is mostly associated with extrinsic goals, will go down.

This post is part of my 365 Day Project for 2019. Read about it here

Yesterday’s blog — How do words get added to the dictionary