Is Goal Setting Bad for You?

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GOALS--response maybe off topic -- <kinda long>

M2CW

i have found that all this time management stuff (gtd, covey, et al) -- believe me -- i've been a time management junkie -- is like david points out in his intro -- are about developing tools. -- I'm also a tool junkie at home. one problem with tools as my wife will attest -- you can spend a lot of time looking at them, polishing them, arranging them, buying them, trying them out on scrap pieces of work,

but they are all useless unless you use them to build something -- that is unless you have a vocation as a tool builder/collector. The guys who give us these tools are tool builders -- they use the tools themselves to build other tools -- DA's whole business is about building tools and having you buy them and use them --

most of us however have to apply those tools to build something -- for some of us it may be to build a better life, for some of us, its to build a business, for some of us .... you get the picture.

in my experience, you have to know what you want to build and how you are going to build it -- thats the planning that DA spends a chapter on -- but he admits there are other tools and tool builders out there who can give you more advice on that aspect of your life -- but he offers the advice that you need to have a "desired outcome" -- a "goal" if you need to use that term -- otherwise you can never know where you want to go and can't get around to getting stuff done. Just like a trip where you know where you want to go (nyc to san francisco) and you know where san francisco is and you can plan a detailed trip map all the way there with times to stop and see all the sights in between, the reality is,there are detours, and all you can focus on at the present time is the next leg of your journey (NA).

most of the goal stuff i've studied have been big on creating a vision of what you want, and magically this is supposed appear. i know that's probably a bit harsh but I think what david is trying to get at in his approach is -- without some thought as to how you get to that big vision in the sky (50k ft level) and handle the day to day stuff that gets in your way and make some progresss (NAs) toward that desired outcome--that goal/dream/whatever will never get accomplished.

my view is that there are gifted people out there -- just as there are gifted musicians, athletes, business executives -- who can just get stuff done without a lot of thought -- however for the rest of us -- we need some structure, some plan, some technique, some right way to do things -- probably a result of our ingrained educational/culture/ etc.

I've had to do a lot of thinking about this recently.
Some people consider me successful i'm not sure i do -- i'm back at my college for a distinguished alumni award this weekend -- i have have a problem at seeing myself old enough to be "distinguished" but i struggle even more to see what makes me successful in other peoples eyes. -- I've had some goals early in life, wrote them down like a good doobie, accomplished some of them, but what i was ultimately successful at didn't turn up in those goals at all. -- those things just happened --

But, i've discovered a clue as to how they happened. As i dissect the last twenty some odd years since leaving college

what i have found as a key is that if you have the right tools in your toolkit and more importantly know how to use them, when an opportunity comes around, you'll be prepared and most likely the most prepared to take advantage of it.

The opportunity may simply be spare time to spend with your 20mo old daughter, who wants to do nothing more than sit in your lap , it may be a job promotion, it may be a new client, it may be a new job, it may be that unforeseen fork in the road, like illness, or maybe new relationships -- but believe me -- those opportunities will occur -- if you are not prepared, or don't have the right tool on hand and have practiced using it, you won't be ready -- for me thats the essense of DA "mind like water" the relaxed martial artist mentality at handling life that DA wants us to attain. -- its about preparation and readiness for execution for anything life throws at you. -- its the readiness that is the key.

that seems to be what separates the people i've seen around me on a day to day basis who i consider successful -- some people call them lucky, i think they simply have tools and techniques and have honed those tools thru work to be ready for anything. But it doesn't happen without work at making the tools work.

I think we all obsess about the question "do we have the right tool" -- i think the answer is -- have a tool, but more importantly -- do i have the right technique.

In my younger life, i was a classical guitarist-- and wanted to go from being a good one to a really great one -- i just knew that if i had a better guitar -- that if i had the right class, it would propel me to greater heights -- that my student guitar just wasn't the right tool -- my mind was forever changed when i was in a masterclass and the worldclass artist teaching the class took my instrument and made music as beautiful as any he would on his $10k instrument -- the secret (yes talent) but more importantly- honed technique over years of practice --

may seem off topic from the concept of goal -- but i've found that for most of us -- we know what we want, we just don't have a clue how to get there -- because we spend too much time floundering with everthing around us -- david's approach is to give us tools and techniques to slay the everyday dragons that get in the way of attaining them.

in my career in business for the last 15 years, i've tried to use the same approach -- have the right tools and techniques for what might come my way. -- that seems to help me attain my "desired outcomes" / "goals"
 
Coz, thank you.

Thanks for reminding me again of Dr Albert Ellis’ work. I read your previous postings on this subject, but now that I realise I suffer from it myself, I can really appreciate the importance of his diagnosis. It really is a very disruptive state of mind to find oneself in.

Secondly, your charting of the key areas of you life has inspired me. When I look back over my old diaries and notebooks, I notice that, over and over again, I set out six or seven key areas, and tried to identify the most appealing goals within those areas. However, I never explored how those areas inter-relate for me: how my spiritual outlook effect how I feel about my family, or what ethical values that outlook might cause me to have in relation to work.

Without even putting pen to paper, I realised since yesterday that I have a very well evolved spiritual sense of things, which is closely tied to my sense of creativity. But I have lost sight of how this connects with many of the other things I must do. As I already said in relation to Napoleon Hill, I’m sure there IS a connection between the way I make decisions and my basic feelings about life, but that connection has become tangled, so that my inner sense is not feeding meaning into my everyday life.

I feel like a light has been shone onto a dark problem. It really seals the argument in favour of balance rather than single-mindedness.

Zootski, like the other posts in this thread, you have described a quieter, less fanatical, and more satisfying approach to life. Your account of the artists who have found fulfilment after working-hours reminded me that over ten years ago I had hoped to do the same as they do. But then my thinking was converted to the all-or-nothing approach which I now know is bad for me. Thanks for these inspiring real life examples.

