Don’t Set Your Goals in Stone — Mold Them Like Clay

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As many of us are either returning from, or preparing for, summer holidays, it is a good time to unplug and reflect on our goals. A popular analogy compares our goals to rocks in a jar: put the big rocks (your most valued goals) in the jar first, or else the smaller (less important) rocks will take up all the space. But goals aren’t rocks; in fact, they’re more like balls of soft clay that require molding as much as prioritizing. To better mold your goals to your stage in life and what’s important to you, the authors of today’s article encourage you to work through a four-step process that breaks your goals into values and definitions of success. The flexibility this molding facilitates will not only help you understand what’s really important to you but will allow you to change and adjust your goals over time.

So, today's article,?Don’t Set Your Goals in Stone — Mold Them Like Clay , is focused on moving away from this fixed mindset to a more flexible one which allows for molding and frees us up to continue to accept inputs more easily.

Identify the values that underpin your goals.

To get at what really matters, you need to move beyond specific goals and focus on values, which are important, high-level goals. However, when you think about the nature of a good life, values are important. The authors’ research has led them to a theory that makes values absolutely central. According to Value Fulfillment Theory , an empirically updated version of a long-standing popular theory in philosophy, a well-lived life is one in which you fulfill or uphold your important values. So, to live well, first ask yourself, “What values do I have?”

To start, one helpful exercise is to relax in whatever way works best for you and then look back at your life to find the times when you felt the best. Ask yourself what you were doing at that time and who were you with? If all those times involve running races, for example, competition may be a value for you. If those times are spread evenly between challenging yourself at work and spending time with your kids, you may value work, family, and balance.

Define success for each value.

Once you’ve identified a handful of key values, ask, “What defines success for each value? What do these values mean to me, specifically?” Some definitions of success are concrete and easy to articulate — for example, achieving a specific promotion or salary in a certain time frame. Others may be hard to pin down precisely, like cultivating an audience, making an impact, or being a good parent or friend. To better refine these, consider who you admire or envy and ask yourself: What are they achieving or experiencing that I see as genuinely worthwhile and wish I could also experience? By determining what matters to you, you can better position yourself to understand how to mold your values depending on what will work for you at a given stage in life.

Evaluate your definitions of success.

Once you have identified the definitions that are guiding your sense of success, the next step is to consider whether those definitions are appropriate for you at this moment in time. You can do this by identifying definitions that don’t serve your values or fit well with your personality or circumstances, in three key ways.

First, ask: What is the source of each definition? To what extent is it motivated by external expectations or norms? Often, the definitions of success we use are dictated by cultural or industry norms; they aren’t necessarily definitions that we chose because they are good for us or fit our values. We may have unreflectively absorbed some of them from external sources such as organizational, industry, or cultural norms, or family expectations.

Second, you can examine how your definitions fit your personality. So, changing your definitions so they fit who you are and what you really enjoy not only helps fit your values together, it also makes you more likely to succeed on your own terms.

Finally, your definitions can also be a bad fit with the period of life you’re in. If you value parenting, the needs of your children at different ages may change the shape of what good parenting means. If you really value getting to the top of a particular career ladder, there will be a certain period of your life in which other non-career values will have to bend to fit. Importantly, you should not see these accommodations as permanent. Values can shrink or stretch at different stages of life as your circumstances change. Understanding this flexibility and developing a regular habit of reflection can help you see where your values need to change shape yet again.

Improve your definitions.

Improving your definitions is how you shape the clay – this is the way you change the shape of your values to reduce conflict. Once you see how you define success and how these definitions connect (or don’t) to who you are and what you really care about, you can think about whether it’s possible to change them. Ask: Are there different ways you could think about your definitions of success that are more achievable and more compatible with your values, your circumstances, and your personality? For example, reflecting on different ways you could achieve meaningful professional contributions, you may be able to identify criteria other than the ones promoted by our culture (making money, getting promoted).

Thinking of goals as rocks leads to rigid thinking. The metaphor of molding clay highlights our agency, our flexible brains, and the possibilities for change. As Chinese philosopher Lao Tzu is quoted as saying, “Your life is a piece of clay; don’t let anyone else mold it for you.”

Stay on the beat with me and have an amazing start to your week ?

Yours,

Mark

Source

Kuykendall, L.; Tiberius. V (24 July 2024). Don’t Set Your Goals in Stone — Mold Them Like Clay. Harvard Business Review. https://hbr.org/2024/07/dont-set-your-goals-in-stone-mold-them-like-clay

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