Goals. We talk about setting them a lot. I mean, in this industry — the social business one — and in life, goals are where it’s at. You can’t achieve anything without them, and you shouldn’t try.
And yet, it seems near impossible to actually set a goal and achieve what we’re after. I have a couple theories about why this is the case.
1. Setting goals and mapping a path to get you from baseline to your goal is so much simpler than we’re apt to believe. It’s like 3rd-grade math. It’s so simple that now, when our lives have become so “complex”, we can’t comprehend the simplicity and thus…make it harder and screw it up, brazenly stomping our complicated way far past the incredibly easy process of picking something we want to achieve, setting out the steps to achieve it, and doing it.
So there’s that. The simplicity. There’s also the indecisiveness.
2. Goals are essentially decisions you/your boss/the big guys make as to what’s important in both the short- and long-term. While there’s a good chance we’re not saving lives here, the weight of decision-making can be a hefty one when all you want and hope for is that the decision you make is the right one and that it makes something — be it your life or a business — better. To add to it, decisions are hard to make when the world around us is constantly changing. By the time we get around to picking our path and our goals, we’re not totally sure they’re even reasonable anymore. Does that approach still align with what I am/we are working toward?
And really, what’s the end goal of it all? What’s the definition of “being better”? What the hell are we trying to get out of this whole life/career thing?
That’s where we get stuck. When you boil it down, goals can be hard to set because the end goal — the goal we’ve hoped to achieve by our very last breath — is anomalous and vague. It’s spiritual, not tangible. It’s unknown, because we don’t really know what’s next. What’s next is always in flux. And, things that are in flux are tricky for us to grab a hold of, so goal setting must be frequent and adaptable, and somehow have an eye on the end.
Tall order.
There’s a good chance I started off small and went really big with these thoughts. I just find it intriguing that there’s so much literature available about how to set goals and what you need to do to achieve them, and yet so many of us still seem to be fumbling around like a bunch of blind lab rats. That lab rats image made me really sad, so I’ll stop there.
Why do you think so many people struggle to set and achieve goals (business and otherwise)? Are you a goal setting type of person? What have you learned from the process of trying or succeeding at setting goals for your life and career?
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