We live in a goal-driven society. Everyone has vision boards and KPI matrices…we set goals for New Year’s resolutions, work goals, life goals. The list is endless.
In fact, audible gasps can be heard if one dares utter “I don’t really have any goals.” Pearls are clutched, children weep…entire civilizations crumble.
Dramatics aside, can goal-setting create negative consequences?
My suggestion…yes.
Once upon a time, I landed a job with my college newspaper selling ads. It was great beer money…and I met some wonderful people. People I still consider ‘friend’ to this day. In fact, anytime I find myself at Mizzou, I hunt out my former boss (and friend) to catch up.
The business school at Mizzou did a wonderful job bringing in companies from all over the globe for students to engage in and learn about during my senior year. There were opportunities to have resumes vetted, mock-interviews and career fairs. A chance to talk with companies that I had never heard of before and learn about all the great opportunities that existed with them.
And I engaged in none of them.
Not a one. Why?
Goals.
I set myself a goal: Land a job with my local newspaper selling ads. That’s where my focus and energy went to. And I accomplished the goal.
I also completely regret it.
You see, there’s a reason that goals are not written on stone tablets. Goals are meant to be malleable. It’s OK to change a goal…or completely abandon it if it no longer fits your vantage point or your path.
Yet we are terrified of abandoning goals. It feels like failure. "What will people think if I stop chasing this goal?" So we pursue paths that no longer serve us. I think of all the lost opportunities because of the blinders my goal put on me at Mizzou.
It’s hard for me to think about.
There’s a quote I learned in high school but it took me many, many years to fully appreciate the lesson:
Be willing at anytime to give up what you are for what you can become.
I used to believe that what I was had to be unchanging; that to “change” was weak or waffling even “flip-flopping.”
How naïve.
Growth is a natural part of life. If you are the same as you were twenty years ago…you wasted twenty years. Staying hyper-focused on goals, especially those that no longer serve you isn’t heroic. It’s myopic. Narrow-minded. Stubborn.
We live in a society today that punishes people for changing their minds when new information is received and processed. They get labeled “flip-floppers” or wishy-washy…again, idiotic.
Goals are well and fine if we don’t allow them to blind us to other paths and other possibilities. Where goals derail us is when they act as blinders to new ways of thinking.
Set goals, sure. But stay open. Stay curious. It’s not flip-flopping to abandon old thinking that doesn’t serve you and your journey anymore. It’s not failure to walk away from a path that is no longer yours to walk.
Define your goals, don't let your goals define you.
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