Goals are milestones we set out to achieve, they are aspirations we set into the future and work towards reaching. Goal setting orients our lives towards who we’d like to be or what we would like to achieve. They link our present to the future and help us design our lives right now in a way that can reach an envisioned future.
Goals as a necessity
As humans, striving for a better version of ourselves is an inherent trait and that’s why goals are necessary. We are always striving for higher goals as we grow and evolve. Goals give us worthwhile pursuits to look up to and actionable steps we can take now to achieve them. They give you the ability to shape your future by picturing it, then working towards it.
Setting unclear goals
Setting goals also comes with a risk of failure. Once you set your goals, you ought to contend with the possibility that you might fail to achieve them. That is why some people rather not set clear goals at all. Setting a goal to grow your business to a certain net worth over a certain period is scary because if you’re unable to achieve that, then you have failed. It’s similar to setting a goal to build your career over a specific period: you have to embrace the possibility that you might fail. The bigger the goals, the higher the chances for failure. That is why some people rather not set goals, or if they do, they set unclear ones.
“You can’t get what you don’t aim at. Most people often keep their goals fuzzy because specifying their goals means specifying their conditions for failure”
Jordan B Peterson.
Obsession:
It’s possible to get so obsessed with a goal that it undermines the rest of the aspects of life. Like: the aspiring artist who works more than 12 hours a day on their craft. At this point, your goals begin to define who you are. They begin to define your sense of self-worth. Much as it’s good to give your craft your all, it’s also crucial to living a balanced life rather than one that revolves solely around your goals. What happens to your sense of identity when you’re no longer able to pursue that goal? Imagine an athlete who gets a career-ending injury or an entrepreneur whose startup runs bankrupt. What then will you have to hold on to?
The trap of ‘more’
We’re wired to always work towards higher goals, however, sometimes it becomes a fixation. Yearning turns into addiction: always craving more and higher. You become so consumed with the craving for more that it robs you of any gratitude for what you already have. Nothing is ever satisfying. You are always chasing a nicer job, a bigger paycheck, a smaller waist. Much as the ‘Stay hungry’ ideology is a necessary one – It keeps you ambitious and growth-oriented – taken too far, that mindset leaves you on a treadmill always chasing a perfect ideal you never seem to reach.
Why goals fail
Wrongly motivating goals
Some goals are motivated by the wrong reasons: some are motivated by insecurities, others by superficial gains. Like a person who starts a business because they want to make money because they are insecure about what other people think about their financial status. Chances are, such a person might make money, but squander all of it trying to impress people by buying a car or a house they can’t afford. Here’s an article about how your motivation influences your goals (link).
Go big or go home
Some goals are too big and unrealistic under the given circumstances. The thing with setting big goals is that it gives you a surge of dopamine just thinking of the possibility of achieving such a goal: losing 20kg in a month or starting a million dollar startup in just a year. Such goals also make catchy status updates and make you look all badass. Contrary to some ‘if you believe it, you can achieve it’ self-help jargon, in life you have to be realistic sometimes. Setting goals that are too big and Far-fetched increases chances of burning out: starting with a seven-day rigorous gym routine will probably have you burnt out by the first two weeks. There is such a thing as ‘biting off more than you can chew’. Here is an article about why new year’s resolutions often fail. (link)
Rigidity
Some treat goals like they are cast in stone and should never change no matter what. They never let go of that career goal you set when you were 10, or that craft you wanted to pursue as a teenager. Such goals are set at earlier stages of life when circumstances and perspectives are different. Letting go of such goals even when it’s understandable that conditions changed still feels like a loss. However, circumstances change, people grow, priorities change and so should goals.
An alternative perspective
Use goals to orient your life to what you’d want it to be a few years from now, but don’t get so obsessed by them that they define who you are or rob you of the gratitude for your present moment. Always question the motivation behind your goals because that determines how relentless you’ll be when pursuing them, or how fulfilled you’ll be when you achieve them. If your focus is growth, focus on small incremental goals: Focusing on building a 20 minutes jog routine a day is not as glamorous and status update worthy, but it surely goes a long way into building healthy habits and hitting your goals. And finally, allow your goals to change: let go of some as you pick up new ones.
