I have started to question how important having a set goal is. A goal has an endpoint. Such as I want to make $100K this year. You make a $100K goal achieved. As I progressed through life, more times than not, I have been told you have to have an end goal. I took this to heart and made goals. I even posted them on a corkboard; read 24 books a year, meditate three times a week, exercise 3 times a week, etc. What I have come to realize is that my end goals change quite often, as my taste, interest, and situations. Such as life is, dynamic, not static.
I have started to place more value on behaviors and habits and pay less attention to end goals. I am not too worried about the destination but am more interested in the man who arrives at the destination. Habits and behaviors don’t have an expiration date. However, habits and behaviors that are tied to end goals do. Once you reach the end goal many times, you lose motivation to continue to practice the habits and behaviors. Over time they slowly disappear, and you adjust your behaviors and habits to the new goals. I believe we have this backward.
Instead, focus on developing the person inside. Align your conscious actions with your unconscious actions. The focus should be on developing habits and behaviors that bring you closer to your authentic self. In this manner, it doesn’t matter what destination you end up at as you are comfortable in your own skin. From my perspective, this paradigm shift pays respect to the randomness of life and embraces its chaos and volatility. No longer focused on outcomes but on authentic actions.
We see in sports that players’ main goal is to win a championship. They build habits of working hard to achieve this. However, the difference in winning a championship heavily dependent upon luck. We don’t control luck. If players changed their perspective to the primary goal of being an elite professional and align the appropriate behaviors and habits regardless if they raise the trophy or not, they can look back on their career and be proud.
This may seem like a minor difference, but I believe it frees one from the cosmetic features of life. As the saying goes, a blind squirrel finds a nut every once in a while. It allows us to control what we can, our actions, and our behaviors. It frees us of the unnecessary pressure of achieving a particular outcome. Don’t set a goal to write a book, instead set a habit of writing every night. Don’t set a goal of working out three times a week, instead of practice behaving in a healthy manner.
Goals can limit our perspective. Habits and behaviors can expand our perspective and allow us to reach destinations we never imagined possible.
