Goals are for losers! How to win with habits

If you consistently failed achieving goals, this is for you. For all the professional goal chasers, hear me out and judge later.

Goals are a fundamental part of our lives. When I ask my son what he wants to make for a living as grown-up, his answer is: I want to be an explorer digging for dinosaurs bones and lost treasures. This is one type of goal called „approach motivation“  to pursue positive outcomes or experiences. Then there is another side of the goals medal, which most likely all of us already experienced: I have to study hard this weekend so I don’t fail this time at my exam. In this example, the primary motivation is not to achieve a high grade or excel in the subject (which would be approach-motivated), but rather to avoid the negative consequence of failing the exam. This is called „avoidance motivation“, where the focus is on steering clear of an undesirable outcome. 

Demotivating facts about goals

At the end it does not matter which team you belong to. What matters is, that we tend to set ourselves goals in order to reach a dedicated state of approaching or avoiding something we have in mind. 

What both motivations ultimately boil down to is the question: is the goal accomplished? And to me, there is only a binary answer to that – yes or no. Of course you could say „I am half way there“ or „almost accomplished“. But if you look a the to-do list of yours that says „[ ] – laundry“, the answer is either check marked or not. 

So until your goal is reached, you are in a constant state of continuous failure. This might become uncomfortable over time depending on how you designed your goal. The incompleteness of the goal could manifest in an constant reminder of you not being good enough. And exactly this is the problem I have with goal orientation. 

SMART goals ain’t silver bullets either

A this point the more advanced users of goal setting might chime in and state that „[ ] – laundry“ is not a good goal. The golden standard for goals is to define them as SMART. A SMART definition of my previous example „[ ] – laundry“ could be „I will wash, dry, and put away all my clothes that are currently in the laundry basket by 5 PM this Sunday“. The abbreviation SMART goals stand for is the following:

• Specific: Wash, dry, and put away all the clothes in the laundry basket.
• Measurable: All clothes in the laundry basket will be clean and stowed away.
• Achievable: If the washing machine and dryer are working it is a realistic task given.
• Relevant: Keeping clothes clean and organised is important for personal hygiene and maintaining a tidy living space.
• Time-bound: Complete by 5 PM this Sunday.

But even the SMARTest goal won’t make you „immune“ to the following: Once you achieve your goal it is time to celebrate. You feel terrific and enjoy the well earned fruits of accomplishing something – until, inevitably, the novelty wears off. You might start to realise you just lost the one thing that gave you direction. And your gut feeling is telling you that you need to fill this void with another goal. Perhaps a bigger one this time. So you settle for new goals and start a new cycle. This is until you reach a state of your own highest incompetence and get aware of that by missing one goal after the other you set to accomplish. 

And don’t get me started with midlife crisis – if you are not in that position (yet) let me share what it felt for me. I was biased that a fulfilled life is when you have a family, an own house, a career with no financial worries what so ever. This is what I accomplished and I am grateful for everything that brought me here. But the emptiness of not knowing what to settle next was more of a topic for the past few years as I would like to admit and it drew a lot of my energy and attitude. It made me bitter and jealous of friends who had something to pursue.

Systems as alternatives to goals

The underlying principle of setting goals is to have guiding principles to align our behaviour and actions on a day-to-day basis in order to reach a desired state. Goal setting is not the only way to influence our behaviour in a positive streamlined manner. 

„You don’t have the be the most intelligent, but have a plan“ used to be a saying of my grandpa. It took me some time to figure out what exactly he meant with it. 

In short my plan instead of entering the hamster wheel of goal setting is the following: 

1. Have a rough idea about the desired state in a broad context, 
2. Ask yourself daily what to do next, to get closer to this state
3. Plan for it making sure the activation energy is as low as possible 
4. Just do what you planned – no excuses! celebrate every iteration.
5. Reflect if the desired state is still what you want. Proceed with step 2.

Let us take an example of a common new years eave goal: Loose some weight. With a goal oriented approach you would most likely try some diet plans and / or subscribe and go to the gym. 

1. Have a rough idea: In a system based approach you start with a rough idea about the desired state. My rough idea in the context is: be a healthy person. How is the weights of someone who is considered as healthy? It depends! It depends on your age, your medical condition, your environment, latest studies about BMI etc. But health is only one factor. Strength, stamina – there are many factors you could come up with that characterise a healthy person. This may even include your sleep and you might want to consider to stop doom scrolling your social media apps.

2. Reflect what can I do to become a healthy person? You will end up with a long list of ideas. But what is of importance here is what can you do almost immediately. 

• Walk instead of driving
• Skip the sweets
• Subscribe to gym online

In step 3. just do it according to you plan you take it to the next level, so your next best action does not take dust. It is a trick to overcome your weaker self and prepare the task well so you eliminate all room for potential excuses to get started:  

• If you want to walk instead of driving then block your time in your calendar for the next day.
• Skip the sweets and add healthy snacks to your shopping list
• Subscribe to gym online and prep your sports bag and put it in your car already. Or wear your sports shirt under your clothes the next day.

I like to compare this approach with navigation on sight. Think of yourself as a captain that has to navigate ship in unknown seas without any deterministic tools. Because in most of the cases it is similar to any new situation we are in. We know that we want to get somewhere, our desired state, but don’t exactly how. Such a system based approach comes with the benefit, that it puts your actions into a broader context with a real intent. Allowing you to take advantage of any measure that helps to reach the desired state.

Now if you think, that this is only applicable for personal aspirations. I have another comparison for you in the area of Projectmanagement which is the waterfall model and agile methodologies. You will figure out what is goal based and system based once you research it. 

In short: It is about establishing a system of incremental progress – baby steps if you will – towards a rough idea of where or what you want to be. Introducing a level of flexibility towards how to achieve it. It lifts the burden of knowing that you have something unaccomplished yet.

How to transition from traditional goal based approach to a system based approach is a post by itself – I am happy to follow-up on this if you are interested. With this I conclude my last blogpost for 2024. I would love to hear from you. Subscribe to stay with me on these topics. Looking forward for your thoughts on this. 

Conclusion

• Goals in all forms are an orientation of the direction we strive
• Good goals are SMART, but most people are not smart setting their goals.
• Once you acchieved all your goals you might feel a void, that needs to be filled.
• If not achieved, most of us feel miserable – the same is true in the phase until achieve.