DFE
 
response maybe off topic -- <kinda long>

M2CW

i have found that all this time management stuff (gtd, covey, et al) -- believe me -- i've been a time management junkie -- is like david points out in his intro -- are about developing tools. -- I'm also a tool junkie at home. one problem with tools as my wife will attest -- you can spend a lot of time looking at them, polishing them, arranging them, buying them, trying them out on scrap pieces of work,

but they are all useless unless you use them to build something -- that is unless you have a vocation as a tool builder/collector. The guys who give us these tools are tool builders -- they use the tools themselves to build other tools -- DA's whole business is about building tools and having you buy them and use them --

most of us however have to apply those tools to build something -- for some of us it may be to build a better life, for some of us, its to build a business, for some of us .... you get the picture.

in my experience, you have to know what you want to build and how you are going to build it -- thats the planning that DA spends a chapter on -- but he admits there are other tools and tool builders out there who can give you more advice on that aspect of your life -- but he offers the advice that you need to have a "desired outcome" -- a "goal" if you need to use that term -- otherwise you can never know where you want to go and can't get around to getting stuff done. Just like a trip where you know where you want to go (nyc to san francisco) and you know where san francisco is and you can plan a detailed trip map all the way there with times to stop and see all the sights in between, the reality is,there are detours, and all you can focus on at the present time is the next leg of your journey (NA).

most of the goal stuff i've studied have been big on creating a vision of what you want, and magically this is supposed appear. i know that's probably a bit harsh but I think what david is trying to get at in his approach is -- without some thought as to how you get to that big vision in the sky (50k ft level) and handle the day to day stuff that gets in your way and make some progresss (NAs) toward that desired outcome--that goal/dream/whatever will never get accomplished.

my view is that there are gifted people out there -- just as there are gifted musicians, athletes, business executives -- who can just get stuff done without a lot of thought -- however for the rest of us -- we need some structure, some plan, some technique, some right way to do things -- probably a result of our ingrained educational/culture/ etc.

I've had to do a lot of thinking about this recently.
Some people consider me successful i'm not sure i do -- i'm back at my college for a distinguished alumni award this weekend -- i have have a problem at seeing myself old enough to be "distinguished" but i struggle even more to see what makes me successful in other peoples eyes. -- I've had some goals early in life, wrote them down like a good doobie, accomplished some of them, but what i was ultimately successful at didn't turn up in those goals at all. -- those things just happened --

But, i've discovered a clue as to how they happened. As i dissect the last twenty some odd years since leaving college

what i have found as a key is that if you have the right tools in your toolkit and more importantly know how to use them, when an opportunity comes around, you'll be prepared and most likely the most prepared to take advantage of it.

The opportunity may simply be spare time to spend with your 20mo old daughter, who wants to do nothing more than sit in your lap , it may be a job promotion, it may be a new client, it may be a new job, it may be that unforeseen fork in the road, like illness, or maybe new relationships -- but believe me -- those opportunities will occur -- if you are not prepared, or don't have the right tool on hand and have practiced using it, you won't be ready -- for me thats the essense of DA "mind like water" the relaxed martial artist mentality at handling life that DA wants us to attain. -- its about preparation and readiness for execution for anything life throws at you. -- its the readiness that is the key.

that seems to be what separates the people i've seen around me on a day to day basis who i consider successful -- some people call them lucky, i think they simply have tools and techniques and have honed those tools thru work to be ready for anything. But it doesn't happen without work at making the tools work.

I think we all obsess about the question "do we have the right tool" -- i think the answer is -- have a tool, but more importantly -- do i have the right technique.

In my younger life, i was a classical guitarist-- and wanted to go from being a good one to a really great one -- i just knew that if i had a better guitar -- that if i had the right class, it would propel me to greater heights -- that my student guitar just wasn't the right tool -- my mind was forever changed when i was in a masterclass and the worldclass artist teaching the class took my instrument and made music as beautiful as any he would on his $10k instrument -- the secret (yes talent) but more importantly- honed technique over years of practice --

may seem off topic from the concept of goal -- but i've found that for most of us -- we know what we want, we just don't have a clue how to get there -- because we spend too much time floundering with everthing around us -- david's approach is to give us tools and techniques to slay the everyday dragons that get in the way of attaining them.

in my career in business for the last 15 years, i've tried to use the same approach -- have the right tools and techniques for what might come my way. -- that seems to help me attain my "desired outcomes" / "goals"
 
jreyes

It sounds like you have a great alternative to the ruthless goal-setter school: you have dismissed the idea that we can select a goal whose outcome is twenty years down the line, and then steer our lives towards it. Instead, you wan to be prepared for what life puts your way, and you are ready to act on those opportunities.

I read a posting a few years ago, where the poster feared that by deliberately selecting life goals, and fighting off anything else that came their way, they were removing the great sense of life’s possibilities from their lives. “Serendipity” as some people like to call it, has been recognised through the centuries. Many many people can point to a chance turn of a corner or a slight delay etc. that led them to a positive change in their lives with which they are very happy.

Now, if you have a bull-headed attitude hat says “NOTHING will knock me off my chosen course”, you will never experience this almost magical opportunity for possibilities.

As I said earlier, how can we really be sure that we know the right changes for our lives? How much of our subconscious can we access in order to make sure that our goal aligns with our deeper self?

My wife has a great explanation for instinct. She says that when something feels right, or feels wrong, that is because the deep pool of our accumulated knowledge is reacting to the choice we are trying to make. This deep process will never give us a detailed mental picture of possible outcomes, but it will give us a feeling of rightness or wrongness. It knows what we are trying to decide.

As you say, if we have the right tool-kit with us all the time, we can easily change course towards what we know is better for us: we will have the wherewithal to easily carry out the new actions required.

For me, it is the continuing sense of emptiness inside that has made me so uncomfortable with some of the goals I pursue: I have already acknowledged to myself that I am effectively battering my real inner self to death in order to turn my personality around to pursue these goals.

