 Have you ever been told to set big golds for yourself? I'm going to talk today about my feelings around that and I'm going to sort of maybe give you an alternative way to think about this because it's kind of a mixed bag in my view. The idea I guess of setting big golds for yourself is that you know you set this gold and you're going to start to feel maybe that you're pushing yourself outside your comfort zone towards that gold and I understand that. And it's also a big enough gold that you're going to start to get excited about it. So that's good too. But the idea of having a big gold can also bring problems. And what I mean by that is in my view, I think it's much more helpful to never see a gold as bigger than bigger than what? Bigger than you. If you see your gold as this huge, huge thing this big important thing in your life and compared to you, you're of secondary magnitude or secondary scale towards this gold. That can lead to all sorts of problems there because it's almost like the tail is wagging the dog. It's like the gold is doing me rather than I'm doing the gold. I'm pursuing or moving towards this gold that I set for myself. So I think there's nothing wrong with setting big gold but you should never see the gold as bigger than you or another word I could use there instead of bigger is more important than you. Your own self worth should always be bigger than any gold that you're pursuing. You see, if we lose that perspective the gold, our boundaries around the gold start to get really bad. Again, the gold starts to do us rather than we do the gold and my approach to personal productivity has always been about making conscious deliberate choices from ourselves and not have the gold sort of impose itself and start to dictate where our time and energy should be spent. So yes, there's nothing wrong with having big gold but no gold should be perceived as bigger or more important than you are. It doesn't matter how big it is. So we're back to focusing on self-esteem and if you've followed any of my other videos on procrastination for instance the root problem with procrastination is self-esteem. So framing it as this big gold is really big thing and well if I managed to attain that gold then that will make me a better person. That's problematic. So we want to start off with sort of a positive frame about who we are already before we even have attained the gold and really start to emphasize, look, no matter how this gold goes I do want it, I have a preference for it, I'm open to it but no matter how it goes my self-worth as a human being is not at stake for this. This gold is not bigger than I am. No gold I could set for myself is bigger than me. So this is a way that we affirm our own self-worth and our own self-value and our self-esteem starts to well it's not affected by the gold. Self-esteem is not really related to gold. We have these kind of fantasies sometimes that well once I achieve this gold then I'll feel much better about myself and you know, ask anyone who's achieved a big gold how long that feeling lasts and it's not very long until the next gold comes along. So we can kind of like spend our lives chasing these gold and it kind of prevents us from stopping and just saying, hang on a second here maybe there's an easier way to go about this and more enjoyable way to go about this. So once that self-esteem is our starting point we tend to make a lot more conscious choices about how we proceed in a gold and also we have much healthier boundaries around the action required to fulfill the gold to meet that gold. So I'm just making this video I guess to give you an alternative way to look at any any of those messages you might see about setting big golds for yourself sure be open to big things for yourself and don't be afraid to move very gently beyond your comfort zone not to blast through your comfort zone and terrify yourself necessarily because I don't like that approach. I think you should move to the edge of discomfort when you're moving towards a gold. But really the invitation here is just to let it sink in that no gold that you can ever take on is bigger or more important than you are and I think that's a much healthier place to start. Because I hope this has been useful and as always thanks so much for being with me here and I'll see you again soon. Bye for now.