Goals: What Are They Good For?

by Joan Friedlander

It's goal setting season again. It's normal; we are inclined to see the New Year as the possibility of a fresh start, a time for renewal, recommitment and growth. If the previous year was not all that fun, we look to the coming year as one in which life could be different, better.

Goals, I've noticed, are receiving mixed reviews.

• Do they support you or limit you?
• Do the true winners in life set goals, leaving the rest behind in the dust?
• Without S.M.A.R.T. goals can you really succeed?

Consider these two divergent comments:

“All successful people have a goal. No one can get anywhere unless he knows where he wants to go and what he wants to be or do.” – Norman Vincent Peale

"Is it possible that for some people setting goals not only doesn't work, but can be harmful and counter productive?" questions Tim Brownson in his recent post, "Is Goal Setting Harmful?"

Brownson is not the first to question their value. Robert Scheinfeld, author of "Busting Loose from the Business Game," dismantles the usefulness of goals in living "the dream" through a wildly mind-altering life paradigm.

Since goals are the hot business topic of the month I thought it worth exploring them here as you are likely to be working on your own right now, or soon enough.

What Are They Good For?

Goals can give you focus and purpose or they can strangle you with rigidity. The difference seems to reside in the goals you design and in your response to them as life unfolds before you.

1. Goals can help you clarify your thoughts about what you are motivated to accomplish in the coming months or year(s).

2. They can give you a way to bring focus to your activities, to filter out what might distract you from that which you've deemed most important.

3. They can help you measure your progress against your objectives in order to adjust either your actions or your goals.

It's this third that seems to create the most difficulty. What if you're doing everything "right" but the goal is somehow wrong? What if you're doing everything right only to discover you don't want that thing at all, or it doesn't fit you as well as you thought it would? What if, while in the pursuit of your goals you don't even notice an opportunity that might have taken you on the most incredible journey of your life?

Goals Gone Awry

A client brought Brownson's article (Is Goal Setting Harmful?) to my attention. It struck a cord with him. He admitted that the achievement of many of his goals brings him no satisfaction whatsoever. What's most interesting about my client is how good he has become about setting goals and establishing detailed procedures that puts the achievement of those goals more squarely in his hands. Now, recognizing how much he has disliked what he has been doing of late to achieve his new business goals, he has declared the present a goal-free zone.

How refreshing. For the first time in many years he is not driven by the need to control outcomes, but is instead thinking about which forms of business marketing will be most interesting and fun for him. In other words, for the time being anyway, it's not about the end-result but about the journey.

A friend recently commented on the futility of goals in the face of real life events, the ones that alter the course of your life on the way to achieving your goals. He mentioned his open heart surgery, certainly never a life goal for him, yet a life event that significantly impacted him. Clearly, some of our most important life experiences just don't come through the pursuit - or achievement - of our goals.

Goals: What Are They Good For?

In truth, I do think there is value in setting goals, per benefits 1 (clarity) and 2 (focus) mentioned at the beginning of this article. The act of setting goals can help you understand what you want for yourself and your business in the near future, and they can most certainly help you organize your actions around said goals.

I still work with all my clients on setting objectives for the coming year, using the Simple Yearly Planning Worksheet in my Dare to Plan Kit. It does give them an opportunity to clarify what they want and the focus they desire. What's more, if the goals they've set are good goals for them then the strategies they outline are also likely to be fun to implement along the way. At the same time, I explain that this is just a plan. A quarterly review of their goals and the strategic plan allows for the life events that cannot be anticipated, and the discard of goals that no longer fit.

Ultimately, I feel that goals only serve you as long as they don't bind you to objectives that no longer fit or rob you of fun in the journey, or cause you to judge yourself as a failure when they're not reached.

What is put down on paper always exists in a vacuum. Life is a dance lived in the moment.

 

by Joan Friedlander, © 2010. All rights reserved.