Brain Food #812: The problem with goals
What are you oblivious to?
Thoughts of the day
Goals are important. They help align teams, and provide clarity, and even motivation, both on the individual and the collective level. They provide a sense of purpose when pursued, a sense of fulfillment when met. A goal sets the direction for the course of our lives. A person without goals will be seen as aimless.
And yet, goals tend to be set for what we do not yet possess, or know. Reaching a goal is not a guarantee of happiness. Like explorers looking for a new continent, or travellers seeking a new experience, we cannot ever truly know what to expect when we get there. As Milan Kundera suggests, the true nature of our goals tends to be hidden from us:
“The goals we pursue are always veiled. A girl who longs for marriage longs for something she knows nothing about.
The boy who hankers after fame has no idea what fame is. The thing that gives our every move its meaning is always totally unknown to us.”
While writing Monday’s post, I thought about the things we can be oblivious to. Reviewing how things went according to goals can make us blind to other achievements, that we didn’t set goals against, or areas of life that we didn’t expect much from, but that demanded our energy and attention. This is why it helps to have a large Luck Surface Area.
And if you are looking for an alternative to goals, identifying your values and living by them can also make life fulfilling. Living life according to goals pushes you towards events that may feel momentarily rewarding, but then it all fades. Living by your values is ongoing. It feeds itself.
You may not always know what you want, or what you are here to do, but it helps to know what you believe in.
In the 1930s, a product called Kutol was launched to clean walls from the black residue left by coal heaters. As oil and gas heating started becoming more popular, Kutol sales declined. The company found a surprising new purpose for its product through a schoolteacher, who was using it in arts and crafts classes. And so, Play-Doh was born.
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