Tell me if any of these sound like you:
1) You feel like you’ve been lied to about what a good life looks like.
You’re pursuing a goal that sounds nice when you mention it at dinner with grandma. Or a goal that wouldn’t make your parents think you’re a disappointment. And you don’t see it going anywhere.
If you ignore that feeling, you wake up 10 years later with a degree, decent job, and a never ending sense of despair that you’ll never be able to chase your own dreams.
2) You’re productive, but not actually making progress toward anything.
You wake up early. You listen to podcasts. You journal, you lift, your calendar is full, but you don’t know where you’re going.
Give it 5 years and you’ll still be “figuring out what to do with your life.”
3) You’re ambitious, but stay quiet because it sounds embarrassing to your friends and family.
You want a unique life. You don’t want to fit in. But when people ask about your future, you water it down so nobody laughs at it.
You get stuck performing mental masturbation. You feel special for wanting to be unique, but you still do the same thing as everyone else.
Nobody wants to end up in any of those 3 situations.
This letter will change that for you.
Because one of my favorite things to do is study the actions of both successful and mediocre people. And that’s all success really is. Doing more of what leads to success and less of what leads to mediocrity. The next few letters will be dedicated to just that.
When we reverse engineer the people who have done the impossible - Elon Musk, Steve Jobs, and any of the other greatest creatives, thinkers, and builders of the past - there is one pattern I’ve noticed between them all.
Their goals are delusional.
That’s the key to their success.
And that’s exactly what we’re going to go over - why average goals lead to failure, the psychology of delusional goals, how to enter the same reality as ultra successful people, and how to achieve what most people think is impossible.
Why “realistic” goals lead to failure and mediocrity (you fall into this category by default)
The most common error of a smart engineer is to optimize a thing that should not exist.
– Elon Musk
You have goals, even if you didn’t set them.
That’s how the mind works. And if you become aware of this, you can quickly see why you aren’t able to stick to any of the goals you set.
We’re not talking about New Years Resolutions or some other surface level goal you set and immediately quit because you felt bad about how you looked in the mirror and forgot about it the next day (because another unconscious goal (usually convenience and comfort, or the goal of not drawing attention to yourself) was more important to you than finally getting in shape).
We’re talking about how every thought you have or action you take is aiming toward a goal. Like a heat-seeking missile. You are silently optimizing for a goal you never chose, or someone else chose for you.
Take a second and think about that.
Every single thing you think or do is toward a goal.
That’s important. Extremely important. It means that if you don’t know what those goals are, you are not in control of your life.
Here’s how it goes:
You are born
Your first goal is survival
Your parents have been thinking about what goals they want you to pursue for quite some time now. They “want the best for you”
Your parents teach you how to walk, how to communicate, and eventually what their version of success for you looks like, which is usually the goals that society passed down to them (go to school, get a good job, praise your god)
You go to school, then college because that’s just “what’s next”
You get the job, you hit the milestones, you check the boxes
And then, after almost a quarter of your life, you start to wonder if this was even what you wanted in the first place.
Entropy illustrates that systems trend toward disorder. Applied to the mind, psychic entropy means that your mind, and therefore your life, drifts toward disorder and chaos.
At some point, a system becomes unstable and a new, more ordered structure must emerge, like how a faucet spurting out water eventually turns into a whirlpool.
In your life, you hit a point where the lower part of you wants to stay the same and the higher part wants something more. It feels like you’re being ripped in half. That is a signal to completely turn your life around.
The reason realistic goals lead to failure and mediocrity is because of how you choose them. You look at what you think is possible, then water it down a bit more so that people won’t laugh or think you’re an idiot. A goal only feels realistic if it fits the life your parents, teachers, or five closest friends already expected you to have.
In other words, your mind is in a cage.
And if you keep choosing to live in that cage, you’ll never have the chance to notice a potentially life-changing opportunity, let alone act on it, and your life slowly gets worse until the pain is so great you either get crushed or decide to pursue a delusional goal anyway.
