The Countdown – Day 30: Are Goals Any Good?

Goal-setting is one of the cornerstones of personal growth literature, but not all writers believe that it’s a fool-proof, results-guaranteed practice.

Let’s take 3 examples of dissenting voices, and why they question the value of goal-setting:

• Leo Babauta, of Zen Habits, believes that goals act as walls more than bridges. And while you may attribute your success to having goals, they tend to take undeserved credit for what you could’ve achieved without them (and with less frustration and guilt). Instead, he now lives out his life without goals.

• Tim Brownson, of A Daring Adventure, has observed that his life coaching clients don’t always experience happiness as a result of achieving their goals. He thinks that goal-setting may have a dark side, and we should be aware of the potential harms of goal-setting, rather than set goals dogmatically without ever stopping to question our approach, or even the practice itself.

• Ali Luke, of Aliventures, thinks that goal-setting is overrated. It’s insanely difficult to plan too far ahead, and not always desirable. Instead of setting 5-year, 10-year, or even life goals, she prefers to look 6-months into the future, and be flexible in approaching her goals.

These three opinions add a bit more dimension to the subject of goals, and helps us develop a more realistic understanding of the role goals can play in our lives, and the likely damage they can cause. I’d like to explore these opinions further and extract some lessons from them.

Should We Have Goals?

While Leo believes that he is living without goals, I’d like to offer an alternative explanation.

It’s not that Leo doesn’t have goals, but he doesn’t set them consciously. In effect, he has internalized his goal-setting process and can now rely on his passion to guide his actions.

Leo says that while not having goals to live by, he has managed to publish a new book. I’m of the opinion that it’s impossible to write a book without the intent of writing a book. You can find yourself with a finished blog post while intending to write a journal entry, but writing a book (and launching it) requires a greater stretch of time to think through and complete.

It may not feel like his previous experiences of goal-setting, but there remains an internal desire to achieve a goal (the published book). And it’s because Leo has published books before, and because he’s a skilled writer, he doesn’t need a great deal of conscious thinking to see himself through the writing process.

Leo doesn’t demonstrate a goal-free lifestyle, but a mastery of goal-setting. In other words, he is unconscious of his competence at goal-setting (to borrow from Abraham Maslow’s lingo on the stages of competence).

Therefore, a “life without goals” isn’t a reality many people can experience, because they (myself included) need a great deal of conscious effort to arrive at the necessary competence that makes goal-setting a natural process to undertake. A conscious effort at setting goals and making resolutions is the best approach we have available to us (for now) to turn our dreams into a reality.

Do Goals Make Us Happy?

There are two key elements to human happiness:

1. Choosing goals that are in harmony with our nature
2. Achieving our goals

Most people familiar with goal-setting tend to focus on the second element, while ignoring the first. They are skilled at achieving their goals, but fail to question whether their goals are the right ones for them, and compatible with human happiness.

If you don’t question why your goals are your goals in the first place, then you may be mimicking what everyone else around you is doing, which will leave you feeling empty and unfulfilled.

When I was in university, I had the mistaken religious belief that by depriving myself of worldly pleasures, I was being a moral, upright individual. I can honestly say that the tougher I was on myself, the greater the joy I experienced. Not because this outlook was a life-affirming one, but because I believed I was doing the right thing, even when it was the wrong thing to do.

We can easily fool ourselves into thinking that the sense of accomplishment we’re experiencing is happiness, when it is simply a narrow sense of pleasure at having accomplished a goal that isn’t even compatible with human nature.

Tim, as a life coach, does some wonderful work with value elicitation to help you find the goals and projects that align with your core values, and that’s a necessary step to take in goal-setting.

Choosing the wrong goals means that you’ll be heading in the wrong direction. Achieving those goals means that you’ve arrived at where you don’t want to be.

Not the wisest approach to happiness.

How Far Ahead Should We Plan?

There is an important distinction we have to make between goals and goal-setting. Goals are the targets we move towards, and goal-setting is the process we use to define these targets.

To define a goal and then pursue it with total disregard for changes in circumstances and our interests isn’t a sensible approach at all, especially when life is so dynamic and ever-changing.

But this doesn’t render goal-setting as useless practice. In fact, it makes it even more important, since we need to rely on it on a more regular basis.

We can’t exactly have a goal-setting session that defines for us our goals for the remaining years of our lives. We need to reevaluate our own ideals and ambitions more frequently to ensure that our goals are appropriate to our conditions and are defined while being mindful of the threats and opportunities that characterize our current landscape.

Ali’s decision to set 6-month goals doesn’t undermine goal-setting, but testifies to its importance and value as a traveling companion in the journey of life.

“In preparing for battle, I have always found that plans are useless, but planning is indispensable.”
~ General Dwight D. Eisenhower

It’s essential that you are convinced of the value of goal-setting before you can make New Year’s resolutions that you’re willing to stick to.

If you’re still not convinced that you should be making New Year’s resolutions for the next year, share your reservations in the comments so that we get to tackle the obstacles holding you back and compromising your success.