If you don’t have goals for yourself, someone else will make some up for you. That’s the trap.
Whether it’s your parents, your spouse or your boss, others around you have goals and their best way of accomplishing these goals is to co-opt you into fulfilling them. Without your own goals you’ll be forever fulfilling everyone else’s.
The trap comes in many forms. It comes in getting too many emails, having too many meetings, being saddled with too many projects. If you let yourself, you’ll become overwhelmed by everyone else’s goals.
To get out of the trap, you need to set some goals for yourself and work single-mindedly towards accomplishing them.