I think having goals is important. It is because of this that I want to write more about the impossible list and how to make the most of it. Now, when I say goals, I don’t really mean that vague sense of having goals in life that comes up when someone says to you, quite critically … “you don’t have any goals in life”. I don’t mean that. I mean something much more specific. A target you are shooting for and something specific you want to achieve. You can read this blog post for more of my thoughts on it but in short I think that having goals will help keep you focussed. It helps you ‘fence in’ what is important to you and turn it into something concrete. It helps you to be proactive in using your time and not reactive.
The trouble is that most goals don’t really go anywhere and so we easily can get discouraged as when we have achieved whatever goal it is we have set we kind of end up with nowhere to go from there. At the end of the blog post above, I briefly mention something I discovered that seeks to help with this. The concept is ‘The Impossible List’ and I picked it up from Thomas Frank. I must be honest, I consider this to be a concept that is both incredibly helpful and potentially very unhealthy but we will get to that.
What is ‘The Impossible List’ and why it is impossible?
In its most basic form, the impossible list is nothing more than a list of goals to achieve. But it is impossible because every goal on the list has a next goal, a follow up that expands upon what you have already achieved. It is impossible because it is constantly growing. Let me give you an example from both my impossible list and Thomas Frank’s (I borrowed this from his list!). When I began my YouTube channel in February 2023, I had no idea really what I wanted to do aside from 10 videos on UpNote I had planned to make. The channel grew a little bit and so I set a goal of growing it to 100 subscribers. But, at the same time, I had a goal to grow it to 250 subscribers. Which was followed by 500 and then 1000 subscribers and so one. Currently my channel has 413 subscribers.
The point is, every goal is followed and super-ceded by a next level goal that raises the bar.
The list is impossible as whatever you achieve, there is another level up from it – always.
What is the danger of ‘The Impossible List’
I think a concept like this has many dangers and risks but the main one so far as I see it is that it has the potential, over time, to shift your focus and change you ‘why’. That ‘why’ is the reason that drives you in everything that you do. The Impossible List can change your focus from setting and working towards goals because they line up with whatever your specific and individual purpose and ‘why’ is and mutate it into more of a ‘because it’s there’ mentality. Famous words spoken first by George Mallory, a mountaineer, when he was asked why he wanted to climb Mount Everest. Our focus then becomes more about achieving greater and greater things and so whatever our aim was to begin with fades into the background.
What’s the benefit of ‘The Impossible List’
The benefit of this, used wisely, is huge. Firstly, many of our goals, as I said, don’t really go anywhere in and of themselves. Some obviously will do, but many of them beg the question … So what happens now? The classic example would be losing weight. We lose weight and to celebrate we go out for a huge meal of all the things we denied ourself for the past 6 or so months. And so we risk putting it all back on. Or we work ourselves silly to get a promotion and when we get it, it just means more work. We buy the house we dreamed of and then just sit in it watching Game of Thrones, the same as we did the old one. The Impossible List then always gives you something else to strive for. Thomas Chalmers, a church minister in Scotland who lived in the 1800s and a founder member of the Free Church of Scotland, in his essay – the expulsive power of the new affections explains the point well.
His basic argument begins with the idea that all humans have a need to strive after something. Something upon which we set our affections, our hopes and our ambitions and striving.
He points out that this desire to pursue something and strive after something cannot be eradicated from us. He argues that people will experience great distress if they are in a state where they are “in possession of powers without any excitement to these powers” or “if he have spare energy upon his person, without a counterpart and without a stimulus to call it into operation.”
He further states the desire for an object of striving after cannot be extinguished by any accumulation of previous success.
The Impossible List idea seeks to offset this by always providing something else to strive after.
Secondly, the way in which the impossible list is most commonly structured it will split itself into many different areas of life, giving you goals to pursue across the board. This helps you avoid developing an obsession that can be damaging.
Third, it can make bigger goals that we might more commonly set, more achievable by breaking it down into smaller goals to achieve first. Thomas Frank’s list for his YouTube channels growth currently goes all the way up to 4 million subscribers. But, his first goal was 250. Rather than having a huge goal, almost unachievable that would take years and years to get to, the impossible list provides you with achievable goals that are a step up from what you have done before, but an achievable step. This keeps you motivated and it keeps you focussed.
So how do we make the most of it?
The key is to think very carefully about how you want to build on your goals. This is what prevents the why and the focus from shifting to achieving ever greater things, just for the sake of it.
One of the key benefits of achieving goals is not really the end result but the changes in your lifestyle, habits and in you as a person as your pursue them.
The key therefore is to consider your next level goals as things that will perpetuate these changes. Let’s take running as an easy example. You might have a goal to run 5k without stopping. Many do. You can expand this to run 10k, and then 20k and then a full course marathon all the way up to running the Marathon Des Sables. This is a 6 day ultra marathon, running 250km (160 miles) or about 6 normal marathons over the 6 days in the Sahara Desert. You can expand it that way, but that isn’t the only way. You could also expand the goal of running 5k to build consistency over time rather than just increasing the distance. You could build it up to 10k and then aim to run 10k a week for a month, then 3 months, then 6 etc.
The point is, that to use something like this effectively you need to consider how to do it. When you use it to set goals that will effect a positive change in your habits, your routines, your lifestyle and in you yourself, and set goals that help to build consistency with all of that, then it’s very powerful.
