[rfugger]

Hmmm... I'm not so sure about this. Looking at the studies he links to, the goals are assigned to the subjects by the researchers, not self-set. When you're doing something for someone else, you don't have the problem of wondering if it's the right thing for you -- you just do it to please/impress the authority figure, something we've all been trained to do from a very young age. The subjects have already decided that whatever token reward they get for participation is worth their time, so they're not worried about whether the task will contribute to their personal growth. They get to feel altruistic for contributing to science.

But when there is no authority figure telling you what to do, it's a whole different game. You wonder whether the pain of growing in a certain direction is worth the future uncertain reward. That's what Dan Shipper's article is about -- not letting those thoughts paralyze you and taking small steps in the right direction without putting too much pressure on yourself. Overly-specific goals in this case can be self-defeating because they can often be set without enough knowledge of the territory you're going into. Trusting yourself to explore and learn before getting into specific goals can be important. Big life goals like personal contentment and peace of mind often can't be made very specific anyway. Who knows what is going to make you happy?