Is The Negation Of Life Goals The Key To Success?

How to set goals in life? Is it really the right approach to say “I want to run a marathon” or “I want to be successful”?

Wouldn’t it be better if we just step down the latter by setting upper bounds we don’t want to pass?

We might stick to the approach of dividing the big goal into smaller pieces like “I want to run 5km”. If we achieve this goal we increase the goal to “I want to run 10km” until we match the big goal. But even by dividing into smaller pieces we will get frustrated and distracted if it does not work out right away.

Instead of “I want to run 5km” we might set the upper bound for our failures, maybe like “I don’t want to be puffed after 2km”.

Will we be less frustrated? Will it support to adapt small changes in life that grow up to the big life goal?