Goalism: The Dark-Side of Target-Setting

I love talk­ing to peo­ple about their aspi­ra­tions. I really do. But there is a dark side to goals and what we often think of as “motivation.”

I have a lot of goals. Last week I con­fessed that I wanted to be a doc­tor, a pilot, a CEO, and a Sen­a­tor before I die. I admit that I was at the pub at the time. But I am sure that I will likely not do any of these things. I don’t have a prob­lem with this though. I like list­ing these as goals anyway.

The prob­lem I have with goals is some­thing dif­fer­ent. I have a prob­lem with their power.

Grow­ing up I learned a lot form moti­va­tional speak­ers like Tony Rob­bins and Steven Covey. I learned from them that:

• Any­thing I wanted to achieve, if I really wanted it and I was will­ing to sac­ri­fice what­ever was nec­es­sary, I could achieve. For this rea­son they say quite rightly that the hard­est part of achiev­ing some­thing should come in the decision-making, right at the begin­ning. When you under­stand the power of goals, you real­ize not to set them lightly.

Many peo­ple go wrong by set­ting too few goals. Many peo­ple under­es­ti­mate them­selves and there­fore set goals half-heartedly.

But for those who have con­fi­dence in them­selves and set chal­leng­ing goals, there is a  hid­den dangers.

Tun­nel Vision

Focus on one thing, necessitates less focus on other things. Busi­nesses expe­ri­ence this all the time. A recent Boston Globe arti­cle dis­cussed how Gen­eral Motors’ fail­ure was partly the result of com­pany goal set­ting. All of GM doggedly focused on regain­ing the 29% mar­ket share they had once held. Focus­ing on this meant they ignored prof­its. They slashed sales prices when they should have cut costs. Every­thing became about achiev­ing the almighty 29%. So, part of the power of goals is that they are non-reasonable. Once agreed the goal itself becomes the rea­son. Naysay­ers at GM (and there must have been a few) weren’t heard because by ques­tion­ing the goal they seemed to be talk­ing nonsense.

I had a friend who was so obsessed with her goals that she seemed to be run­ning on autopi­lot. It got in the way of her see­ing other pos­si­bil­i­ties, much like what hap­pened at GM.

Don’t get me wrong. Goals can be great. And I really do want to achieve every­thing I can list, that I might enjoy. I would like to gain every pos­si­ble skill. I would love to  speak Span­ish for exam­ple. And maybe one day you’ll find me per­form­ing surgery on a fel­low Sen­ta­tor, in Spain, while fly­ing. Maybe.