Goals Hurt
Tags: mentoring, career, management
Published: 2023-08-09 17:05:32



I was recently listening to a podcast where the speaker was someone being introduced as very successful. By many metrics they were. They had lots of money, C-level at a respected company, had competed in world cups and been nationally ranked in a number of diverse sports. Yes, they had accomplished lots. As they were sharing their thoughts on how to succeed, one of their primary thesis was to set big audacious personal goals. Don't set a goal of being worth 1 Million, set a goal of personally being worth 100 Million (or maybe even a billion). The reason for a very hard goal (they said) is that if you set an easier personal goal, then when you achieve it you'll be lost. Cast adrift. Have nothing to work for. You'll have to spend time finding a new goal and you may find that you've "wasted" your time on your old goal as it doesn't lead directly to the new one.

I could not relate to this way of thinking. I have no problem finding valuable things to do without audacious goals and by many measures I view myself as successful. Further, I do not believe that formally setting goals has contributed to my success. In fact, as you read further, you'll see that I believe formal goal setting to be more of a hindrance than a benefit for me.

We're constantly hearing from "successful" people that they owe their success in large part to setting goals. That the goals gave them the drive to persevere. To push through obstacles and make those goals a reality. I'm sure they believe that. I'm not sure it is a universal constant. Or that it is the one-true-way to success.

The belief that setting personal goals leads to success is so pervasive that it has taken on the status of a law of nature. Set big goals. Drive to achieve them. Profit. Many companies see personal goal setting as a critical part of career development and the road to producing high-performing individuals. Everyone is tasked with creating goals for themselves and then measured on how well they achieve those goals.

This is such a universal belief that it is only now, after almost three decades of professional life, that I've finally developed the confidence and courage to say that goals don't work for me. For most of my career, I've figured something must be wrong with me. Everyone says set goals and win. I set goals and could care less about them. The presence of a goal does almost nothing to push me along. And if I have been forced to set a big goal and don't achieve it, I feel demotivated. But not demotivated in a way that makes me want to try and achieve my next goal. Demotivated in a way that makes me want to simply give up.

Let's be clear on one thing here. I'm talking about personal goals. And also mostly the bigger goals (anything with a timespan larger than a month). I do set small goals, but not as a "forcing function", but rather as a prioritization tool. I also see team goals differently. Setting reasonable goals for a team is valuable. It helps ensure the team is moving in the same direction. It likely is helping team's prioritize, much as small personal goals help me.

As I've said, I do set little goals for the day or weekend or maybe week (a month on the extreme outside). That does help me prioritize what to do, but it doesn't drive me to do anything. And if I don't achieve my daily goal, I'm OK with that. As long as I'm happy with how I spent my time, then I'm good. Maybe that is the one goal that works for me. Be sure I'm happy with where I put my energies for that period of time. At work, this means I'm happy when I'm confident that what I did helped Jobber and was among the most important things I could be doing at that time.

On the weekend, being happy with how I spent my time could mean that I'm happy I spent a bunch of hours in front of the TV or video game. Or maybe I'm happy having done some woodworking project. Or I created an awesome Sunday meal. Or maybe I did spend the weekend diving into some new learning that will help my career. Clearly, I'm not a driven person. The journey is at least as important as the destination.

I remember the first time I worked somewhere that asked me to set career goals. I'd never done it before and was happy with where I was in my career, but set the goal anyway. Then a year later I hadn't achieved the goals I'd set. Boy did I not like that. But as I said above, it didn't motivate me to change anything. It just made me question if I wanted to stay at the company that was forcing me to set goals. It was already clear to me then that setting goals was not helping me achieve in any way and in fact was just making me less happy with life.

I suspect we hear about this path to success a disproportionate amount of time. It seems far less motivational to hear from those who "just fell into something". That doesn't provide for any life hacks to take. Setting goals is something anyone can do. Getting lucky isn't. So we hear from those who have a "solution" we all can do. The simple advice to riches draws attention. It promises a quick fix. Who doesn't want a quick fix that will put them on magazine covers.

I believe now that in many cases those who credit setting goals as the driver to their success succeeded not because they set goals, but that they have a "goal driven" personality. They are ready to put everything else aside to "succeed". Setting goals isn't changing their approach to life. Their approach to life includes setting goals.

There are others, like me, who are happy to let life take us where it will. Where setting goals is contradictory to what wakes us up in the morning. Where defining a goal is hard and caring about that goal is even harder. For us, when the company says "create goals" we grumble and do it because we have to, but we don't like it. And it doesn't help us to succeed. If anything, when we review the goals, we're irritated and stressed that they are there and want to find a safe place where we can grow without having decided how we will grow in advance.

I'm now a Distinguished Software Engineer. I think I can point to that as evidence that I've "succeeded" as a developer. Can I credit goal setting for getting here? Absolutely not. In fact I had to fight through hating the goal setting process to continue on as a developer. The temptation to find someplace safe without goals has always been strong.

You may have noticed that I put "succeed" in quotes everywhere. That is because in too many cases when I see someone has "succeeded", it is in one facet of their life at the expense of some other. Even I did that above where I tied my title to being a signifier of success. Often money/career is viewed as success. Family/friends don't even enter the conversation.

I confidently say I've succeeded without the quotes. I may not have Elon Musk levels of money, but I get by. I may not have huge followers on some social network, but I have solid friends. And I have a solid family. Everything in balance. I'm happy. At least until the next time I'm asked to set a personal goal.

So who's with me? Are goals essential for success? Do they help or hinder you?

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