I Think I Hate Goals | Stop Feeling Like a Failure!
Bold stance, I know, but I’m going to stand by it.
Goals have taken the lead in the productivity industry with their cute little acronyms and quotes from influencers that they have on the payroll. Here’s the thing though, I’m not convinced that goals are all they’ve made themselves out to be. I’ve set and broken more goals than I can begin to place a number on, and with each abandoned goal it becomes easier and easier to abandon the next one. Not the best approach to building the life and lifestyle of your dreams, is it?
On the other hand, I’m finding that properly established routines or systems are the way to actually make legitimate progress on what you want to accomplish. Systems also have the added benefit of working for intangible desires, but we’ll get into that a bit later.
How Goals Fail Us
There are quite a few ways that goals actually work against a current state of accomplishment and fulfillment. This is my primary gripe with goals and why I firmly believe that a systems based approach to life is much more effective for building a life worth living.
Success is Future-Based
Let’s start with the fact that, when you set a “SMART” goal, your success is immediately postponed until some future date when the conditions of your smart goal are finally met.
Between now and that point, you’ve strapped yourself into an emotional roller coaster that you’ve self-imposed upon your happiness. Immediately, everything you do is based on that future finish line. This almost invariably leads to a life that’s defined by the goal - happiness is only acceptable as long as you feel the goal is within your reach, but it’s always probationary happiness that can be revoked at the first setback or minor failure.
For instance, I’ve wanted to lose weight (and worked to do so) for the past decade and a half of my life. Have I set goals for this? You betcha! I’ve worked hard to meet those goals, compared my current state to the future state I desire, fought, fallen, felt guilty about falling, quit, felt guilty about quitting, been mad about myself for feeling guilty about quitting and then been annoyed about it all and thrown in the towel on the goal because it’s three weeks away and I have 98% of the progress yet to make. That’s failure on several levels and throughout the whole “goal period,” I’ve experienced self-loathing, frustration, and all sorts of unhealthy mental health breakdowns that I’ve kept myself so I don’t ruin anyone else’s day.
Sound familiar?
When we willingly allow some future desired state to take our happiness, fulfillment, and current mental state hostage, we’re setting ourselves up for the emotional roller coaster from Hell.
Is that really a great way to live?
Success is Temporary
In addition to the necessary futuristic character of goals, we have to deal with the fleeting nature of goal-induced success. Let’s say you set a goal and work to pull it off successfully. You feel euphoric, accomplished, and happy. The relative difficulty and complexity of your goal seems to determine the length of time that you experience the joy of accomplishment, but eventually one of two things will happen.
You have to start over…
You feel lost…unmoored…
Eventually, that feeling of accomplishment will fade in the face of your new reality and now you have to determine your next steps. Are you going to just float through life from now on or are you going to subject yourself to another/more goals and restart the cycle of failure and mental/emotional turmoil?
Um, I’ll pass thanks!
The other option is to just float through life without clear direction - feeling lost, distracted, numb, and lacking the fulfillment and happiness that you deserve.
Systems Are Better Than Goals
What if, instead of the frustrations and pitfalls I’ve described about goals, you could instead feel accomplishment and fulfillment each day while working toward your desired future reality? How different would your mindset and happiness levels be?
Systems are the answer to that…systems and a bit of a mindset shift.
Today, I’ll focus on the systems implementation and then discuss the mindset shift in a future article. Here’s what I mean by systems - simple, practical, intentional daily actions completed with an end result in mind. In a nutshell, the goal is to create a daily system that takes into account all of your future plans. If you complete your daily tasks correctly, you’re one day closer to achieving that desired future state you determined. If you mess up something today, it’s all good because you get back on it tomorrow and ensure that you don’t fall tomorrow too.
The beauty of this approach is that it takes the happiness and fulfillment that goals promise as some future possibility and injects them directly into today…multiple times! Are you able to check off three systems as completed today? Boom through shots of accomplishment coming right up!
Add to this the fact that you can implement systems for traits that aren’t quantifiably “measurable” makes it even better. Want to improve your reputation in a certain area? You can make it happen. Want to get better at anything from casual conversations to writing to (insert your own intangible traits here)? Yup, it’s possible.
How to Build Your Own Systems
So! As exciting as all that is, the obvious question is, “HOW!!?!”
I’m glad you asked.
At the beginning, putting together systems might look much like putting together goals. Make a list of the accomplishments - tangible and intangible - that you’d like to achieve. Dream big and dream wild! Want to be known for dressing well? Write it down. Want to achieve a certain income level? Write it down.
Literally write down anything and everything that you want to accomplish in life…and not just the stuff you tell people. Go ahead and write down the stuff that you’ve never been brave enough to tell anyone.
After you’ve taken the time to write down your DFS (desire future state(s)), it’s time to start breaking those down further.
Let’s work through an example DFS that I have. By my 40th birthday, I would like to have a book published. (Big reveal, right?!? I’ve literally only told two people before you…you should feel special!) In order to have a book published, there are quite a few things that have to occur, but I’ll focus on the most obvious, actually writing it.
Knowing that most best-selling nonfiction books are somewhere in the range of 50,000-75,000 words, I have a range to shoot for. Rather than attempting to sit down and blaze through all those words in a short time, my system is to write foundational pieces of the book once or twice per week for the next several months before compiling my thoughts, adding qualified research, and polishing it to submit to publishers.
This approach is taking that massive, scary goal and creating attainable, practical steps to completion. One article done? I’m happy, excited, and ready for the next!
Another easy example is weight loss…one I’ve mentioned that I’ve failed more times than I can count. Rather than hanging all of my happiness, hopes, and dreams on some future state of being where I finally see “that number” on the scale, my approach is systematic. Each day is determined to be a win or a loss based on whether or not I successfully completed the system: 1) time-restricted eating, 2) carb conscious, 3) whole foods. This gives me a win every day that I’m successful and a “do-over” tomorrow for every time I’m not.
It’s about focusing on the small things consistently and with great purpose and intention knowing that, in doing so, the big things MUST come as a result.
Now, it’s your turn! What items are you hoping to accomplish? What’s your DFS?
Make your list. Break it down. And start making progress TOMORROW!