The psychology of delusional goals
The man who conceives himself to be a “failure-type person” will find some way to fail, in spite of all his good intentions, or his willpower, even if the opportunity is literally dumped in his lap. The person who conceives himself to be a victim of injustice, one “who was meant to suffer,” will invariably find circumstances to verify his opinions.
– Maxwell Maltz
Humans aren’t unique because they have memory or consciousness or a more refined intelligence than animals.
They’re unique because they constantly simulate the future to steer the present.
You think more about the future than the past, and the future is what causes your present behavior. Not the reverse. Your actions do not create the future. You create the future first, then act toward it.
It’s called selective attention.
Your brain either gets pulled by stimuli or directed by a goal.
And when you focus on one thing, that means, by definition, you’re not focused on the 99.99% of other things you could be focusing on. Your attention is goal directed rather than tossed around like a rag doll looking for the next cheap dopamine hit.
Delusional goals force this to happen.
Imagine two people with drastically different goals.
Tommy has the same goal as almost everyone else - go to school, get an education, get a decent job so he can finally afford a nice apartment, and acquire enough material status symbols to attract a mate.
Johnny has a goal that seems impossible - build a content business that makes $100k a month in 6 months.
Will Tommy ever have the possibility of making more money than what a “decent job” would pay him? Will Tommy ever learn something outside of school that allows him to pursue a more lucrative opportunity? No, because that’s not what his attention is selecting for. He could come across life changing information and his mind will consider it “noise” just because it’s not necessary to achieve the goal he’s pursuing.
Johnny, on the other hand, cannot think like the average person. To achieve that delusional goal, he realizes that most actions he’s taking are completely useless.
A properly set delusional goal pushes your brain into the unknown, accelerating neuroplasticity. Consistency reinforces pathways in your brain, but novelty and challenge stimulate learning and change faster. Flipping the switch and going all in on a goal throws your brain into an environment where it has no choice but to rewire, fast, and the new behavior becomes your new baseline.
That’s when flow state and obsession start to create a blissful quality of life. 5 intrinsic drivers start to stack.
Curiosity – The desire to explore the unknown, learn how to change, and fill knowledge gaps. Results in good dopamine from novelty and norepinephrine, which heightens attention, preparing you to learn.
Passion – An intense enthusiasm is built for the path that allows you to change your life. Results in more good dopamine and norepinephrine.
Purpose – The feeling that your actions contribute to something larger than yourself. Achieving goals results in more dopamine which reinforces behavior. Serotonin stems from significance and belonging. Oxytocin stems from connection.
Autonomy – The desire to direct your own life and work. To control your choices, actions, and environment. Results in yet again more dopamine and a reduction in cortisol (the stress from feeling put in a box), allowing for creative decision making.
Mastery – The process of learning and growing is its own reward. Results in sustainable good dopamine that keeps you in the game.
This all sounds great, but I can hear your objection.
“But Dan, I’ve tried setting a goal like this before, but none of this happens.”
Yes.
Your goal needs gravity. It needs to be so strong that everything else in your life seems stupid and pointless.
That’s difficult to do, and I’ll be writing another letter about the intricacies of how to become obsessed with a life-changing goal, but for now let’s learn how to properly set a delusional goal.
How to enter the same reality of ultra successful people
Every great idea starts out as blasphemy.
– Anthony De Mello
Steve Jobs would walk into a room, state an impossible deadline or an impossible product as if it were already decided.
“We’ll ship it by January, and it will do this” with such total conviction that the room of engineers who knew it was impossible would leave believing it, and then build toward it like it was simply the plan.
This was Job’s Reality Distortion Field.
Most people dismiss it as charisma, or manipulation, or him being an asshole, when it was simply him re-aiming the room’s attention.
Jobs refused to be pulled by the stimuli of “this timeline can’t possibly work,” and overrode it with a future target. Every brain in the room started selecting for a path instead of selecting for reasons it won’t work.
And that’s the thing.
