The Truth About Goals

Much of what we've been taught about goals is wrong - it's just not true.

And when we work toward goals that matter, and it doesn't pan out, or you run out of steam, or you even get them and end up with no sense of real accomplishment, we're confronted with the truth of flawed goals. Poorly formed goals create empty lives and a series of false summits of achievement.

You deserve good goals. You do the work. You're capable. There's an impact waiting to be made, and it's your impact. You deserve to achieve them, so let's look at how this really works.

There are 3 challenges we have to handle:

1. Pursuing the wrong goals

2. Ill-formed goals

3. How we work them

Pursuing the wrong goals

Who's to say if you're going after the wrong goals? I'm not - that's not for me to say, it's for you to decide. However many of the goals we work toward aren't goals that are going to get us where we want to go.

The problem starts with the question, "What are your goals?" It's like asking someone "What spice do you want to use?" You can't answer it until you know what you're making. How can we identify a goal until we don't know what the desired future state is?

The starting question needs to be more like, "Where are you going? What do you want to see happen one day? What is the future you want"

The fundamental of any goal is Vision. I'm not talking about a dusty plaque on a board room wall somewhere that no one remembers. I'm talking about a future you want to create, one you have to create. A story you want to be able to tell one day. That sense you have of the way things are supposed to be for you. Vision is ultimately a desired future state, and you cannot have meaningful goals until you have some sense of that future.

If you're still working on that, check out this post on What Do You Want. It'll give you a few ideas.

However, if you have some clarity on the future, then work backwards to sort out the steps to get there. What were things like just before you achieved the future you wanted? And what did things have to be like just before that, and just before that. Work your way back to the present and now you'll have a path of the accomplishments and goals that will take you to the future you wanted.

Ill-Formed Goals

The second challenge is creating goals that are structured poorly. There are three dominant ways that goals can be ill-formed:

1. Someone else's goals

The problem with other people's goals is that they are someone else's goals - they aren't yours. If you are pursuing the goals your parents set out for you, they are ill-formed goals. If you are pursuing business goals because you think you're supposed to grow at a specific rate each year, those are ill-formed goals. If you're hiring staff because you think you're supposed to, or moving upmarket because you think you're supposed to, or adding products to your shelf because you think you're supposed to, those are all ill-formed goals because they belong to someone else.

Your goals need to tie to the future you want to create because those are the only ones that will be meaningful, impactful, in exchange and purposeful.

If you're pursuing goals that you didn't set, be very clear that you're achieving goals for someone else; those aren't yours.

2. There is no breakthrough

To really understand Goals, we need to understand where the word came from. The word, Goal, is derived from two Old English words; Gol and Gal.

Gol meant Boundary and Gal meant barrier. The word literally came from the idea that you are overcoming a boundary or breaking through a barrier of some kind. There has to be a breakthrough.

When you sit with that for a minute, and look at your goals, the question that should be in front if you is, "Do any of these goals require a breakthrough in order for me to achieve it?" If the answer is, "No," then those aren't goals. They are To Do's, and I'm guessing you already have enough of those.

Goals are results or milestones that require you to breakthrough to a new level of understanding, or effort, or skill or capability to achieve them.

Here's an easy way to test if something is a goal or not: Can you achieve it being the person you are today, or working the way you work today? If yes, then it's not a goal, just more stuff to do. It might be good stuff. You might get a good result. But don't confuse that with a goal.

Goals require us to become more, to become better than we are today. They demand us to break through some sort of limitation to achieve them, and then they speed us on our way to the future we want, knowing that we just completed something critical and that we're even better prepared for the next challenge that will come.

It's why achieving a real goal feels so rewarding. We are better. We know we're better, and we know we can take on more.

But if there is no breakthrough, it is not a goal.

3. You used SMART goals

The idea of SMART goals and its derivatives are well-known in business and it's seen as a common sense way to approach forming and getting goals.

It's not.

The SMART Goals model was developed in 1981 By George Doran. George was the Director of Corporate Planning for the Washington Water Power Company and didn't like the way managers were creating diffused goals using different formats. He created the SMART goal structure that addresses the now-common criteria of: Specific - Measurable - Achievable - Realistic - Time-related.

(Note: There are several derivations of the SMART acronyms. This is one of the most common and I'm using it for example, rather than defining it as the only model.)

None of these are inherently bad (well, maybe one exception that we'll talk about) and they serve managers in corporations nicely.

However, when an entrepreneur gets involved - especially an advisor - things change. Reading through that list, it's immediately clear that this is not about generating breakthroughs, it's about a shared communication model. If it were about creating transformative breakthroughs, it wouldn't have words like Achievable and Realistic, would it?

Goals, by their very etymology are about the opposite of Achievable and Realistic. They are definitely unrealistic, and should be seen as only distantly achievable,

Breakthroughs, massive growth, elegant simplification, creating a world class team - these are not the products of being realistic. They are the result of unreasonable standards being applied to goals that appear unachievable.

That's why people are so impressed when you achieve them - they didn't look possible.

Working the Goal Framework

There is a structure that all goals demand. If you use it, you get the goal. If you don't, you don't. It's that simple.

The framework is this:

1. What do you want?
2. What does it cost?
3. Pay it.

We've looked at defining and clarifying goals, ensuring there is a breakthrough that causes you to become better in the process. That handles the "What do you want?"

The cost is where it gets interesting.

Cost can be all sorts of things - time, money, attention, relationship, space, and energy are just a few examples.

Anything worth pursuing will have a price tag and demand gritty work that may go on for months or even years.

Interestingly, costs are frequently either over-inflated or under-estimated. The first is often an avoidance mechanism so that we create an escape route to a lesser, more comfortable goal, and the other creates the risk of sabotaging the endeavour by running out of resources before achieving the goal.

Being clear on the costs, and honest with yourself about what you're willing to give (and willing to defend those costs to others) will be central to your success.

Sacrifice is not a fluffy concept. It hurts. It is difficult. It is unforgiving, and it creates a path to a future that matters. Being willing to sacrifice doesn't seem so bad, until you factor in how it will affect others. Will it take away time with family? Will it have you miss your kids' events? Will it having you waking up early or staying up late? Will it keep you from friends, community groups, or other obligations? These are all considerations required to calcluate the costs of your goals.

But will you pay it...

Visioning is good. Thinking is good. Calculating is good. Doing the work - that doesn't usually feel good.

Goals are fragile

Goals die when they aren't connected to a future that matters. In the absence of a vision, a desired future state, many goals aren't worth the suffering. They aren't worth the discipline. They aren't worth the risky conversations, late nights, missed events, creative blocks, funding struggles, teasing friends and peers that just don't understand.

Goals are fragile, unless you bring resolve.

When you have a future in mind that matters, that energizes you, that demands breakthroughs and that will create an impact that's significant and enduring, you will bring the resolve and the effort to pay the price.

Imposing real goals in your life - goals that require a breakthrough and demand you become a better version of yourself to achieve them - creates an undeniable momentum and produces results that few will ever understand.

This is how goals really work.