We Have a Societal Addiction to Goal Setting and It’s Draining Our Joy

The difference between *mission* and *quest* can be life changing.

There’s no point in building up to what I want to say here: I think we should stop goal setting in our lives. I realize it’s a radical proposition, and I’m not suggesting we stumble through life without any guiding ambitions. I’m saying let’s rethink our approach to goals and achievement. Here’s why: goal setting does not increase life satisfaction or happiness. Feel like it does for you? That’s great! I’m not talking to you. I’m talking to the people who will nod their heads when they read the following. Do you feel an uncomfortable pressure on the daily to get all the things done? When you fail, does your self-esteem take a hit? Does your sense of self-worth drop when you see people who seem to have it all under control? Head-nodders, read on.

When you approach personal goals with action plans and a focus on outcome, that’s goal setting. It’s a practice developed in the business world to motivate people and increase their performance, and it has made its way into our everyday lives via the personal growth industry. You’re probably thinking, what’s wrong with goal setting? It works, doesn’t it? Yes, it does. Setting a clearly defined objective is motivating, and if you have a plan to get there, even better. The more difficult the goal, the more effort you expend, and the more successful and satisfied you’ll feel when you’ve accomplished it. Right? Well, no. Studies have actually shown that while challenging goals do increase motivation and result in improved performance, they decrease people’s personal satisfaction with themselves and the results of their performance.*

So what’s going on here? The problem is that our culture overwhelmingly views goal setting as a way to ensure specific outcomes. If we perform well, we obtain the objective: we succeed. This is an exceedingly narrow way to organize and judge human activity. In the business world it’s a proven way to generate profit, but it’s a dehumanizing philosophy because it relies on extrinsic motivation: performance-based rewards or consequences. We show up for work every day because we’re paid to do that and will be fired if we don’t. But do we want to show up and do the job? That’s intrinsic motivation. If you don’t have it, you’re going to use up your emotional energy just getting through the workday, and eventually you’ll burn out. Reward-driven behavior is not only unsustainable, it’s ultimately unfulfilling. I know that if I start sinking into a goal setting mindset, my feeling of life satisfaction drops immediately. Instantly.

Most of us have to show up for work regardless of whether we are intrinsically motivated to, but we don’t have to treat our whole lives this way. Goal setting’s underlying philosophy of basing worth on performance and outcome has a diminishing action: it makes your life smaller, not bigger. Imagine living your day-to-day life without that constant expectation of getting all the things done. What would it be like to not have your self-esteem or self-worth tied to your accomplishments (or lack thereof)? Would you feel liberated? Would you regain the kind of excitement and joy in life that we think only children get to feel? That’s my hope for you. But goal setting is so deeply embedded in our psyches that it’s nearly impossible to imagine how else to live. We simply don’t know how to function without it.

Having goals isn’t bad in and of itself, and I’m not saying give them up. But let’s change our approach to what goals mean and how we reach for them. I’m going to give you two words to think about: mission and quest. A mission has a set goal and plan of action. You either succeed or fail. A quest may also have a goal, but it has a broader field of possible action and outcome: it includes aspects of adventure, discovery, and personal learning. The unexpected and unplanned are just as important to the journey as outcome. And even if you fail at the quest’s ultimate objective, you’ve still gained so much along the way. You may not even want that original goal anymore. So what if you decided to see your goals as quests? What if your approach and expectation toward goals was exploration and learning rather than achievement? How would this counteract the diminishing force of goal setting? How would your life expand, how would its quality improve?

I’m going to leave you with those questions, because once you start asking them, you’re already beginning to shift your mental paradigm. I will say this, though: the goal setting paradigm is pernicious and difficult to uproot. If our life satisfaction is low, it’s tempting to want to set clear goals and action plans for fixing it because that’s what we’ve been taught is smart and effective. We will find ourselves arguing that it’s not goal setting that’s the problem, but that we’ve set the wrong goals or made a bad plan. What we need to do is set a goal to do goals better. Wait a minute…. You see how insidious the goal setting paradigm can be? So remain alert, and keep asking yourself: What if this were a quest? What if my life is a quest? What can I experience, explore, and learn today?

*See this Harvard Business School publication for more info on the harmful effects of goal setting. It includes a good overview of goal setting research for those wishing to delve deeper.