Your goal is not a destination you hit. That’s one of the greatest self-help-esque interpretations of a goal there is. Instead, a goal is a filter that decides what your brain sees as important and what it ignores. A goal is a point of view. Whether you actually hit the goal or not is irrelevant because you will at least land near the goal, making progress you never thought possible before.
To properly set a delusional goal and create your own reality distortion field, here’s what needs to happen.
Pull out a notebook, write these down:
Step 1) Install the point of view.
First, think of a goal so big you think it’s impossible.
Then, set a timeline so short you think it’s impossible.
If you don’t know what goal to set, or even what to do with your life, it helps to think of the most painful problem in your life right now that makes other problems easier to solve.
For most people, that’s usually their fitness or finances.
Getting in the gym and dropping 20 pounds can do wonders for your confidence and energy, making it easier to start turning your life around.
Making more money relieves stress, opens your mind, and lets you invest in other areas of your life.
The specific “how” for achieving the goal doesn’t need to happen yet. Simply setting the goal lets your mind identify and learn the how.
Next, you need to ask yourself one question:
Is the goal and timeline you just set impossible for who you are now? In other words, can your current approach get you there?
If yes, the goal is linear, not impossible. Reject it and raise it further.
The goal must sit beyond your existing skills, habits, and assumptions of what’s possible because that’s exactly what creates a lens that shows you a new reality instead of a to-do list.
Last, the goal must be singular and self-chosen.
You cannot have competing goals. That splits focus and doesn’t lead to a point of view at all.
And it cannot be inherited from your parents, your culture, your industry, or your algorithm.
The finished version of setting this goal is when you can say “I do this” with total conviction and you can instantly see that most of what you’re currently doing has nothing to do with it.
Welcome to the unknown. The most meaningful place to be.
2) Set standards for what you don’t do, and stick to them.
With a properly set delusional goal, almost nothing will work to achieve it.
So, you must now audit your life. Every habit, project, client, relationship, routine, and obligation. Do any of them help you reach the goal? The answer is almost certainly no.
This is the hardest part.
You create a standard that you refuse to lower.
These are things you no longer do, period.
You don’t “almost” stop partying on the weekends or undercharging for your freelance services, you completely eliminate them.
Of course, this is easier said than done. People struggle with this because of sunk cost bias, fear, and a lack of accountability. The mind is a self-deception machine and humans love lying to themselves.
This is your chance to practice brutal self-honesty and rip multiple band-aids off.
The finished version of raising your standards is that life feels dramatically simpler. You have fewer things, fewer obligations, and fewer justifications that clog your mind and prevent you from action.
Step 3) Focus on the highest leverage path available to you.
Your goal creates a frame from which you can perceive new opportunities.
Your standards subtract everything from your life that does not serve the goal, creating space for your attention to move in the right direction.
Now you must accept that there are very few real paths to achieve the goal.
But you don’t find the path, person, or opportunity fully formed.
For something like fitness, the delusional goal (impossible outcome + impossible timeline) is to compete in a physique show in 6 months, or squat 405 for the first time this year.
When you set this, watch what happens to your attention. Suddenly the linear path of “show up, lift, repeat” doesn’t work anymore. You need structure. You may need a coach who can get you on the right track fast. Your current training program needs to solely focus on the sets, reps, and exercises that will get you there. You start seeing sleep and food as strict and non-negotiable. All things that you didn’t even think about because your previous goal filtered it out as noise.
When I decided I wanted to hit my first $100k month (delusional goal for a person who was used to making less than $100k a year as a freelancer who’s money was bound to time), I only had around 1000 followers on social media. I obviously wasn’t going to get there by “posting consistently and hoping the algorithm notices” like everyone else.
I had to find force multipliers. I needed an offer so I stopped seeing my posts as the product and started treating them as the distribution channel for one thing people pay for. I needed more distribution than my 1000 followers, so I needed to borrow from someone else who had a lot more followers, meaning I had to network and exchange value with someone who had 50,000 followers so they would share my posts to their audience, leading to more buyers of my offer.
If this is a path you’re also interested in, consider joining the Creator Bootcamp. General enrollment is closed, but it comes with the purchase of Eden.
