Goals provide a means to define the worth of your progress independent of the perspective of others

As long as you define your self-worth in terms of what others think and do, you will fail to achieve the self-satisfaction that comes from doing your best, and you will be imprisoned by the action or inaction of others.

Other people have different standards than you. Living up to their ideals will not make you feel nearly as good as living up to your own,

because you will feel bad if you neglect your own higher standards for those of others, and you’ll feel guilty and depressed if you fail to measure up to higher standards from others that you never bought into and subsequently never reached.¹

Don’t define your self-worth based on what others think or do. Define it by what you know and what you do. That way, the action or inaction of others and what they think about what you do or don’t do will matter as little as it should.

The only measuring stick that matters is whether you do your best or not. Are you working as hard as you can, as long as you can, and as smart as you can? Are you constantly holding yourself to the standard of being the best person you can be? Are you living up to your standards in what you do, in what you think about, in what you desire, and how you treat others?