And it's funny you should mention guitar; I have a fine classical guitar that my wife gave me for Christmas before we were married. It has remained in its case for many years, but just recently she insisted that I bring it down stairs to keep it in the living room where it is near to hand. I think she can also see that I am not being the person she used to know.

DFE
 
My thought when I first saw this thead and every time since has been the same: The answer is yes. Goal setting is bad for you.

However, I am a goal-averse type person. I don't like goals because I then feel locked in and trapped into whatever course I set. Even though I choose the goal, I feel this way. I like the freedom and as another poster mentioned the serendipity and the spontaneous experiences.

The GTD way of looking at things helps me overcome this somewhat. David encourages the visualising of successful outcomes, and that I am on board with. I'm very much a runway person and start getting dizzy when I get past projects and into goals and mission statements and visions and other fluffy stuff.

So many people seem to believe that you set your goals and then all is OK, and I think you have pointed out that isn't the case. Good thread!
 
I found writing on this thread to be immensely therapeutic. Sitting here on Monday morning, I feel a really deep sense of change. I am suddenly happy with my whole self again. I realised that I had actually gone as far as identifying specific likes that were not contributing financially to my life, and then branding them as “bad” or “frivolous”, and ear-marking them for removal. (FAR too much reading of Brain Tracy!!)

Thanks again everybody for all the great feedback.

As I wrote my way towards this peace of mind, I noticed something: no matter how deeply I thought about the underlying currents of life, trying to get a handle on what really makes things show up when they do, and what we can or cannot realistically do about it, David Allen’s philosophy kept appearing with the answers.

I think he has seen and accepted the topography of life, and has devised GTD as the best tool-kit to help us enjoy the journey. Looking ahead and trying to blast a road towards a goal is the goal-setters approach. But when you actually reach a certain future date and look back over the period that was supposed to be the time-line for your goal, you realise that life looks completely different from that side. Dozens, maybe hundreds of little things you overlooked at the outset suddenly seem obvious. They can be anything, a milestone birthday of a relation and the great party that came with it; a wedding invitation; a family illness; somebody teaching you how to fish; a TV program that gives you a whole new insight into another country, etc. All of them subtly alter the relative values you attribute to things. How can we possibly outlaw all of these experiences in advance?

If I could finish on a much lighter note: I watched an episode of "Queer Eye for the Straight Guy" over the weekend. A forty-five year old ex-model, who now wore his hair shoulder length, and had grown a grizzly beard and a grizzly complexion to go with it, got “the works” from the fab 5.

The transformation was magical. Not so much the visible transformation, but the huge change in his demeanour as the five identified various aspects of his character, and brought them out into the open through his dress-style, the home décor, and through providing him with the right outlet for his artistic carvings.

At the start of the show he was cautious, withdrawn and suspicious, but by the end he was like freed bird, and just could not stop smiling. As a fellow 45 year-old, I have to say I felt some of that liberation too after you guys helped me accept myself again, just as I am.

DFE
 
What i am about to say might sound cynical, but i do believe it to be accurate.

The self-help gurus do not want people to be "satisfied" with themselves, or their life. Why? Then they buy less product.

For instance, Tony Robbins sales method goes like this.
1) Find your customers PAIN
2) Stir up that pain, and make the customer really FEEL and ASSOCIATE to that pain.
3) Heal them with your products and services.

So when some Guru tells you to make a bunch of massive goals, and then make them MUSTS, he is doing Step 2. Making you feel worse ON PURPOSE. [That is called "The Tyranny of the Shoulds".]
Why does he do this? So you will purchase his products and services RIGHT NOW! These guys can get people so excited they will borrow money to attend their programs!!!

Dr Albert Ellis is recently teaching the concept of USA.
Unconditional Self Acceptance.
If you get a chance, look into that idea. It is about simply making the decision to accept ourselves as fallible humans, and to not give our Self a rating, and stubbornly refuse to judge our Self. Its a profound shift, and this seems to actually IMPROVE our performance and results, as we are not suffering from as much emotional disturbance, anxiety, fear, and depression. (this is sort of like having a Mind Like Water regarding the Self).

We don't need endless books and tapes, all repeating the same junk over and over again. In my view, its all a bit of a scam, manipulating people to become bottomless pits of self-dissatisfaction, who will buy an endless stream of products.
I do see value in achievement, but what is ironic is that what is preached by the so-called gurus of achievement, seems to make people's performance worse! What they are preaching seems to be designed to create repeat customers FOR LIFE.

Think of how much more productive we are when we accept ourselves, and feel good about ourselves, and how unproductive it is to get caught in the cycle of personal dissatisfaction, and self-judgement.

Anonymous said:
I found writing on this thread to be immensely therapeutic. Sitting here on Monday morning, I feel a really deep sense of change. I am suddenly happy with my whole self again. I realised that I had actually gone as far as identifying specific likes that were not contributing financially to my life, and then branding them as “bad” or “frivolous”, and ear-marking them for removal. (FAR too much reading of Brain Tracy!!)
As a fellow 45 year-old, I have to say I felt some of that liberation too after you guys helped me accept myself again, just as I am.

DFE
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Thanks again Coz.

I KNEW there was some insidious process underway in my mind. I could not figure out how I arrived at the stage where I believed I had to read 4 three-inch-thick files of down-loaded print-outs (I’m not joking) plus about 30 to 40 books, before I could do my job properly. Even my boss asked my once why I felt that I had to read so many books in order to do the things I had twenty years experience at doing already.

I have often noticed that self help books read like happy ever after tales. The introduction tells of wonderful possibilities, (quadrupled income/stamina/reading-speeds, plus athletic figure, plus partner of your dreams, plus rich and rewarding family plus more time off than ever before). The first chapter then describes, quite accurately, how MY life is at the moment. (For “my” I should have read “everybody’s”: these writers are like fortune-tellers: they know the generalities about the working life in 2004, and yet can make you think that it your exclusive problem).

