The greater danger for most of us lies not in setting our aim too high and falling short; but in setting our aim too low, and achieving our mark.

Falling short of something large still leaves you further along than you started. The quieter loss is the goal set low enough to guarantee, because reaching it looks like success and asks almost nothing of you. Years can pass that way with nothing visibly wrong.

Take one goal you are fairly confident of hitting and ask whether you chose it because it mattered or because it was safe. If safety picked it, raise it until you are genuinely unsure of the outcome. That uncertainty is not evidence you have chosen badly.