When modern success is constantly measured by grades, followers or paychecks, it’s easy to forget that progress isn’t limited to external results. Self-sustainable goals are ones you can work toward without outside rewards because the pursuit itself gives you energy to continue.
These often come in the form of hobbies or activities. Though pursuing goals won’t necessarily equate to external rewards, they can still be an important part of one’s routine.
According to a psychology study published by Sage Journals, people had better present and long-term emotional states when completing tasks due to autonomous or personal motivation rather than external pressure. This also mirrors self-determination theory, since when goals feel personally chosen, efforts feel lighter and persistence improves.
Hobbies also provide spaces to meet new people, creating stronger bonds within a community. A study from the National Endowment for the Arts details how adults with more participation in the arts are more socially connected. When more people have personal motivation to pursue a hobby, whole communities benefit.
Northwood junior Hannah Nguyen, who measures her love in butter and sugar, bakes as a labor of love.
“I feel that if I attach a monetary value to my hobby, then I don’t bake out of love anymore,” Nguyen said. “Then I just bake because I can gain something from it.”
It’s fair to acknowledge that external goals provide structure and motivation. Without pressure, many students wouldn’t have a clear reason to push themselves.
However, when every activity has to “pay off,” it’s important to take a step back before everything you do feels laborious. For example, on “BookTok,” picking up a plot to unwind became skimming pages to get through the book as fast as possible just to prove you’ve finished more books than everyone else.
An article by The Week Magazine points out how this pressures creators to read shorter books to boost their yearly totals, thus forcing an external reward and transitioning reading from a simple, fun hobby into a competition and shallow activity.
Personal self-sustainability pushes back against that mindset and creates goals that serve the individual by keeping curiosity at the forefront rather than comparison. Goals can create tangible benchmarks or incentives, driving progress.
A useful framework for goal-setting is keeping them SMART: specific, measurable, achievable, relevant and time-bound, according to Northwood psychologist London Carter. Clear goals, like those made using SMART, can be more attainable.
“If we have all of these wonderful ideas, but we don’t actually carve them out a little bit more and put them on our calendars, then it’s way less likely they’ll get done,” Carter said. “You should always be flexible with your goals, but if something’s important to you and you notice it’s not just happening automatically, it might mean that you need to do a little bit more reflecting on that and make it a specific goal.”
It is easy to lose sight of what makes something meaningful when everything feels like a competition. This is why as the new year approaches, we should try setting resolutions that aren’t tied to performance or productivity. After all, the recipe for avoiding burnout is rooted in taking care of yourself.
