9. Why Your Goals Are Keeping You Stagnant (And Sad, Too)

Becoming Ourselves

Even the most common goal frameworks: SMART goals and BHAGs aren't helping us. They're tools that are used widely beyond their purpose, and it's not helping us. Why?

Goals (and desires) are a contract you make with yourself. The terms? To be unhappy until the goal is achieved. Be careful the goals you set and the desires you let yourself have.

What's the alternative? Systems and values.

Values examples

Values is the difference between “I’m going to lose 10 pounds” versus “I’m going to take care of my body”

Systems are the shift from “I’m going to lose 10 pounds,” to “I’m going to exercise 3 days/week” or even to “I’m going to put on exercise clothes and go outside 3 days/week” knowing that by that point, you’ll be 90% there and fall into the exercise.

The point is to adjust your default state. With goals, (even BHAGs and SMART goals), you’re setting yourself in a default state of incompletion, a default state of “falling short,” until finally, you do reach your goal, you get that quick dopamine hit, and now you move on to your next goal and reset to your default state of “falling short”

Goal-setting is like climbing a staircase, where the accomplished goal is at the top of the staircase. But while climbing the stairs, each step is one step closer to the goal, yes. It’s also reinforcing that you’re *not at* the goal. It’s one step more that reminds you that you haven’t achieved it.

When you do finally get to the top of the staircase, you don’t get to stay there. Mentally, and emotionally, we don’t sit on the top of the staircase. We’re not wired that way. Instead, we find ourselves at the bottom step of a new staircase, a new goal. The euphoria of accomplishment lasts for only a few days, or maybe a few hours…

With a values/systems approach, each step you take on the staircase, you get to reinforce your identity as someone who’s living out that value.

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