How Our Goals May Be Damaging Our Relationships

You may or may not set formal goals for your personal life, but I don’t think anyone would seriously argue that setting and achieving goals is a bad thing.

There is a library’s worth of books on the subject and every organization and most individuals have lists of goals. Everything from annual or quarterly objectives to bucket lists.

If we’re not careful, though, our goals can and will damage our relationships and they will cause the most devastation to those closest to us.

I’m not talking about people who are so driven and power hungry they run right over others without giving it a second thought or use them only to get what they want. We’re talking sociopathic level disregard there and I doubt most people fit into that category.

I’m talking about something far more subtle but equally damaging. I’m talking about death by a thousand cuts.

And it begins with shame at its root.

Many goals we set for ourselves are not based in sincere desire, they are based in shame. When we feel shame, we will often make a vow and that vow informs and motivates our goals. The vow is designed to protect ourselves from the shame we feel.

An example of this will help.

Imagine that your parents had uneventful, unimpressive, unsuccessful careers. Maybe they hated their jobs but didn’t have the confidence or drive or opportunity to pursue anything else. There could be all sorts of reasons why greater levels of success didn’t materialize for them, but what you saw were the effects that lack of success had on them and on you as their child.

At some point you begin to feel ashamed of your parents. You might not call it that, you may not even be fully aware of it, but you feel it and it does have an impact.

To cover that shame, you make a vow: “I will be successful. I will have a job I love, and I will be respected as an expert in my field. I will make X number of dollars a year and give my kids everything I never had.”

That vow will determine the goals that you set from then on. It will impact your decisions on what school you go to, what field of study you pursue, what career you choose, where you live, how you spend your time and your money, how you dress and a lot more.

That doesn’t sound horrible, but here is where it turns nasty.

If my goals are fueled by a vow I made to escape shame, then the people in my life occupy one of two categories: they are obstacles or they are assets. They are either helping me cover my shame or they are uncovering and revealing it. And no one likes that.

My ability to love them and serve them can become compromised, maybe even blocked completely.

Another example: Imagine you made a vow to be a success because your parents weren’t, and you have an opportunity to take a lucrative job with a flashy title and all the respect, admiration and goodies that go along with that. The problem is, you have to move to a new city in a new state and your spouse and kids make it absolutely clear that a move is not an option for them.

Your spouse and kids are now obstacles. You may not call them that, but that is the lens you will use. They have become the reason you cannot fulfill your vow. It is now their fault that you cannot escape your shame. They are going to make you just like your parents. And in your mind, they must fix that. You will try to hold them responsible for how you feel about yourself.

That is most certainly going to impact your ability to love and serve them in healthy ways. You will start to treat them as a source of your shame and demand in subtle and direct ways that they change so that you don’t have to feel ashamed anymore.

But what happens if I have a goal to be successful in my career because I have a sincere desire to serve others. What if I want to do great work so that I can enrich the lives of other people?

Then when I have that opportunity for a promotion and my family says no way because they don’t want to move, I may be disappointed, but I can still love and serve my family regardless of my disappointment. They are not obstacles to my success because there is no vow trying to cover my shame, only that sincere desire to be successful and do good work so I can serve and enrich others.

This can be applied to any goal we have, including that 100-item bucket list that makes us feel nothing but guilt because we only have three goals checked off.

Remember, it's all about the root. The root creates the fruit.

Our reactions to obstacles and opportunities will tell us a lot about the root of our goals. Is it sincere desire, or is it shame?

It’s important to recognize which one it is. Our relationships depend on it.