Goal Setting Mistakes: Digital Nomad Edition
Are you setting your goals correctly?
A lot of people – myself included – have wasted a lot of money and time setting the wrong goals. There’s a big reason why people can get something which should be obvious (what do you want?) so terribly wrong. In this article, I’ll explain that mistake and how you can clarify your thinking to avoid it.
Now, in this article I’m going to use the digital nomad example. I’m not a digital nomad and so wouldn’t usually give advice about that to people, but it’s an easy example because practically every digital nomad is in the same boat making this mistake.
What Is This Mistake?
Put simply, the mistake I’m talking about is confusing the end goal with how you get there.
I’ve done this countless times. Let’s say you want to make money and start a new hobby. We’ll use bodybuilding as an example, and your money making goal is $500 a month extra.
Now, you and every other person on the planet with an internet connection thinks, “Hey… I want to make more money and I want to get into bodybuilding. I should start a website about bodybuilding! That way, I get to build my body and get paid for it!”
In theory, this sounds absolutely fantastic. You’re killing two birds with one stone.
In reality, this is a horrible idea.
Why? Because trying to kill two birds with one stone is always a tough job. You throw the stone once and you’ll probably miss both birds.
If you’re too busy at the gym recording your workouts on your iPhone and doing stupid things like shouting “Embrace The PAIN!” at the camera (or whatever you’re putting on your Teespring shirts) then you’re probably going to take forever to build your body.
Similarly, if you’re trying to make money selling Teespring shirts, making gym memes on Instagram and otherwise making your $10 protein powder commissions… then it will take you forever to make $500 in one of the most saturated and competitive markets there is online.
Now, you can do that.
Or, you could just do something boring like charge $100 per 500 word article for a medical company, and spend an hour in the gym telling nobody about it with the proceeds. Then there’s no need to impress, innovate or record anything outside of your own needs.
You’ll get to both goals quicker.
The Digital Nomad Phenomena Is Exactly Like This
Now, there are smarter digital nomads out there than me. There are people who make a ton of money and travel the world. There are even folks who make loads of money through travel writing, making those tourism videos for YouTube and whatnot. So bear that all in mind through my next paragraphs.
Most people I have worked with and for who make obscene money and travel the world do exactly that. They don’t make obscene money because they travel the world.
If you earn six figures a month and only work three out of four weeks in that month, then you can obviously travel wherever the hell you want.
Travelling because you make a ton of money is very different to travelling to make money.
If you really believe your life purpose is to travel the world and educate, entertain and inform people and you think that you can make that profitable, then don’t let me stop you.
On the other hand consider whether travelling is the end goal for you, and see if you can decouple that from how you raise the funds to do so.
Here’s the digital nomad reality: It’s harder to make money (or do anything, really) while you’re having to juggle the various culture shocks that living abroad provides you. The cost of living in a lot of places is lower than the USA/UK/Anglosphere, but it’s harder to extract that if you’re abroad. Economic arbitrage works both ways despite what the gurus tell you.
This isn’t to knock the digital nomad lifestyle, just the confused people who think that being a digital nomad is the only way to travel the world.
How To Differentiate Goal From Method
The key to fixing this error is to separate your end goal from the method you use to get there.
Here’s a quick exercise to achieve that:
Firstly
Do a little visualisation session. What does your dream life look like? Does it involve travel? Beautiful women/men/whatever (It’s a free world.) Fast cars, picket fences, little babies or a pet dog?
Whatever these things are, they go in the “goals” section. If you want a trip to Japan for three weeks later on in the year, that’s fine. Use whatever details you need or what. Put a monetary figure on it.
Secondly
Write down a list of things you’re good at. Skills you have which either make you money already or have the realistic ability to make you enough money to cover some of those goals. Don’t relate them to the goals. If it costs you $2000 for a nice holiday to Spain, then all you care about is how many hours it’ll take using that skill to come up with $2000.
The goal should never matter when you’re analysing what can give you the best monetary return on your skills.
(Optionally) Thirdly
If the above argument hasn’t convinced you (and it probably will) then humour yourself a little while longer by running the “Goals and Skills” matrix alignment for a while.
Let’s say you want to travel to some exotic location and you really want to do it by writing a travel blog even though you’re a super-duper computer programmer. Run a comparison. Let’s use hypothetical figures:
- You can make $100+ an hour programming
- The trip will cost $2k
- You haven’t got a blog yet but you know you’ll be able to write every day and you won’t go until you’ve raised enough for your airfare ($500) and then you’ll earn the remainder while you’re there… hopefully
Now, I won’t go into the realities and myths of earning as a blogger or travel writer, because the math is simple.
Using your existing skill, you can have the money collected to cover your whole trip in less than a weeks’ work. ($100 an hour= 20 hours.)
Even assuming you work a day job and only freelance in the evenings and you have to spend as much time prospecting as you do programming, you’re still look at 40 hours – or less than two weeks part-time – saving up for your trip.
Now, unless you’re some magical travel writing savant, there’s no way it’ll work out in your favour.
Final Thoughts
Do not confuse the end goal, want or desire with the path of action you need to take to get it.
With notable exceptions, killing two birds with a single stone is a myth – it’s heralded as being a feat of skill or lucky break, but in reality you’d be better off finding an easier and less risky method to catch the birds.
When it comes to making money via your hobby, this is also the case. Chances are you’re going to face high competition and low pay for something that’s aspirational. On the other hand, if you find some niche skill which you can excel at, you’ll probably be able to fund most hobbies and passions pretty easily. You’ll also then have the added bonus of not having to perform under pressure at something you love.
If in doubt, perform the above exercise to show which route you should take logically.