Eden is second brain where you save any idea, research what ideas are already working, create content people can’t ignore, and soon with the next update... get paid for your knowledge (I am on a mission to make it frictionless to get your first product up, so you can start earning from your interests). At minimum, sign up for a free account and take a look around so you’re notified when that update goes live.
Now that your focus is singular, you are more “disciplined” than 99% of humanity, but you love it. It is one of the greatest things you can experience on this planet.
If you do not feel this joy, that is another problem.
In the next letter, we’ll talk about how to add gravity to your goals. That is, make your goals so meaningful that you can’t help but achieve them.
– Dan
1) 你觉得关于美好生活的模样，自己被骗了。
你正在追求一个在和奶奶吃晚饭时提起来显得挺不错的目标。或者一个不会让父母觉得你令他们失望的目标。而你根本看不到它有任何出路。
如果你忽视那种感觉，10年后你醒来时会拥有一纸学位、一份体面的工作，以及一种永远无法追逐自己梦想的无尽绝望感。
2) 你很高效，但实际上并没有在任何事情上取得进展。
你早起。你听播客。你写日记，你举铁，你的日程表排得满满当当，但你不知道自己正走向何方。
照这样过5年，你依然会“在摸索这辈子到底该干什么”。
3) 你野心勃勃，却保持沉默，因为这在亲友听来会让人尴尬。
你想要一种独特的人生。你不想随波逐流。但当别人问起你的未来时，你会打折扣说，以免被人嘲笑。
你陷入了精神自慰（mental masturbation）的泥潭。你因为想要与众不同而自感特别，但你依然在做着和其他人一样的事情。
没人希望自己最终落入这3种境地中的任何一种。
这封信将为你改变这一切。
因为我最喜欢做的事情之一，就是研究成功者与平庸者的行为。而这正是成功的全部要义：多做导向成功的事，少做导向平庸的事。接下来的几封信都将致力于探讨这个主题。
当我们对那些完成了不可能之事的人进行逆向工程（reverse engineer）时——比如 Elon Musk、Steve Jobs，以及历史上任何其他最伟大的创造者、思想家和建造者——我注意到他们之间都有一个共同的模式。
他们的目标是妄想式的（delusional）。
那就是他们成功的关键。
而这也正是我们要探讨的内容——为什么平庸的目标会导致失败，妄想式目标的心理学，如何进入与超级成功人士相同的现实，以及如何实现大多数人认为不可能的事情。
为什么“现实”的目标会导致失败与平庸（你默认就属于这一类）
聪明的工程师最常犯的错误，就是去优化一件本不该存在的事物。
—— Elon Musk
你是有目标的，即使你并没有主动设定它们。
大脑就是这样运作的。如果你能意识到这一点，就能迅速明白为什么你总是无法坚持自己设定的任何目标。
