Plenty of articles discuss ideal weight, ideal homes, the ideal job, ideal sales prospects, ideal role models, ideal situations, ideal schools, ideal lifestyles, and even ideal children.  Virtually any category or experience you could devise could also be associated with an ideal.  If your vision of what you assume is better than what you know or have, then such goals could be destructive to your self-image and perception of the world outside yourself.

For many people, attaining perfection is a dream that highly motivates or strongly discourages them to extremes.  Are you working toward the impossible? To what degree our visions of "ideal" are misguided or even dangerous remains personal and subjective. Did you ever know anyone who was prone to justify anything? You may have done this especially if it enabled you to feel closer to that imaginary carrot goal, hanging from the fishing line just out of reach.  

1) ideal as a standard of excellence: if you set a goal to win a race and choose an athletic mentor who has followed rigorous training to achieve similar goals, then you may get ahead. It's up to you.

2) ideal as conforming to an acceptable standard: if you decide to suppress or hide your true self so as to live up to someone else's ideal, then you'd benefit from evolving to question your motives.

3) ideal as a figment of your imagination: if you frequently feel unhappy with yourself, your choices or the results of efforts, remind yourself that you create your realistic or unrealistic goals. 

4) ideal as embodying perfection in body: if you're preoccupied with what other people look like, compare yourself and focus on scales of beauty, you may terrorize yourself by your beliefs.

5) ideal as a highly-desirable state of mind: if you are not as 'goal-oriented' as you would like to be, realize that belief creates behaviors.  Aren't behaviors what you could change to clarify goals?

6) ideal as a constructed situation: if you perceive reality as simply black and white, then you may cling to your past and deny yourself opportunities to expand on your thoughts and activities.

It's time to realize goal-setting benefits from examining what you've learned in your life.  You may have conditioned yourself to believe only limited ways exist to lead you to the 'right path.'  Be willing to step back from what you've already been taught, from all those visions of things or experiences you're convinced you desire.  All these goals are self-created.  Move past what you think you work toward. Determine which among the goals is truly what you seek and expand on it.