Even though young people often receive the advice to “follow your dreams,” more emphasis should be placed on picking worthy goals.Write a response in which you discuss the extent to which you agree or disagree with the statement and explain your reaso

The trite mantra of the postmodern America is to follow your passions to be successful. According to the American Dream, individuals possess the inalienable rights to follow their dreams and pursue their own happiness. However, the supermajority of Americans misattributes this lofty ideal as a success formula. Some even evince that Steve Jobs cited this philosophy in his famous commencement speech at Stanford. On the contrary, Steve Job intentionally concluded that following your passions is a worthwhile end state, but not procedure. The optimal method of achieving success is an amalgam of maintaining a realistic, malleable mindset and apply practical goals.
Smart goal setting facilitates reliable results in terms of individual performance. Steven Pinker advocated the SMART acronym to organize reasonable goal setting. Goals should be circumscribed as Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic, and Time Sensitive. According to the researchers from Harvard Business School, this methodology matches individual success with initial planned milestones by 15%. A goal requires specificity such that the individual dedicates its ephemeral form as lucidly as possible. An individual should also have methods to measure its progress such as a calendar or a chart that visually depicts incremental milestones achieved. The goal should be achievable and realistic in that it is not outside the constraints of impossibility. Finally, the goal especially should tether time horizons onto its achievement. This also structures the goal such that there are practical enforcement mechanisms as an impetus for accomplishment.
Once the individual has established tangible goals, this engenders a crystallized, hardened mindset at the outset. Psychologists from University of California Berkeley cite research that practical goals establish mental frameworks and facilitate plasticity around problem solving. One author from the self-help book Grit hypothesizes that this procedure results in a phenomenon known as grit. Grit elicits an individual to fastidiously iterate and resolve in the face of adversity. The United States Army attempts to establish this grit amongst its enlisted soldiers by utilizing a Master Resiliency Training course that attempts to reinforce these values and burnish its organization’s pliability.
Continuous research insists that this resiliency and growth mindset metes out the most successful individuals. Carol Dweck establishes in her book Mindset that the top 10% successful individuals cited in the Times 100 most influential people adopt this mindset. A growth mindset is one that adapts in the face of adversity or crucibles. These individuals ask “What did I do wrong this time? How can I achieve better in the future?”. On the other hand, fixed mindset persons often attribute failures to the situation. They suffer from the fundamental attribution error in that they erroneously attribute failures to the surrounding environment and successes completely to personal traits. After failing in something, a fixed mindset individual will ask “Why did the system ignore me? How did I get so harshly treated?” as opposed to taking a problem-solving approach and treating the situation as a learning experience.
Some critics will argue that America is built upon a dream and every individual has the right to do as he or she pleases. This is true to an extent. An individual can take whatever approach to pursue happiness, yet the expectations should be realistically constrained to prevent an entitlement culture. America was built upon the settlers’ and founders’ blood, sweat, and toil to achieve the great nation seen today. Colonists at the time recognized the importance of personal accountability and realism commixed with neoliberal ideals. To be the most successful American, it is important to cede that practical goals and resiliency will result in realized dreams.
In summary, the optimal formula to happiness and success is not to follow your dreams. Although it is a noble end state, this should not be the process to become a self-actualized individual. It is important to aggregate pragmatic goals and mental schema to achieve the desired coda of life.