我们不是在谈论新年决心（New Years Resolutions），或是其他那种你设定后立马放弃的表面层次的目标——因为你对着镜子觉得自己身材不好而感到沮丧，第二天就把这事忘了（因为另一个无意识的目标（通常是为了图方便和舒适，或者为了不引人注目）对你来说，比最终练出好身材更重要）。
我们要说的是，你的每一个念头或行动都在瞄准一个目标。就像一枚热追踪导弹。你正在默默地为某个你从未选择过的、或是别人替你选定的目标进行优化。
花点时间想一想吧。
你所想所做的每一件事，都在朝向某个目标。
这很重要。极其重要。这意味着，如果你不知道那些目标是什么，你就没有掌控自己的生活。
事情通常是这样发展的：
你出生了
你的第一个目标是生存
你的父母已经思考了相当长一段时间，盘算着想让你追求什么目标。他们“想给你最好的”
你的父母教你如何走路、如何沟通，并最终把他们眼中属于你的成功模样灌输给你，而这些目标通常也是社会传递给他们的（上学，找份好工作，赞美你的神）
你上学，然后上大学，因为那只是“顺理成章的下一步”
你得到了工作，达成了里程碑，勾选了清单上的选项
然后，在度过了将近四分之一的人生后，你开始怀疑这究竟是不是你一开始想要的。
熵（Entropy）表明系统会趋向无序。将此应用到心智上，心理熵（psychic entropy）意味着你的心智，进而你的生活，会趋向无序与混乱。
到了某个临界点，系统会变得不稳定，一种全新的、更有序的结构必然会出现，就像水龙头喷出的水流最终会形成漩涡一样。
在你的生活中，你会撞见这样一个时刻：低层次的你想保持原状，而高层次的你渴望追求更多。你会感觉自己仿佛被撕裂成了两半。这正是你需要彻底扭转人生的信号。
现实的目标之所以会导致失败与平庸，原因在于你选择它们的方式。你看着那些你认为可能实现的事情，然后再打个折扣，以免别人嘲笑你或觉得你是个白痴。只有当一个目标符合你父母、老师或五个最亲密的朋友对你人生的既有期望时，它才会让人觉得“现实”。
换句话说，你的心智被关在笼子里。
如果你继续选择待在那个笼子里，你永远不会有机会察觉到那些可能改变人生的机会，更不用说去行动了。你的生活会慢慢恶化，直到痛苦积累到无以复加的地步，你要么被彻底压垮，要么索性决定去追求一个妄想式的目标。
妄想式目标的心理学
一个认定自己是“失败型人格”的人，无论他有多么良好的意图或多强的意志力，哪怕机会直接掉在他腿上，他也会想方设法地去失败。一个认定自己是受害者、认为自己“注定要受苦”的人，总会找到各种境遇来印证自己的观点。
—— Maxwell Maltz
人类的独特之处并不在于拥有记忆、意识，或是比动物更高级的智力。
他们的独特之处在于，能够不断模拟未来以引导当下。
你对未来的思考多于过去，而正是未来引发了当下的行为。反之则不然。你的行动并不能创造未来。是你先创造了未来，然后才朝着它行动。
这被称为选择性注意（selective attention）。
你的大脑要么被刺激牵扯，要么被目标引导。
而当你专注于一件事时，这就意味着，从定义上讲，你没有专注于你本可以关注的其他99.99%的事物。你的注意力是目标导向的，而不是像个破布娃娃一样被抛来抛去，只为了寻找下一次廉价的多巴胺刺激。
妄想式目标会迫使这一切发生。
想象两个目标截然不同的人。
Tommy 拥有和几乎所有人一样的目标——上学，受教育，找份体面的工作，这样他终于就能买得起一套不错的公寓，并获得足够的物质地位象征来吸引伴侣。
Johnny 则有一个看似不可能的目标——在6个月内建立一个月入10万美元的内容业务。
Tommy 有可能赚到比“体面工作”薪水更多的钱吗？Tommy 会去学习学校之外的东西，从而让他能追求更有利可图的机会吗？不会，因为这不是他的注意力在筛选的东西。他可能会偶然遇到能改变人生的信息，但他的大脑会将其视为“噪音”，仅仅是因为这对于实现他正在追求的目标并非必需。
另一方面，Johnny 无法像普通人那样思考。为了实现那个妄想式的目标，他意识到自己正在采取的大多数行动都毫无用处。
