Goal Setting Sucks

 I've heard that we all need to have goals to attain success. I've heard that people who write their goals down are far more likely to achieve them. I have yet to hear any connection between goal-setting and happiness. 

I don't set goals. I didn't grow up in a "goal-setting family". A few years ago I got into goal setting, and if you know me you know that when I get into something I REALLY get into it. I was working with a company that had a business model that was new to me. So, when they taught that we needed to set goals to be successful I bought it hook, line and sinker. 

When I'm learning something I do everything the teacher says. I try it all. It takes me a while to learn what works for me, and to shake off what doesn't. So in this goal setting phase I did all I was told to do.

I was quite stumped by the whole experience. Before I started setting goals I was happy with the way I was spending my time and the results I was getting. I was working very little, helping lots of people, and making good money. I heard one of the teachers in the company talk about goal-setting and figured if I could be this successful without goal-setting, I could certainly be more successful - help more people and make more money - if I set some goals. I dove in and became a student of goal setting.

I wrote down my goals. I carried my goals with me. I repeated my goals in the present-tense as though they had occurred. I visualized the experience of having achieved my goals. Most of the time I was living in the state of "unachieved goals", bracketed by very short celebrations of achievement, which would be immediately followed  by more goal-setting which lead to a new experience of "unachieved goals". My mind was always in some future state that never came. I worked harder, enjoyed it less, and my results plummeted. What I experienced  through those few years of goal-setting was mostly frustration, disappointment, unease and anxiety. 

I noticed that many others in the organization weren't doing much better. Almost everyone seemed under a great deal of stress to achieve these self-inflicted goals. People around me were constantly setting unachievable goals, secretly believing they would fail to meet them, facing the failure with disappointment and at times self-loathing, only to repeat the process all over again the next month. The whole thing was really quite mad.

I took a step back and wondered why we were all setting goals anyway. I realized that the goal beneath everyone's goal was the same - happiness. If I lose 10 pounds by Christmas I'll be happy. If I make a million dollars by the time I'm 40 I'll be happy. If I get that shiny new Ferrari then I'll really be happy. When it finally dawned on me that before goal-setting entered my life I had truly been happy.  

Happiness doesn't come in the future when some goal is reached. Happiness can only be found in the present moment. I don't mean the fleeting happiness that comes from looking outside and discovering it's a beautiful day, or seeing your stocks soar. I'm talking about the kind of happiness that comes from deep inside. The kind of happiness that creates a peace that surpasses all understanding.  There is nothing outside you that will bring about that happiness, and nothing outside can steal it from you either.

As soon as I remembered what it had been like to have that happiness I dropped the goals. I focused on the present. I got back in touch with how good it is to be alive ~ whether the stock market is slumping, I've got the flu, or I'm walking by the beach watching dolphins swim by. Being present is the best way for me to be happy. 

Now, I don't for a minute think that goal-setting sucks for everyone. I think lots of people thrive with it. Maybe most people do. But I'm not those people. I've had to learn what makes me happy and what doesn't. And no matter what success others have in goal setting, for me the whole experience sucks. I'd rather just be happy. Which I'm happy to report: I AM. 

What really makes you happy? 

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