Then, even though the book is supposed to be the ultimate key to success, you finds that you get the same old list: set goals, prioritise, say no, etc.

At the end, they have described wonderful processes leading to wonderful outcomes, but I’m just left thinking: “yes, that’s what I want, now how do I go about achieving it? And the cycle starts all over again: another book, another profile of my problems, etc.

Another type of writer manages to get under the first line of cynical defence. This is the book/website that breaks down an activity into its constituent steps. E.g. to network better, you need to improve your ability to remember names. Ah yes! Memory improvement! How do I do that? And I’m caught again.

The third kind is similar, but it lists the things that might be wrong with you. Have you got ADD? Were you supported or subtly suppressed by your teachers/parents? Have you a fear of success? Cue thoughtful hesitation … then your clicking on the questionnaire link and considering paying $50 for the “Gold” standard personal assessment.

And all the time ordinary people about you are going about their daily lives, doing their jobs, and looking forward to a few beers on the weekend.

One fact that was jumping up and down in front of me trying to catch my attention for some time is that despite the fact that I cannot get to read all that stuff, I still find myself in a secure senior position in work.

It’s also a good indicator of where I am that the USA concept struck me as forbidden: almost a taboo. A shadowy “invisible committee” of frowning industrialists will NOT be pleased if I adopted that attitude! But it must be the most fundamental of all human rights to look at yourself and say yes, that will do me just fine thank you.

I feel a little guilty indulging in a debunking session in the GTD website. But it goes without saying that DA does not, and does not need to crank up our pain in order to score a quick sale with us. I have always been mystified by the amount of free stuff he gives us. But I have paid for the hardcover, and that contains everything he has told me. It’s just that by comparison with other sites and systems, DA’s seems virtually free of charge. He didn’t have to exaggerate a problem, it was already there: mental log-jam. He dwells on the problem just long enough to let us know where he is coming form, and what the objective of his system is, and then he delivers, big time.

DFE
 
Goals and forward-thinking

I tend to disagree with goal-averse people. Every single living organism has a goal: to survive and to grow. Trees (especially the mighty ones) teach a lot about this. The thing is that life comes with no guarantees whatsoever and all of one's work may turn to dust. There is no such thing as a risk- or carefree life. Does it mean that you should be content with what you have and live without wanting anything? Or that you should want only reasonable things (what is reasonable, anyway?)? That life should be about safety and security and without risks?

What if you would have a goal of something interesting?
What is the measure then?

Are goals something unalterable, set in stone once formulated? Goals are nothing but more or less defined wants and desires. If a goal does not serve you anymore, how about scrapping that goal then? It does not mean that you've stopped wanting. A human's needs and wants stop only at death.

To get somewhere it's usually good to know where you are. What is true and what is real? This has been the quest of philosophers, all of them from Socrates to Wittgenstein. Have they always been right? No, even the truth reformulates constantly. Has their work been in vain? The world's universities beg to disagree.

Maybe it's a question of semantics then. What does the word goal mean to you? Are goals just wishful thinking that somehow magically and instantly get every single desire fulfilled? That would be a bit naive.

There are people who practise something (musicians, artists, athletes) for all of their lives and become good at it after let's say 10 to 20 years of practise. Are they crazy in their strivings? Are all goals futile when there are no guarantees whatsoever that you get what you are after?

To me it seems that goalless people still have goals: comfort of a home, financial security etc.. They must somehow want those things, otherwise they wouldn't even get out of the bed in the morning.

I think that it is very advantageous to be clear about what you want. Clarity of goals is necessary so that one may think clearly of one's wants and desires. It is very desirable to know why you want the things you want, so you don't bang your head against the wall just because someone else (your parents, your kids, your family, church, magazines, books, politics, ideologies, society at large...basically anyone else) says it's good for you. This does not mean that no-one else matters, it means that you have to do some thinking about what things mean to you.
 
mikaels

Yes, it looks like a lot of things are being gathered together under the heading “goals”. I think a lot of them used to be called “duties”, or maybe “life’s milestones”.

A few years ago, I’m sure very few people called marriage, health, hobbies or a good salary, “goals”. They were just part of life. They were “what we do”

I think the goal-setter salesmen have commandeered a lot of life’s givens, repackaged them, and are trying to sell them back to us.

Philosophically speaking, we are all going somewhere. We want each day to be better than the last. Even the couch-potato is looking for more ways to be comfortable, higher quality snacks, and a better remote. Our minds are not made to be static. Nobody willingly embraces ground-hog day syndrome.

As you say, everyone wants to have interesting things in their lives. Again, this is not the property of goal-setters, it is human nature. No one on Earth will desire to walk away from something they consider really interesting.

The 20-year goals-setter is taking a huge risk. If they are successful, it will often benefit us all: musicians, researchers, artists etc. But if they fail, can they find consolation in saying that they did their best?

I fully agree with your argument and your conclusions. It is a good thing to be clear in our thinking, and to be organised and thorough in our approach. This was once called “living a good life”.

Personally, when I think of goal setters, I think of mountain climbers, or arctic explorers, or amateur marathon runners: they need to prove something to themselves, and are not content with making a really good job of their normal lives.

“Improvements” might be a better word than goals in many cases. Is weight-loss a goal or a physical improvement?

Traditionally, only our academic education is formalised. But there is an ocean of common sense that needs to be gathered together also. Most of us stumble through life – we generally do what we hear of other people doing, we often don’t recognise that many obstacles can actually be solved, and instead we accept them as part of life. Our only source of solutions is friends, acquaintances and chance conversations.

I have noticed reviews on Amazon attacking Anthony Robbins with the argument that his stuff is nothing special, it’s just common sense. I don’t think these attackers are devaluing common sense, I think they are just annoyed that someone is trying to make money simply by presenting it so clearly.

To those of us living typical muddles lives, the chance to walk to the South Pole seems like a great way to get a big dose of self-esteem and pride. But ordinary life will be waiting for us afterwards.