一个设定得当的妄想式目标会将你的大脑推入未知领域，从而加速神经可塑性（neuroplasticity）。一致性会强化大脑中的通路，但新奇与挑战能更快地刺激学习与改变。按下开关，为一个目标全力以赴，这会将你的大脑抛入一个环境，迫使它必须快速重新布线，而这种新行为就会成为你的新基准线。
就在这时，心流状态（flow state）与痴迷开始创造出一种充满幸福感的生命质量。5种内在驱动力开始叠加：
好奇心（Curiosity）——探索未知、学习如何改变以及填补知识空白的渴望。它由新奇感和去甲肾上腺素（norepinephrine）带来优质多巴胺，从而提升注意力，为你做好学习的准备。
激情（Passion）——对那条能让你改变人生的道路建立起强烈的热情。它会带来更多优质多巴胺和去甲肾上腺素。
目标感（Purpose）——感觉自己的行动在为比自我更宏大的事物做贡献。实现目标会带来更多多巴胺，从而强化行为。血清素（Serotonin）源于意义感和归属感。催产素（Oxytocin）源于人际连接。
自主性（Autonomy）——渴望掌控自己的生活与工作。去控制自己的选择、行动和环境。这会再次带来更多多巴胺，并降低皮质醇（cortisol，因感觉被困住而产生的压力），从而促成创造性的决策。
精通感（Mastery）——学习与成长的过程本身就是一种奖励。它会产生可持续的优质多巴胺，让你持续留在局中。
这一切听起来都很棒，但我能听到你的反对意见。
“但是 Dan，我以前也试过设定这样的目标，但根本没发生这些事。”
是的。
你的目标需要引力。它必须强大到你生活中的其他一切相比之下都显得愚蠢且毫无意义。
这很难做到，我会在另一封信中专门探讨如何让你对一个改变人生的目标产生痴迷的微妙细节，但现在，我们先来学习如何正确设定一个妄想式目标。
如何进入与超级成功人士相同的现实
每一个伟大的想法最初都是以异端邪说的面貌出现的。
—— Anthony De Mello
Steve Jobs 会走进一个房间，宣布一个不可能完成的截止日期或一个不可能做出的产品，仿佛这事已经拍板了一样。
“我们会在一月份发布，而且它会实现这个功能”——他带着绝对的信念说出这句话，以至于满屋子明知这不可能的工程师在离开时都对此深信不疑，然后就像这只是个普通计划一样朝着这个目标去开发。
这就是 Jobs 的现实扭曲力场（Reality Distortion Field）。
大多数人将其归结为个人魅力、操纵手段，或者觉得他是个混蛋，而实际上，这只是他在重新引导整个房间的注意力。
Jobs 拒绝被“这个时间表根本不可能行得通”这种刺激所牵扯，而是用一个未来的目标将其覆盖。房间里的每一个大脑都开始筛选实现路径，而不是去挑选行不通的理由。
这才是关键。
你的目标并不是你要击中的终点。这是对目标最典型的“自助鸡汤式”解读之一。相反，目标是一个过滤器，它决定了你的大脑会将什么视为重要、将什么忽略。目标是一种视角（point of view）。你最终是否真的实现了这个目标并不重要，因为你至少会落在目标的附近，取得你以前认为不可能的进展。
要正确设定一个妄想式目标并创造你自己的现实扭曲力场，你需要做到以下几点。
拿出一个笔记本，把这些写下来：
步骤 1) 安装这种视角。
首先，想一个大到你觉得不可能实现的目标。
然后，设定一个短到你觉得不可能实现的时间线。
如果你不知道该设定什么目标，甚至不知道这辈子该干什么，不妨想一想你当下生活中最让你痛苦的问题，解决它能让其他问题变得更容易解决。
对大多数人来说，这通常是他们的身材或财务状况。
走进健身房并减掉20磅，能对你的自信和精力产生奇迹般的影响，让你更容易开始扭转人生。
赚更多的钱能缓解压力，开阔思维，并让你能投资于生活的其他领域。
实现目标的具体“方法”目前还不需要考虑。仅仅是设定目标，就能让你的大脑去识别并学习如何实现它。
接下来，你需要问自己一个问题：
你刚刚设定的目标和时间线，对现在的你来说是不可能的吗？换句话说，你目前的方法能让你达到那里吗？
如果能，那这个目标就是线性的，而不是不可能的。拒绝它，把它定得更高。
