5 Reasons To Think Hard Before Setting Goals
“A goal is not always meant to be reached, it often serves simply as something to aim at.”
I’m getting tired of the effect of goals and precisely how my fixation on their outcomes is affecting my life. I’ve found myself getting overwhelmed by my elaborate goal-setting plans that often lead me to abandon the goal altogether.
I’ve lived most of my life on the principle that we as humans are goal-setting machines, and I went about my life by setting goals, achieving them and then setting new ones.
I’ve grown so much from the structure and the drive that goal setting has instilled in me to achieve more and be more. And I find myself afraid of living without goals as that would make me complacent, and so I won’t do enough and when I’m not doing then I’m not growin
“Not all who wander are lost.”
However, I’ve started being more agreeable to the growing view that setting goals and achieving them doesn’t necessarily lead to a life of contentment.
Rather, I’ve found that committing to a strict regimen of doing rather than measuring my progress against goals has made it easier for me to continue and enjoy the process.
Alex Ferguson, the former Manchester United Football manager, when asked what his strategy was and the goals he set for winning 49 trophies and becoming the most successful Football manager ever, just said:
“My only goal was to win every game and every action I did was towards that.”
These are five reasons to be careful when setting goals:
We forget our love of the activity
We get so caught up with the actual goal and enamored by the hype surrounding it that we forget why we got into doing the activity in the first place. We forget how much we love the process itself and instead start to focus on the results.
I was training for the Florence Marathon a year ago. I read, analyzed and created a scientific plan so that I could run faster and harder. I started adding new training techniques and was regularly recording my times and pace. Suddenly, I stopped enjoying my running and became fixated on seeing myself cross the line at 4h 10mins. Six weeks into the training plan, I got injured and could never recover to run the marathon.
Goals, sub-goals, and tasks add stress
First we set our goals, and then our sub-goals and the actions that align with them. Then we review our tasks daily, weekly and track our progress towards the goals. All this extra activity and decisions adds stress to our lives. Now instead of focusing our energy on the actual process that we love, we waste it on creating lists and then checking them off.
Last week I joined NaNoWriMo, which is an annual online creative writing project that takes place only in November and it challenges participants to write 50,000 words for a novel. It gets people writing and motivated throughout the month. It’s a great event and has helped many write best sellers.
However, it completely stressed me out, as I felt I was under so much pressure. I now had a big goal of writing a novel with a sub-goal of writing so many words per day. I devised a plan of how many words to write per day, what time to write, and what to write.
I met my target for the first few days but I wasn’t enjoying my writing anymore, and what was meant to be fun and a way to free myself from the stress of life became the stress itself. I quickly deleted my account on the third day and made a simple commitment to write for two days a week at three-hour stretches.
Goal-setting is often simply running away
We sometimes, jump from goal to goal and after achieving them, then just abandon the interest. We just wanted to add excitement and activity to our lives, and not necessarily meaning.
We inadvertently use goals so that we don’t have to stop and reflect on our lives. We start following new fads and new things to do just for the sake of doing them. We keep running, as we don’t want to sit alone with our thoughts and our truths.
We never ask why we are setting the goal and what it means to achieve it. Why do we want to write a book? Is it to gain prestige and recognition or do we feel that people need to hear our message?
Kaizen is a better way than goal setting
Kaizen is Japanese term that has become famous in the west. It means continuous improvement through small incremental changes that accumulate over time. It’s used in the corporate world for developing systems and practices. It’s one of the core principles that Toyota used to become the No.1 Car producer in the world.
We always associate change with some large, visible result like a before and after picture of someone who has lost weight in a few months. However, in reality the greatest changes occur when we make daily small incremental changes. This way we don’t put too much pressure on ourselves and overload our capacity.
It’s no coincidence that 99% of New Year resolutions are abandoned in the first week. We overwhelm ourselves with too many goals and often the goals are just too unrealistic.
Goals can be limiting
When we fix goals, we close ourselves to many opportunities that could open up for us. We focus only on a particular action towards the goal we set. We become oblivious to reality and find it harder to change and adapt to our fast-changing environment.
For Example, Google doesn’t set annual corporate goals (except for SEC requirements) as it feels goals reduce its agility and how they could respond to the market.
I still feel I need a general direction to push me into doing the things I love in a more consistent way. I want to remain focused and committed to the processes that I enjoy.
I’m not going to abandon goal-setting altogether, but I will look at them with more scrutiny always asking if the particular goal gives me contentment, lessens stress and helps me grow before I commit to it.
But, I definitely don’t want an elaborate goal-setting plan that would make me feel like I’m not enough when I don’t achieve some of it’s goals