DFE
 
DFE

This is truly a wonderful thread, thanks for starting it!

The 20-year goals-setter is taking a huge risk. If they are successful, it will often benefit us all: musicians, researchers, artists etc. But if they fail, can they find consolation in saying that they did their best?
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Actually they find the work interesting in itself. Every day is a source of contentment. People of this ilk are not happy or in bliss all the time, but they seem to have a notion of being who they want to be. One musician friend of mine has a stated goal "to be one with music". The goal is then not an instrument for lets say financial success, but an end in itself! No consolation is thus needed in that sense. Artists worry about different things, but they worry a lot nevertheless. Goals are clear enough.

I fully agree with your argument and your conclusions. It is a good thing to be clear in our thinking, and to be organised and thorough in our approach. This was once called “living a good life”.
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That sounds great to me, living a good life! The word "good" is actually fascinating, Robert Pirsig wrote his books (Zen and the art of motorcycle maintenance and Lila) about the meaning of this single word (I guess a lot of other authors have done the same). Most of us seem to struggle when we are finding out what "good" means to us personally. Does it mean loads of money, does it mean materialistic abundance or does it mean something else all together? The bigger question arising is whether you are as a person doing anything good and for whose benefit? What does "good" mean every single moment in life?

Personally, when I think of goal setters, I think of mountain climbers, or arctic explorers, or amateur marathon runners: they need to prove something to themselves, and are not content with making a really good job of their normal lives.
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I would call these people giants:)

Traditionally, only our academic education is formalised. But there is an ocean of common sense that needs to be gathered together also. Most of us stumble through life – we generally do what we hear of other people doing, we often don’t recognise that many obstacles can actually be solved, and instead we accept them as part of life. Our only source of solutions is friends, acquaintances and chance conversations.
Click to expand...

Books, libraries, magazines, films, internet, imagination and discontentment are good sources for change also in my view. There are so many fantastic books and films about goals and/or living a good life. Some of my favorites are Apocalypse Now! (movie) by Francis Coppola, Essays (book) by Michel de Montaigne, Pirsig's books, Zen and the art of archery (book) by Eugen Herrigel, Moby Dick (book) by Melville, Walden and civil disobedience (book) by Henry David Thoreau, just to name a few. Even the goal-setter-salesmens books might have something to offer, you might just find out that the programs they sell are really not for you:). Of course there are works of art which are even more inspirational just by being what they are. The movie Chicago is a immense display of skill. The sheer existence of Star Wars movies is a goal of 30+ years from the first idea to end product.
 
Are Goals Bad For You?

This has been a most thought-provoking thread, DFE. My thanks to you and all the other contributors.
From my experience, I think the answer to your question is “yes, but only if they are the wrong goals”. What do I mean by a “wrong” goal? Covey’s metaphor is that of climbing the ladder of success only to get to the top and say “is this all there is”?
My experience is that of getting half-way up one ladder, then thinking it’s the wrong one, coming down again, starting on a different ladder, getting half-way up that one before coming down; moving on to ladder 3, going half-way up it, then down again before moving on to ladder 4 (by way of a detour to ladder one again), and so on …
Having been prompted to reflect on these matters by this thread, I’m beginning to think that (due to my own less than critical application of material presented by Covey, Robbins et al – hey, I am responsible for my own destiny after all!) I’ve pursued the “wrong” goals – things I thought that I wanted, but (taking a longer view) I can now see were not truly “me”. In simple terms, I fell into the trap of “the grass is always greener on the other side of the fence”
I think that over the last 10 years, since I discovered “success” strategies, and time and self/life management tools, ironically, I’ve become less “successful”. My wife maintains (probably correctly) that I achieved a lot more (and was much less self-centred) before I’d heard of Success Conditioning. Since I became a Highly Effective Person, it seems that a lot less has got done around the house and my relationship with her and our kids has taken a back seat because I’ve been too busy planning, organising, and being effective. My career (in what I used to think of as the “day” job) has stalled because of a lack of commitment engendered by doubt over “what I want to do with my life”. I think she’s a very perceptive woman (for all that she hasn’t read 7 Habits, GTD, or fire-walked at Unleash the Power Within – how come??!!!)
This focus on (so-called) “real” goals (the ones I come up with after goal-setting workshops or “achievement” seminars etc.) is beginning to appear to have been nothing more than dithering over how I don’t like (aspects of) being a lawyer and thinking that I’d really much rather be (no, its my mission/purpose to be) a frozen yoghurt franchisor, a church deacon, a publisher, Christian Rock Musician, life-coach; novelist, - whatever seems right at present – and over the last 10 years all of those have at different times been what I thought was my “true” mission). My focus and actions on these things (prompted by too much, or maybe not enough, or at least not critical enough, musing over what I “really” want to do) has just distracted me from what in fact I ought to be doing i.e. in chasing after the wrong goals (albeit they seemed right at the time) I have in fact lost sight of what is actually most important.
I think what I’m gradually realising (through GTD and this thread, amongst other things) is that before we commit to anything, whether a runway level task or a major project, it is absolutely critical to do the work upstream in deciding what we’re about so that when “stuff” comes at us we can process it appropriately. Not only to do that work, but to get it right, from a proper awareness of who we are, our skills, interest, talents and so on.
So I do think that we need goals and that if they are the right ones, they are good for us. We do need to work out our own unique vision and mission from which those goals logically should be derived, and invest them with emotional “oomph”. But we also need to be sure that the vision, the goals, are what we truly want. For me this is the really challenging part - how do we really know or discover what is our destiny (in time to be able to do something about it?) and distinguish it from something that might even be worthy or desirable (perhaps even achievable), but which ultimately, is only a chimera, prompted by that tape programme we’re currently listening to, or book, or seminar?
I’ve struggled in my implementation of GTD at precisely this point – I’ve logged absolutely everything that’s showed up and can tell you a fair chunk of what’s got done or is still in inventory, but when I look at what I’ve really achieved, that’s a lot harder to say.
I think GTD itself does not assist here directly, except possibly in carving out time for reflection through getting many things out of the way and in encouraging a Weekly Review. In fact, it seems to me that GTD will work best if this prior definition of the higher altitudes has been done - maybe its covered in “Leveraging Focus and Vision” or whatever its called. Now, where can I get a tape on that?
Apologies for the ramble but like DFE I’ve found this therapeutic in helping me to clarify things that have been nagging away at me for some time.
 
