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Goals

What’s The Problem With Goals?

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smart goal setting conceptFor those of you who may not know him, Leo Babauta of Zen Habits is one of, if not the, most respected personal development bloggers on the planet.  What he’s done over the past couple of years at zenhabits.net, writetodone.com, and mnmlist.com is nothing short of amazing.  All three are in my RSS reader, and a lot of the things I’ve read on those sites have made me think.

That being said, I’ve got some issues with a post he put up last week on mnmlist.com.  It was entitled Minimalism’s logical extension: Break free from goals.  You should read it (I wouldn’t link it if I didn’t think you should) and make your own decision.

I’d like to excerpt a passage:

More recently I’ve moved away from goals, broken free of the shackles of goals. I’ve liberated myself because goals are not ideal, in my way of thinking:

  • They are artificial — you aren’t working because you love it, you’re working because you’ve set goals.
  • They’re constraining — what if you want to work on something not in line with your goals? Shouldn’t we have that freedom?
  • They put pressure on us to achieve, to get certain things done. Pressure is stressful, and not always in a good way.
  • When we fail (and we always do), it’s discouraging.
  • We’re always thinking about the future (goals) instead of the present. I prefer to live in the present.

But most of all, here’s the thing with goals: you’re never satisfied. Goals are a way of saying, “When I’ve accomplished this goal (or all these goals), I will be happy then. I’m not happy now, because I haven’t achieved my goals.” This is never said out loud, but it’s what goals really mean. The problem is, when we achieve the goals, we don’t achieve happiness. We set new goals, strive for something new.

For each point that Leo raises here, I disagree with either the actual statement, or the thought process behind it.

  • They are artificial — you aren’t working because you love it, you’re working because you’ve set goals. As I’ve written previously, your goals need to stem from your most deeply-held values.  Being a person of integrity demands this.  If your goals feel artificial to you, then you need to set more meaningful goals.
  • They’re constraining — what if you want to work on something not in line with your goals?  Shouldn’t we have that freedom? Again, your goals need to flow from your values.  Why would you ever want to work on something that contradicts your values?
  • They put pressure on us to achieve, to get certain things done. Pressure is stressful, and not always in a good way. This, friends, is a slippery slope.  We need to manage stress, certainly.  Prolonged or repeated intense stress is definitely not good.  BUT, a certain amount of stress and pressure is necessary in order for us to realize the potential that we have inside.  Drifting aimlessly, with no goals, is not a way to live a fulfilling life.
  • When we fail (and we always do), it’s discouraging. My answer to this statement is “So?”.  I’m not sure I understand what’s inherently wrong with being discouraged.  Granted, those who allow themselves to wallow in discouragement, or who don’t make an effort to move on from discouraging circumstances aren’t living a full life.  However, most people, when faced with circumstances that are less than perfect, will utilize the lessons learned from that failure to make adjustments and try again.  Taking your ball and going home, simply because you don’t like the way the game turned out, is what we try to discourage in our kids, right?
  • We’re always thinking about the future (goals), instead of the present. A goal is a desired end state that you wish to reach.  By definition, it occurs sometime in the future.  However, in order to reach that goal, actions must be taken in the present to move ahead.  I’ve always heard this saying: “Yesterday’s history, tomorrow’s a mystery.  Today is all we have.  It’s a gift, which is why we call it the present“.  I think I understand what Leo’s saying here:  don’t get so focused on making tomorrow that you forget or neglect what’s happening today.  But, if you’re setting meaningful goals and doing something every day to work toward them, you will be content with your present circumstances.
  • Finally, Leo’s last paragraph about goals not leading to happiness. He says that goals are an implicit indication that you’re not happy where you’re at.  That you’re looking for something else, some other circumstance, to make it all better.  Look, accepting yourself for who you are is fine, but there’s an important caveat that needs to accompany that acceptance.  You have to realize that, though you may be happy with who you are at this time, you certainly shouldn’t be happy if this is all you’re ever going to be.  Goals propel us forward to become greater than what we are currently.  None of us is perfect, none of us has it all together, and none of us will ever reach that place where we are.  If you think you have, you’re fooling yourself.  Be happy with who you are, but don’t be happy to remain where you are.

I hope this hasn’t come off as bitter or anything; that certainly wasn’t my intent.  As I mentioned, I enjoy reading Leo’s stuff because it always makes me think.  It just happens that this particular post made me think a lot, and I found I didn’t like what I read.

So, did I miss the point?  Let me know if you think I mis-represented what Leo had to say, or took something the wrong way, or whatever.  Conversely, did anything I said really resonate with you?  Let us know everything in the comments…

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Values

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Ed. Note – This is the first in a series of posts in which I’ll deal with the main purpose of this site: Life Design.  The series will be an encapsulation of my thoughts on the subject, and the foundation for everything else that’s written here.  You can find the entire series of posts here.

