3 / Will your 2021 goals make you unhappy?
Daniel Wirtz
Better Meetings, Better Work ― Follow me for ideas and strategies to help you thrive at work, one meeting at a time.
Happy new year! I hope you had a lovely time celebrating the transition into the new year. Even though Omicron seems to be creeping up to us from all sides.
If you are anything like me, then a new year means new opportunities to grow as a person by setting yourself new goals. But over the last two years, I have been growing cautious with setting ambitious goals for myself.
From my experience setting goals is a double-edged sword. On the one side, it’s great because it pushes you to achieve things that are meaningful to you. On the other side, the moment you set a goal in front of yourself you basically decide that who you are and what you have right now isn’t enough. And this can be a source of unhappiness. Even though you could be doing perfectly well.
Alan Watts also captured the same problem in?this famous recordingfrom one of his talks:
“There is no use in planning for a future, which when you get to it and it becomes the present you won’t be there. You’ll be living in some other future which hasn’t yet arrived.”
At this point, you might agree that one has to be careful with setting goals. But how then should we look ahead? Especially into a new year?
One mindset, I found very helpful is “Measure the gain, not the gap”. Which goes back to?this book?from Dan Sullivan.
Measuring the gap?means looking and focusing on the difference between where you are now and where you want to be. Or to compare yourself to other people.
Measuring the gain?means focusing on what you already achieved and looking for ways to build on top of that.
This simple shift in perspective allows us to recognize the progress we already made. And as a consequence, we naturally feel motivated and inspired to grow further. For the new year, I try to use this mindset.
?? Bookmarks
If you haven’t heard about mimetic theory, this is a must-read. Mimetic theory helps to understand where some of our desires come from and can also be applied in an organizational context.
领英推荐
If you are looking for a great Annual Review template, check out this Google Docs. It’s very extensive, but can be worth it if you really want to clear the clutter and get clarity on your goals.
I saw this app recommend on Twitter to better control your screen time. I’m horrible at this, so I will try my luck with this app and see how it will go.
On Reddit, they always compile “a list of lists” from all the websites that curate their top books of the year. Very helpful if you are looking for new reading material.
Favorite find of the week
This is one of my favorite illustrations. We often worry about decisions in the past and who we could have become. (black lines) And at the same time, we often forget that everything is still in our hands (green lines)
Source:?Tim Urban
Take care,
Daniel