Jamie

Your story reads so like my experiences: I’m fifty percent astonished, and fifty percent relieved that I was not the only one.

I do notice, however, that you are still using goal-setting terms, for example, “Destiny”. Your ultimate destiny is to die. Our second last destiny is to look back over our lives, and hopefully see that we engaged with as many of the things that came our way as we could – our kid, the summer, other places etc.

You also seem to be reviewing your GTD inventory for achievements. Yes, achievements are nice, but there are a hell of a lot of experiences that are valid, enjoyable, and, I believe, essential, which do not have the word “achievement“ attached to them. A walk on the beach on a quiet afternoon is not an achievement, but try telling me that it is not worthy and valuable, maybe even priceless.

I think a lot of goal-setter gurus try to take the life of a successful individual as a model, and then try to tell us the unique things that that person did which we should be trying to copy.

But are they right? Did these people have passionate desires to succeed against all odds? Did they “know” what they wanted deep in their hearts right form the start? Were they uniquely in touch with their innermost desires?

I would rather ask them these questions than accept the sales pitch of the latest new-kid-on-the-block guru.

I said in one of my posts that I found writing on the thread to be very therapeutic. The great news is that that was just the start of it. All sorts of stupidly buried aspects of me are resurfacing, and claiming their rightful place alongside my working life.

Ok, I am not going to be world class in any of them, nor am I going to make any money form them, but that terrible perception which said that they were pointless because of their lack of financial value has been removed.

It is shocking to realise the extent to which I had devalued the things I love. Everything got trampled into the dirt for the sake of “prioritising my number one goals”. Now I realise that there are so many ways to value things – the world just hasn’t worked out how to measure the values.

For example, two huge favourites of mine were writing poetry (won prizes, but never made a penny), and reading science fiction (What? That book in your hand is not a business book?).

But let me tell you, I had completely lost all memory of how much pleasure both of these give me. How do you evaluate this pleasure? Don’t know – don’t care. But they give me a deep sense of life being just right.

As I was was falling asleep last night, I had an image of a very tall, dramatic, magician playing to an audience. The magician had our attention riveted on three cards in his hand, Fame, Success, and Money. He grew and grew, and we were all more mesmerised with each passing minute.

Then, (as in all the best Disney movies), a bored child wanders behind the magician’s cloak, and finds everything else – family, hobbies, whimsical pleasures, friends, doing nothing, beer – shoved under a table out of sight.

The child shouts “hey!”, we all look, and the magician’s power is shattered. We take each item in turn from under the table, and admire them with renewed appreciation and deep fondness.

Another stream of thoughts that have been hitting me over the last two weeks are insights into how a lot of common sense is twisted out of context to fit into the new packages of “goal-setting”.

Goal setting is marketed in such a way that we are led to believe that we can ignore all of the small things and ideas in our lives, because if we can just succeed at one or two big things, then everything will work out fine.

But now I think a different model is more relevant. Funnily enough, I probably came across this metaphor in an Anthony Robbins context – but it is one of his less dynamic ones. It is the idea of an oil tanker. These take many miles to turn, but eventually the new direction is attained.

There are important things in our lives that we should be steering in this manner. We are not going to get financial success or the perfect family by way of setting “smart” goals. These things cannot be isolated from the rest of life and worked on separately in the way that, say, a runner’s lap-times can be developed.

Instead, (probably entering Covey territory here) we need to always make sure that we spend good quality time on the important things in our lives. We cannot separate our finances or our relationship with our children from the sea of things that involve us every day, but we can make sure to spend quality time on them regularly so that they end up where we want them.

Once again, thank you David Allen – in GTD, “write a poem” and “buy an investment property” are side by side on my personal projects listing. Each of them has one NA, and I am totally happy to spend a half hour with pen and paper in the evening writing a few lines, or a half hour at my home computer working out a Cashflow to show the bank manager.

There are no massive priorities commandeering my evenings, and having been down both roads, I can testify that this feels a lot more like life should feel.

DFE
 
Jamie

Your story reads so like my experiences: I’m fifty percent astonished, and fifty percent relieved that I was not the only one.

I do notice, however, that you are still using goal-setting terms, for example, “Destiny”. Your ultimate destiny is to die. Our second last destiny is to look back over our lives, and hopefully see that we engaged with as many of the things that came our way as we could – our kid, the summer, other places etc.

You also seem to be reviewing your GTD inventory for achievements. Yes, achievements are nice, but there are a hell of a lot of experiences that are valid, enjoyable, and, I believe, essential, which do not have the word “achievement“ attached to them. A walk on the beach on a quiet afternoon is not an achievement, but try telling me that it is not worthy and valuable, maybe even priceless.

I think a lot of goal-setter gurus try to take the life of a successful individual as a model, and then try to tell us the unique things that that person did which we should be trying to copy.

But are they right? Did these people have passionate desires to succeed against all odds? Did they “know” what they wanted deep in their hearts right form the start? Were they uniquely in touch with their innermost desires?

I would rather ask them these questions than accept the sales pitch of the latest new-kid-on-the-block guru.

I said in one of my posts that I found writing on the thread to be very therapeutic. The great news is that that was just the start of it. All sorts of stupidly buried aspects of me are resurfacing, and claiming their rightful place alongside my working life.

Ok, I am not going to be world class in any of them, nor am I going to make any money form them, but that terrible perception which said that they were pointless because of their lack of financial value has been removed.

