I know, I know… goals are important. They give us a sense of accomplishment and growth. They help us move our lives forward and give us something to strive for. We’re proud of the goals we’ve achieved!
Got it. Still not a huge fan, to be honest. I mean, they’re OK.
Here’s the thing. I’ve spent most of my life in the management/leadership development space, and I’ve taught and attended more than my fair share of performance management and goal setting workshops. My executive coaching clients have all been prolific goal achievers. I’ve written training programs on goal setting, and I’ve personally set hundreds of goals, if not thousands. And by most measures, I’ve been fortunate to accomplish quite a lot, and I’ve got a great life to show for it.
So… what’s my problem?
In my experience, there are few goals that advance joy.
Here’s how it usually works: We’re at Point A (the real) and we want to get to Point B (the ideal). And if we’re classically trained in goal achievement, we zero in on that goal — that we made up for ourselves — and we work hard and let nothing distract us until we hit it. And then, there’s a fleeting moment of celebration. Celebration because we hit the goal, and fleeting because now we’re making up a new one. And for many goal-junkies, they can’t be really satisfied until they reach their goal. Every day is a shade of failure until the goal is attained. And then they start all over again.
This is the plight of many of my high achieving coaching clients. They’ve generally had enormous success, and achieved goal after goal after goal, and yet they can find themselves in a place where they lack joy, peace of mind, clarity on where to go next, fulfillment, or some combination of the above.
Why didn’t achieving all these goals help?
Because few goals advance joy, peace, and fulfillment. If we are looking for joy tomorrow, and we are overlooking today, we will not find joy. Because the notion that joy is something to be achieved at some point in the fictitious future is just that: fiction. If you cannot find joy today, you cannot find it tomorrow. If it is tied to the achievement of a goal, and not in the moments that fill our days, we are mistakenly looking in the wrong place. The seemingly insignificant moments that make up the whole of our existence is where we must look.
If we are looking for joy tomorrow, and we are overlooking today, we will not find joy.
Further, we must look only in those places we can control. I mean really control. The moment our mind begins fretting about how other people are behaving, what they are doing or not doing, or if the weather matches our plans or if the politicians are screwing up or our friend un-friended us, we’ve forfeited our chance for joy. Eckhart Tolle suggests that we perceive the current moment — now — without any additional narrative or stories in our heads about what is happening now, and see what we’re left with. Much easier to find joy here.
I prefer to think in terms of directions rather than goals. If I am in Atlanta and I want to go to Phoenix (my goal), I could choose the exact route, number of stops, and time required. And if everything else in the world goes as planned (meaning no COVID-19, no breakdowns, no severe weather events, no nothin’) then maybe I’ll get to Phoenix just as I planned following the specific road I chose. But what if that’s not what happens? What if the world changes around me? If arrival in Phoenix is my hope of happiness, I’m in trouble.
Using this example, I would rather focus on two questions that I can check-in with every day: 1) Am I heading west? and 2) Am I making making progress? If no, I can take steps to fix that. If yes, I can keep going. And I celebrate my progress along the way. I’m focusing on my momentum rather than my route. And it gives me a reason to see that I’m winning the entire time. According to the Gallup organization, the number one factor in predicting employee engagement is whether a person feels like they are part of a team that is winning. When someone is winning, they’re far more engaged in what they’re doing (their life, their work, and so on). Being able to celebrate the here and now, without hinging our joy on a fictitious future, is a way to begin winning sooner. We become more active, engaged players in our own lives, and we come to understand that one day we will pass Phoenix and it will just be a Tuesday, and our momentum will continue carrying us onward in the direction of our choosing.
And we haven’t forfeited joy along the way.
Look, if goals are working for you, by all means keep going for it. But if you find that you’re perpetually disappointed, or your goals aren’t fostering fulfillment in your life, maybe try a different way and see what happens.