1030895523_9c9d552159_mDesigning a personal development plan is a very involved task. A designer will start out any project with some thought as to what he or she wants to accomplish, and then will lay out a plan to complete it. For example, an architect will begin the design process with the idea that he or she is going to design a building for a specific purpose (say, an office building).  However, merely the thought of an “OFFICE BUILDING” isn’t comprehensive enough to provide all the information needed for the architect to complete the project.  Specific uses of the space by the potential tenants of the building must be understood and planned for, as will the environment in which the building will reside.  These and many other factors must be considered before the building plans are finalized. Planning is an intense process that requires a great deal of focus, concentration, clarity of purpose, and commitment to continue through the difficult portions.

Our lives can be thought of as buildings.  If attention to detail is present during the planning phase, and ruthless commitment to carrying out those plans occurs during the building process, the final structure will be sound, aesthetically pleasing, and able to be used for the intended purposes of the designer.  However, if the designer is haphazard in planning, or the builder doesn’t follow the plans to the letter, then you can run into a world of problems.  The very best you can hope for in that situation is that the building stays up.  It may be functional, but it certainly won’t be optimal.  And, it’s very likely that at some point, the building will come crashing down.

You alone are the designer and builder of your life.  No one can plan your life for you, and no one can take the steps needed to execute the personal development plan you’ve made.  You’re in control.  That thought can be tremendously liberating and heart-poundingly terrifying at the same time.  And, as we all know, failing to plan is planning to fail.  You can opt out of Life Design, if you’d like.  You’ll just never be able to build the optimal life for you.  The building analogy still holds here: if you have a skilled builder, he or she may be able to cobble together a functional shelter without plans. It won’t be great, it’ll cost a lot more than you originally planned, and it won’t be pretty from some angles, but it’ll work.  Wouldn’t it be easier to just take the time to develop a set of plans?

The first thing that has to occur is the determination of your values.  From the values you hold will flow your life’s vision, or the concept of how you want your life to play out. Some people can list what their values are off the top of their head, but most folks would have a tough time doing it immediately.

priorities

So, let’s take some time to determine those priorities, shall we?  Take out a pen and a piece of paper (you should do this tangibly, not on a screen), and write down ten or twelve (or however many you can think of) things that are important to you in your life.  Examples could be: “family”, “friends”, “baseball”, “the environment”.  Seriously, write down anything and everything you possibly can think of that’s important to you.  I’ll wait here.

…

Okay, you’re back?  Good.  Now, take this list, and find a quiet place.  You’re going to have to do something that might reveal some things to you about yourself that you didn’t know.  I want you to take the first two items on the list and think about which one is more important to you.  Once you’ve picked the winner, move on to the next two and do the same thing.  As you’re doing this, make a list of the winners.  Once you complete the original list, do the same with the new list you’ve created, and so on, until you boil your values down to the top one or two.  You need to make sure you’ve not eliminated a potential value that would have beaten out a pair of values farther down the list.  I wouldn’t go so far as to seed your values, NCAA tournament-style, but you get the idea.

You know what?  You might have found out that “family” isn’t really as important to you as some other things in your life.  Some things that society tells you should rank higher on you list might not.  That’s why we do this exercise in secret.  It’s so important to be brutally honest at this stage, because we’re trying to get at the heart of what makes you, you.  Your values are your values, and I’m not here to judge them.  If you personally think your priorities are out of whack when you do this exercise, then it’s up to you to fix that however you deem necessary.  I don’t care what they are, I just want you to know what they are so you can move forward with your own personal development plans.

Here’s another thing about priorities: you can only hold one or two at a time, but they can change.  Not willy-nilly or without a lot of consideration as to the consequences of that change, but they might.  For example, let’s say you have a small child or two in your home right now.  One of your priorities may be your children at this juncture in your life.  However, as they age and move out of the house, you may find that they don’t play as prominent a role in decisions you make as to how you allocate your time and resources.  They’re still important to you, but other priorities may have superseded them now.

I want you to take some time and really focus on the priorities that came out of the exercise you did.  Do they resonate with you as you keep thinking about them throughout the next few days?  If you need to do the exercise a few times, that’s okay.  Sometimes people end up with answers they don’t really feel are representative of who they are, or they don’t like what they see.  If that’s you, and you feel like you need to adjust your priorities, then do that.  Make sure you get to a place where you are comfortable with the picture your priorities paint of you.  Just don’t lie to yourself.

photo courtesy: David Paul Ohmer

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