I was reflecting on some of the goals I’ve set for myself. It used to be difficult to set goals before. I had done that in the past but usually when I did, I failed. In retrospect I’ve realized that setting a goal is one thing, and having a plan or a system in place to reach that goal is another. So now not only am I setting goals, but I’m making sure I 1) have a path or system in place to get me where I want to go 2) track my progress, so that I know how I’m doing and can adjust if needed.
That said, I was reflecting on the nature of my goals, and on the nature of goals in general. This was partly inspired by listening to Jason Fried, the CEO of Basecamp, on the Tim Ferriss show. What struck me about him is that here’s a successful guy with a business that’s 20 years old, but he doesn’t have any goals, neither for himself personally or for his business. They don’t track any key performance indicators or set yearly revenue targets. Their only focus is on constantly doing the best they can to improve their product.
The reason Fried distrusts goals, especially numbers-based ones, is because he thinks they are artificial. You set up an artificial standard to aspire to and if you fail, you’re disappointed. But according to him, being disappointed is pointless, because you made up the whole thing in the first place. Also, if you set yourself a goal for 5 years from now, who’s to say you’ll still want it then? You’ll be a different person then.
For much of my life, I’ve been pretty goal-averse, if only because I had been disappointed with goals before. It was also hard to come up with attractive enough goals for myself, and so I questioned the whole point of setting them.
After starting to listen to Ascended Mogul, that has changed. I now feel more driven to both set goals and work towards them. I had set a few metric-based goals, like doubling my income, lowering my body fat to a certain level while gaining strength, and reading a certain number of books a year. I have systems and tracking in place that help me to reach those goals - not 100 % perfect, mind you - but enough that I can make progress and adjust.
In light of listening to the interview with Fried, I’ve been wondering if these goals make sense, or if they are just about vanity metrics. For instance, higher income doesn’t necessarily translate to more happiness, lower body fat to more health (beyond a certain point at least), or more books to more wisdom. The danger with all metrics is always that they don’t actually measure what they’re supposed to measure. You might also be incentivized to cheat just to hit your metric. For instance, just read short books as fast as you can, without retaining anything or applying it in your life.
But when I think about it, the metrics are just there to have something to measure and something to work towards. In the end, it’s really even not about the goal itself: it’s about the process of getting there and who you need to become to get there. I remember hearing that once and googled it, and found this saying attributed to Henry David Thoreau (as it’s the internet, I’m not sure the attribution is correct):
“What you get by achieving your goals is not as important as what you become by achieving your goals.”
So I’m sticking to my goals for now, but I realize that if I feel they don’t serve me anymore, I can also alter or discard them. The most important thing for me now is that I’m moving towards something and can feel a sense of progress, which by itself is satisfying. For many years I felt I wasn’t going anywhere, and that has finally changed.
