Facing overwhelming goals? Here are ways to cope with the stress

By Jayla Anderson ’26

Striving to accomplish long-term goals can be extremely overwhelming. When goals seem too big or far away, a typical response is to give up on them, brush them to the side, or pull an “I’ll start tomorrow.” The feeling is quite common because the size of a goal can often lead to unnecessary anxiety or stress that in the end leaves us feeling burnt out. Long-term goals are not just overwhelming because they require time, but because they require consistency and patience, which are features that are hard to maintain when you begin to lack motivation. 

Luckily, there are healthy ways to manage long-term goals and see them through with minimal burnout.

Start by breaking down your goal. Instead of seeing your goal as a big picture, break it down into smaller, more manageable steps. For example, if your long-term goal is to become a lawyer, breaking down your goal can look like researching good law schools as one goal, applying for another step, and weighing options as another. This will help you focus on one thing at a time and not overwhelm yourself with rushing to reach your goal. 

When you accomplish your small goals or steps toward your big goal, be sure to celebrate the milestones. Celebrating milestones can give you motivation to complete your other goals because you’ve seen yourself do it and you know you can. Celebrating your small goals can also reduce stress and build momentum when achieving your bigger goals. 

As you work on those small goals, you must strive for progress over perfection. Striving for progress allows you to build a growth mindset, which, according to Stanford Teaching Commons, is the belief that intelligence and abilities can be developed through dedication, hard work, and learning from mistakes. Learning from mistakes helps you to problem-solve in the future and persevere.

Having big goals and dreams takes a lot of courage and commitment. What many people don’t realize about “courage” is that you have to have courage along your journey to admit that it might be overwhelming. There will be times on your path when the goal may look too big or far away, but progress isn’t about racing to reach the goal fastest. It’s about learning along the way, doing hard things, and finishing strong. Understand that every small step is important and soon enough, you’ll be able to look back at your small successes and see what they lead you to.