Natasha Victoria Medina Alvarado

Sister Savanna Magtalas

PC 101 Life Skills

July 3rd, 2022

Small Steps to the Mountain Top

Have you ever been overwhelmed by all the things you want to achieve? Maybe you

feel all of your goals are important and need to be done so you can be happy. I´m sure you´re

right, but you can´t make it all possible at once, it is well known that to have better results

everything needs an order. Goal Hierarchy, a method introduced by Angela Duckworth, in

the Book tituled “Grid: the Power of Passion and Perseverance” is a way you can establish

order and priority to your goals by classifying these into a top, mid and low-level goals; but

to properly identify them it´s important to make some distinctions about the three of them. A

Top-level Goal is a general picture set by what an individual is more passionate about, while

mid and lower-level goals are more specific scenarios that draw strategies and split them into

daily tasks to fulfill the main objective.

Let's keep from the distinctions above, some keywords that will make these concepts

something easier to apply. The first would be General vs. Specific. A top-level Goal is

previously described as General because as the name indicates, is the TOP or Biggest desire,

it´s not necessarily limited to a time, sometimes not even to a place, and due to its size, will

require more than just immediate efforts to fulfill it, for this matter a Top-level goal is also

known as a long term goal. However, mid and low-level goals are defined as “specific” and

according to this same book, chapter four, it says “At the bottom of this hierarchy are our

most concrete and specific goals,” so as we keep going down, mid-level goals are somehow
specific by explaining “strategies” to concrete actions and low-level goals are even more

specific been small but continuous acts limited by a place in our agenda.

The Second pair to contrast would be the words “Passion vs Routine”(daily tasks). In

a June 2017 Acumen Academy Interview, Angela Duckworth made clear differences by

referring to mid and low-level goals as: “as means to ends” while she explained that a top-

level goal “It is, instead, an end in itself” So, while a top-level Goal it´s the winning trophy in

a race, mid and low-level goals are the training plan and the daily exercises to get there; in

other words, just the necessary cost to a bigger whole. You don´t get passionate about

extended and hard training plans too often, and maybe is not so exciting to work out extra

hours or to get up at 4 am but definitely, it could become a passion to be World´s #1´runner.

Last but not least, the final sentences to highlight “fulfill the main objective” more

than just a contrast is about clarifying that, strategies may change if you figure out a better

way of doing it (mid-level goals), and the schedule is adjustable to diverse necessities (low-

level goals) but the target or top-level goal must remain the same and all the goals mentioned

before must conduce you to achieve it. It´s not just about making the efforts, its about

winning the price, in the Holy scriptures Apostol Paul, in the first letter to the Corinthians

chapter nine, verse twenty-four wrote: “Know ye not that those who run in a race all run, but

one receiveth the prize? So run, that ye may obtain it.”. So let the general landscape inspire

you and take the tour assuming the challenges of climbings until you´re on the mountain top

enjoying the view.