It is shocking to realise the extent to which I had devalued the things I love. Everything got trampled into the dirt for the sake of “prioritising my number one goals”. Now I realise that there are so many ways to value things – the world just hasn’t worked out how to measure the values.

For example, two huge favourites of mine were writing poetry (won prizes, but never made a penny), and reading science fiction (What? That book in your hand is not a business book?).

But let me tell you, I had completely lost all memory of how much pleasure both of these give me. How do you evaluate this pleasure? Don’t know – don’t care. But they give me a deep sense of life being just right.

As I was was falling asleep last night, I had an image of a very tall, dramatic, magician playing to an audience. The magician had our attention riveted on three cards in his hand, Fame, Success, and Money. He grew and grew, and we were all more mesmerised with each passing minute.

Then, (as in all the best Disney movies), a bored child wanders behind the magician’s cloak, and finds everything else – family, hobbies, whimsical pleasures, friends, doing nothing, beer – shoved under a table out of sight.

The child shouts “hey!”, we all look, and the magician’s power is shattered. We take each item in turn from under the table, and admire them with renewed appreciation and deep fondness.

Another stream of thoughts that have been hitting me over the last two weeks are insights into how a lot of common sense is twisted out of context to fit into the new packages of “goal-setting”.

Goal setting is marketed in such a way that we are led to believe that we can ignore all of the small things and ideas in our lives, because if we can just succeed at one or two big things, then everything will work out fine.

But now I think a different model is more relevant. Funnily enough, I probably came across this metaphor in an Anthony Robbins context – but it is one of his less dynamic ones. It is the idea of an oil tanker. These take many miles to turn, but eventually the new direction is attained.

There are important things in our lives that we should be steering in this manner. We are not going to get financial success or the perfect family by way of setting “smart” goals. These things cannot be isolated from the rest of life and worked on separately in the way that, say, a runner’s lap-times can be developed.

Instead, (probably entering Covey territory here) we need to always make sure that we spend good quality time on the important things in our lives. We cannot separate our finances or our relationship with our children from the sea of things that involve us every day, but we can make sure to spend quality time on them regularly so that they end up where we want them.

Once again, thank you David Allen – in GTD, “write a poem” and “buy an investment property” are side by side on my personal projects listing. Each of them has one NA, and I am totally happy to spend a half hour with pen and paper in the evening writing a few lines, or a half hour at my home computer working out a Cashflow to show the bank manager.

There are no massive priorities commandeering my evenings, and having been down both roads, I can testify that this feels a lot more like life should feel.

DFE
 
Jamie

Your story reads so like my experiences: I’m fifty percent astonished, and fifty percent relieved that I was not the only one.

I do notice, however, that you are still using goal-setting terms, for example, “Destiny”. Your ultimate destiny is to die. Our second last destiny is to look back over our lives, and hopefully see that we engaged with as many of the things that came our way as we could – our kid, the summer, other places etc.

You also seem to be reviewing your GTD inventory for achievements. Yes, achievements are nice, but there are a hell of a lot of experiences that are valid, enjoyable, and, I believe, essential, which do not have the word “achievement“ attached to them. A walk on the beach on a quiet afternoon is not an achievement, but try telling me that it is not worthy and valuable, maybe even priceless.

I think a lot of goal-setter gurus try to take the life of a successful individual as a model, and then try to tell us the unique things that that person did which we should be trying to copy.

But are they right? Did these people have passionate desires to succeed against all odds? Did they “know” what they wanted deep in their hearts right form the start? Were they uniquely in touch with their innermost desires?

I would rather ask them these questions than accept the sales pitch of the latest new-kid-on-the-block guru.

I said in one of my posts that I found writing on the thread to be very therapeutic. The great news is that that was just the start of it. All sorts of stupidly buried aspects of me are resurfacing, and claiming their rightful place alongside my working life.

Ok, I am not going to be world class in any of them, nor am I going to make any money form them, but that terrible perception which said that they were pointless because of their lack of financial value has been removed.

It is shocking to realise the extent to which I had devalued the things I love. Everything got trampled into the dirt for the sake of “prioritising my number one goals”. Now I realise that there are so many ways to value things – the world just hasn’t worked out how to measure the values.

For example, two huge favourites of mine were writing poetry (won prizes, but never made a penny), and reading science fiction (What? That book in your hand is not a business book?).

But let me tell you, I had completely lost all memory of how much pleasure both of these give me. How do you evaluate this pleasure? Don’t know – don’t care. But they give me a deep sense of life being just right.

As I was was falling asleep last night, I had an image of a very tall, dramatic, magician playing to an audience. The magician had our attention riveted on three cards in his hand, Fame, Success, and Money. He grew and grew, and we were all more mesmerised with each passing minute.

Then, (as in all the best Disney movies), a bored child wanders behind the magician’s cloak, and finds everything else – family, hobbies, whimsical pleasures, friends, doing nothing, beer – shoved under a table out of sight.

The child shouts “hey!”, we all look, and the magician’s power is shattered. We take each item in turn from under the table, and admire them with renewed appreciation and deep fondness.

Another stream of thoughts that have been hitting me over the last two weeks are insights into how a lot of common sense is twisted out of context to fit into the new packages of “goal-setting”.

Goal setting is marketed in such a way that we are led to believe that we can ignore all of the small things and ideas in our lives, because if we can just succeed at one or two big things, then everything will work out fine.

But now I think a different model is more relevant. Funnily enough, I probably came across this metaphor in an Anthony Robbins context – but it is one of his less dynamic ones. It is the idea of an oil tanker. These take many miles to turn, but eventually the new direction is attained.

There are important things in our lives that we should be steering in this manner. We are not going to get financial success or the perfect family by way of setting “smart” goals. These things cannot be isolated from the rest of life and worked on separately in the way that, say, a runner’s lap-times can be developed.

