I don't dislike goals, but I dislike rigidly holding yourself to goals when your circumstances and desires change. I'm really glad that it worked out well for the author, but not everyone is so lucky. I'm not where I thought I'd be five years ago, for both better and worse, but I think I'd be less happy if I measured my success today by my goals from back then.
"Five year plans" for my generation have a bad sound to them. They were the basis for planning in the Soviet Union and were kind of a joke in the '70's and '80's to mean "stuff that never gets done."
That said, goals aren't plans, and five years is a reasonable time-horizon for a major goal. He did a lot of things right in his use of time, including giving it a go too early, and then again getting sucked in to a startup that didn't really work out. There is nothing like seeing things fail to teach you the elements of success.
Part of that use of time should definitely be asking yourself "Am I pursuing the right goal?" as you learn more, but a fair number of people get it right.
That's a great point. In this case, he's in a completely different place and the goal was still applicable. That's great. I would tell you to set goals all the same. If you _don't_ hit them, figure out why. If it's because you are different, that's cool. You adapted.
Don't use goals to measure "Success" per se but rather, yourself. It's a great lens to see trends in what is important to you in thought and practice and where they diverge.
