Reach Goals: The Dreams That Sit Just Beyond Our Fingertips are also Important

by Dr. Jeffrey DeSarbo

Some goals exist at the edge of our bucket lists, written down with hope and a bit of embarrassment. These reachable goals aren’t always impossible, just out of reach, given our current resources. They live where desire meets uncertainty, needing more time, money, skill, or a new opportunity. Yet, they matter.

Many people hesitate to set reachable goals because they fear disappointment. They believe writing down something that seems unlikely is an act of setting oneself up for failure. But this is no different from telling someone to avoid dreaming altogether, because dreams, by definition, live ahead of our present selves. To list a reachable goal is not an act of naive optimism; it is an acknowledgment that growth and possibility do not stop at adulthood. It is an expression of the human instinct to keep imagining who we might become.

A 2014 study in The International Journal of Wellbeing found that adults who consistently pursued future dreams and goals reported higher satisfaction, resilience, and well-being than those who did not. Just imagining an uncertain future creates genuine benefits for the adult mind. You could say that reaching goals is the adult version of imagining what we might be when we grow up. The stakes are lower, the delight is higher, and the brain responds in ways we don’t always realize.

Why We Allow Ourselves to Want What We Don’t Yet Have

Most reach goals seem impossible for ordinary reasons: lack of finances, physical readiness, opportunity, or simply timing. Sometimes, we’re just not in the right stage of life. But these obstacles rarely last. Life shifts: jobs change, children grow, bodies strengthen, and priorities shift. What was once impossible becomes believable and eventually practical.

This is why it is not only safe, but psychologically beneficial, to allow reaching goals to sit on our bucket list. We are not committing to achieving them. We are simply committing to remaining open to the possibility that the conditions of our lives may someday align in surprising ways. And the moment we give the brain a direction, even a distant one, it begins to shift.

The Neuroscience of Holding a Reach Goal Lightly

When we think about a reachable goal, not obsessively, not with pressure, but with gentle curiosity, we activate a unique interplay of the brain’s major networks. The Default Mode Network steps in first. This network is responsible for imagination, mental time travel, and the simulation of future scenarios. It is the place where we can picture ourselves in a different life without judgment. Reach goals thrive in the DMN because the network allows us to imagine the “could be” without requiring evidence.

As soon as the world presents something remotely relevant, a conversation, an article, a passing comment, the Salience Network lights up. Its job is to filter what matters from the overflow of daily noise. A reach goal essentially places a sticky note inside the SN: If anything about this topic comes across my path, pay attention. This is why, once we list a reachable goal, signs of possibility seem to pop up everywhere. It isn’t magic. It’s selective neural attention.

The Central Executive Network steps in when an opportunity is concrete enough to assess. It asks, “Could I do this? What are the steps?” It takes its cue from earlier networks that scan for signals before we’re conscious of them. This subtle choreography, DMN imagining, SN noticing, CEN evaluating, creates the experience many people label as “manifestation.” But nothing supernatural is happening. The brain is simply orienting itself toward the idea we planted and working on our behalf, often without our realizing it.

When a Reach Goal Builds a Life You Didn’t Expect

I learned this before I had words for it. As a pre-med student, I told everyone I wanted a giant fish tank in my future office. I pictured a towering aquarium, calming patients before they walked in. I didn’t pursue it; I just talked about it, confident, like many young people before real life sets in. Fifteen years later, at a reunion, someone approached me and said, “Aren’t you the guy who used to talk nonstop about the fish tank you were going to have in your office someday?” They remembered it vividly. And yes, my office had a giant fish tank in the reception area. Exactly like the one I pictured. I hadn’t set out to achieve it. I didn’t create a timeline or a plan. The idea had simply lived in the background of my mind long enough that when the opportunity arose, a particular office space, a certain layout, the means to finally make it happen. I recognized it instantly and acted without hesitation. A long-quietly incubating goal slipped into reality.

Another example came years later. A patient once described a trip to the UAE in such vivid detail that I found myself captivated. The architecture, the desert, the cultural richness; it felt like another world. I was intrigued enough to put “Visit the UAE” on my bucket list, but it landed squarely in the reach goals category. I had no passport. No international travel experience. No extra money. No idea when the opportunity would ever arise. About five years later, my office received an email from someone in the UAE looking specifically for a psychiatrist from New York who specialized in eating disorders. It came out of nowhere. I followed that thread, and that thread pulled me straight into global travel. That was when I applied for my first passport. That was the beginning of exploring all seven continents. All because a reachable goal quietly shaped how I noticed the world.

This is why we write down our goals. Not because we know how they will happen, but because the brain cannot move toward a direction it’s never been given.

The Permission to Dream a Little Bigger

Some of my current reach goals include riding in an F1 car, flying in a Blue Angel jet, and going into outer space. Are they likely? Probably not. But that’s not the point. The point is that they pull my imagination forward. They keep my mind elastic. They remind me that life has a habit of surprising people who remain receptive to the improbable. They keep me alert to opportunity rather than being closed off by realism.

A reachable goal is not a delusion. It is a declaration that growth is still possible. It is a form of psychological stretching. It is the adult equivalent of looking up at the sky and wondering what else might exist beyond the horizon. And if it never happens? Then the reach goal served its purpose anyway. It kept the brain agile. It kept the imagination alive. It kept the possibility alive.

Adults need dreams just as much as children do; they’re simply quieter, subtler, shaped by the logistics of life rather than the fantasies of youth. But they are dreams all the same. And the science is clear: adults who hold dreams for their future live with more resilience, more meaning, and more vitality. A reachable goal is not a promise; it is an invitation. It says, “If life ever opens this door, I’ll be ready to walk through it.”

In the meantime, if you’re someone reading this and have any ability to help me fulfill any of my “reach goals” - Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, Max Verstappen, Toto Wolff, NASA, or the U.S. Navy, please call or e-mail me, I’d love to go and write about it here. I’m just putting it out in the universe.