Now I don’t have goals anymore. My idea of personal growth is to keep rearranging my life so that I'm doing fewer things I'd rather not be doing.
No goals. Just anti-goals.
I think he says something like "if I was 100 and looked back and wrote 100 unpublished novels, would I be happy with that?". I think using something like that as a guide for setting goals is good because it keeps you pointed in the right direction and makes the goals things you can actually control.
I don't write software side projects because I think they will turn out to be the next big thing or make me famous and rich, I do them because I get enjoyment out of writing code that solves a problem (usually my own).
Thus, I disagree that goals like "becoming a famous author" entirely out of your control. There are definite steps one could take towards such a goal, but as with anything in life there's never a guarantee. Granted, you do have less control over the outcome if your goal depends on other people, like becoming famous, but those steps still exist and could include things like networking extensively, spending a lot of time self-promoting, polishing your image, hanging out with the rich and famous, etc.
The problem, I think, is that a lot of people tend to think that goals like "becoming a famous author" and "writing good books" are the same, or that the latter will automatically lead to the former, and when they figure out that the strategies for getting there are different they become disillusioned.
But you can be very motivated and ruining your life, as much as you only focus in arrive to your goal and reject the present (especially if you don’t like your current situation, don’t enjoy the ride and only want to reach the goal to let yourself to be happy)
It's not so much about not having goals at all but about not having a bitter present