这个目标必须超越你现有的技能、习惯以及对可能性的假设，因为正是这一点才能为你打造一个透镜，向你展示一种新的现实，而不是一份待办事项清单。
最后，目标必须是唯一的，且是你自己选定的。
你不能有相互竞争的目标。那会分散注意力，根本无法形成一种视角。
并且，它不能是从你父母、文化、行业或你的算法那里继承来的。
设定这个目标的最终形态是：你能带着绝对的信念说出“我要做这件事”，并且能瞬间意识到你目前正在做的大部分事情都与它毫无关系。
欢迎来到未知。这是最有意义的地方。
2) 为你不做的事情设定标准，并坚守它们。
有了一个设定得当的妄想式目标，你现有的几乎一切都不足以实现它。
所以，你现在必须审视你的生活。每一个习惯、项目、客户、关系、日常惯例和义务。它们中有任何一个能帮你达成目标吗？答案几乎可以确定是没有。
这是最困难的部分。
你要创造一个你拒绝降低的标准。
这些是你绝不再做的事情，没得商量。
你不能是“差不多”周末不聚会了，或者“差不多”不再对自由职业服务收费过低，你要彻底杜绝它们。
当然，说起来容易做起来难。人们之所以在此挣扎，是因为沉没成本偏差（sunk cost bias）、恐惧以及缺乏责任感。大脑是一台自欺欺人的机器，而人类很喜欢对自己撒谎。
这正是你练习极度自我坦诚、并一次性撕下多个创可贴的机会。
提高标准的最终形态是：生活感觉变得极其简单。你拥有的东西更少，义务更少，那些堵塞你大脑、阻碍你行动的借口也更少了。
步骤 3) 专注于你能走通的最高杠杆路径（highest leverage path）。
你的目标创造了一个框架，让你能从中察觉到新的机会。
你的标准从你的生活中减去了所有不为目标服务的事物，为你的注意力腾出了空间，使其朝着正确的方向转移。
现在你必须接受一个事实：真正能实现这个目标的路径少之又少。
但你找到的路径、人或机会，并不会是一开始就完全成型的。
比如在健身方面，妄想式目标（不可能的结果 + 不可能的时间线）是6个月后参加健美比赛，或者在今年首次深蹲达到405磅。
当你设定了这个目标，看看你的注意力会发生什么变化。突然之间，“露面、举铁、重复”这种线性路径就不再奏效了。你需要结构。你可能需要一位能让你迅速步入正轨的教练。你目前的训练计划必须只专注于能让你达成目标的组数、次数和动作。你开始将睡眠和饮食视为严格且不可妥协的。而这些都是你以前根本没去想过的事情，因为你之前的目标将它们作为噪音过滤掉了。
当我决定要实现人生中第一个月入10万美元的目标时（对于一个习惯了作为自由职业者一年赚不到10万美元、且收入与时间绑定的人来说，这是一个妄想式目标），我在社交媒体上只有大约1000个粉丝。显然，我不可能像其他人那样靠“持续发帖并祈祷算法能注意到我”来达成目标。
我必须寻找力量倍增器（force multipliers）。我需要一个产品报价（offer），所以我不再把我的帖子视为产品，而是开始将它们作为某个人们愿意付费的事物的分发渠道。我需要比我那1000个粉丝更广的分发范围，所以我需要向拥有更多粉丝的人借力，这意味着我必须去建立人脉，并与一个拥有5万粉丝的人交换价值，这样他们才愿意把我的帖子分享给他们的受众，从而为我的报价带来更多买家。
如果这也是你感兴趣的路径，可以考虑加入 Creator Bootcamp。常规报名已关闭，但购买 Eden 即可获赠。
Eden 是一个第二大脑（second brain），你可以在这里保存任何想法，研究哪些想法已经奏效，创作人们无法忽视的内容，并且在不久后的下一次更新中……通过你的知识获得报酬（我的使命是让你毫无摩擦地建立起你的第一个产品，这样你就可以开始从你的兴趣中赚取收入）。至少，注册一个免费账户四处看看，这样当该更新上线时你就能收到通知。
既然你的注意力是唯一的，你就比99%的人类更“自律”，而且你乐在其中。这是你在地球上能体验到的最棒的事情之一。
如果你感受不到这种喜悦，那就是另一个问题了。
在下一封信中，我们将讨论如何为你的目标增加引力。也就是说，让你的目标变得如此极具意义，以至于你不得不去实现它们。
—— Dan
