The article that is accessible through this link appears to be shortened and may not be complete.  Therefore, it is hard to know exactly what Pedroia’s goal is supposed to be.  All that is visible in the article right now is the following, which was reported as having been said back in February:

“Our goal,” Pedroia said, “is to win the World Series.”

Then, perhaps anticipating the snickers from all who witnessed last year’s 93-loss humiliation, the All-Star second baseman continued.

“I know everybody thinks that’s not a (realistic) goal right now,” Pedroia said. “But it is.”

From this, all we can know of Pedroia’s goal is that he intended to win the World Series, regardless of whether most people would think that that goal was realistic at the time.

The question, then, is how we can generalize this as a rule about things other than baseball.  I would say that we could state this goal and philosophy as “don’t be afraid to set high goals, regardless of what others might think.”  In the spring, Pedroia was willing to think very big.  This would have seemed ridiculous to many people after the Red Sox performance last season.  But Pedroia did not care about what others thought.

It is possible to apply this lesson to things other than baseball.  All we have to say is that we should not let other people’s skepticism stop us from aiming for things that we want to achieve.  We may not always prove others wrong the way the Red Sox have this year, but it is a good idea to aim high.