Instead, (probably entering Covey territory here) we need to always make sure that we spend good quality time on the important things in our lives. We cannot separate our finances or our relationship with our children from the sea of things that involve us every day, but we can make sure to spend quality time on them regularly so that they end up where we want them.

Once again, thank you David Allen – in GTD, “write a poem” and “buy an investment property” are side by side on my personal projects listing. Each of them has one NA, and I am totally happy to spend a half hour with pen and paper in the evening writing a few lines, or a half hour at my home computer working out a Cashflow to show the bank manager.

There are no massive priorities commandeering my evenings, and having been down both roads, I can testify that this feels a lot more like life should feel.

DFE
 
Sorry,

I've no idea why that posted three times, I usually only say things once!

DFE
 
Very nice post!

I think you can delete your extra posts. There should be an X in the upper right corner of your own posts -- I believe that's the delete spot.

Carolyn
 
A lot of people seem kind of torqued that GTD doesn't have a heavy life-goal focus. In one of the GTD books there's an example where, years later, he looks back on a mindmap he made and is suprised how many of the things have materialized - but he didn't actually do a Steven Covey 7 Habits plan to get there.

I'm not sure its valid to look at "Succesfull" people, then build a system around it. The reason is you're telling the story "backwards," e.g., "how did you become so succesful? I set all these goals and got to them."

- My guess is that there are tons of people who also set life goals this way and failed, but you never interview them so you don't notice. They're probably unhappy because they've failed.
- My guess is that the successful people were actually less goal directed at the time than they seemed in retrospect. They probably took advantages of opportunities that they were prepared for, then later when describing it made it seem like a rung in the ladder.
 
Interesting. Brian Tracy writes that he wrote down an income goal for himself when he was a young man. He mislaid and totally forgot about the piece of paper, but came across it some years later and was pleasantly surprised to see that he had achieved or exceeded the amount.

So, if the great Brian Tracy did NOT do all the usual goals-setting stuff - review goals daily, get excited, visualise, mentally rehearse, prioritise ruthlessly, ensure that they conform to the SMART format etc, - and yet still managed to achieve and exceed his goal, then it kinda discredits the whole goal-setter routine doesn’t it?

It actually overwhelmingly proves the contrary – he was going there anyway. Like you said, it is easy to look back and find a grand plan that fits the actual outcomes that occurred, but is this plan REALLY a model for all to follow? Is it a comprehensive explanation of the success of that individual?

If, say, someone made a fortune in Jacuzzis, does that mean they were model goal-setters ... or that they rode the wave of popular demand that surrounded Jacuzzis when they first became widely available?

There are numerous influences on how things work out – economic, biological, sheer chance, etc. To say that goal-setting can take on and defeat ALL of these influences is psychological snake-oil.

I think the “R” in the SMART acronym (“Realistic”) is the most relevant factor – there is no magic-lamp effect. Simply being organised will achieve vastly more that being all fired up. A good dose of self-discipline will get you much farther than looking at pictures of goals, reading lists, or repeating mantras.

DFE
 
I have learned a lot about myself over the past few years by setting the wrong goals. I went about it the right way - I analyzed my values, what I really wanted, what was missing from my life, what my limiting paradigms were, what my dreams and aspirations were, etc. I set the goal, broke it down, and put in the time and effort necessary to complete the steps. And then I found that, as they say, my ladder was leaning against the wrong wall.

Some examples:

I am a writer. I have always been a writer. I have samples of books and parts of books that I wrote as early as age 6. I write for the sheer creative joy of bringing something wonderful and interesting into being that did not exist before. Taking something out of my imagination and making it concrete. Others have asked me before why I do not try to get my work published, and I always said that I write for myself, not for others. Well, in a recent yearly review I decided that if I was happy writing in my spare time, I would be even happier if I could make some money, even a living, doing it. And that if my writing was good and made me happy, I would be even happier if it affected the lives of other people. So I followed the appropriate procedure and set to work getting published. And I found out that I didn't like it. Getting published was hard work and took away the joy of writing. I stopped writing. No fun. I came to the realization that I had no interest in sacrificing my writing to get published. So I stopped working on publishing and went back to writing.

It has been a long-time dream of myself and my husband to work together on a home-based business. I currently work out of the home and he is a stay at home dad. We wanted to be business partners. I wanted to spend more time with my son. I wanted to be closer to home and have the freedom to do what I wanted when I wanted to. We decided a couple of years back that it was time to take some steps towards attaining our dream. I read all of the right books, worked on business plans, cards, letterheads, newsletters, networking, marketing, etc. etc. And I found out a whole bunch of things. I don't like working with my husband. He doesn't do what he's told and has a whole other vision of how things should be done. He doesn't set goals. I was still working outside the home, and trying to "run" a home-based business in my free time. The tension spilled over into our family life. Whenever I tried to do work at home, our son wanted attention and couldn't understand why I was glued to the computer and never had time for him. Didn't everybody understand that this was for them? Our home life was one huge fight. I had no free time. I took a good hard look at what we were doing and made several vital realizations. First, I have a steady paycheck. That goes out the door if I go home, no matter how much building we do before that. I have benefits and insurance. At the end of the work day I can just leave everything behind and go home to my family. I like getting out of the house during the day. I like the work that I do, I find it fulfilling. I like the people I work with and the challenges. I like the clients. I like being away from my family for a while during the day. I had been making myself miserable at work pining for a dream, when I really did like my job. I don't like marketing. I don't like working with my husband. In short, that dream was nothing like reality.

Do I still want those underlying things - more free time, time with my family, etc.? Yes, and I have found ways to achieve those without sacrificing everything else. Do I want to work at home with my husband? Not a chance. Do I still have an interest in getting published? Only if it happens naturally as an outgrowth of what I am doing.

So I made some wrong goals, and I learned a huge amount about what makes me happy and what is important to me by doing so. Putting the ladder against the wrong wall and starting to climb it gave me perspective and helped me to see the wall that I really wanted to put the ladder against. The secret is to *stop climbing* and readjust.

Pam
 
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