Why we should all give up on goals already

To be successful or fulfilled, we all know you need to have specific goals.

To achieve them, you should visualise, plan your steps there and attach deadlines and incentives. Work hard, even if you hate the work. And never stray from the path.

But that outlook, say a growing number of academic researchers, career coaches and thought leaders, isn’t only flawed; it may also, ironically, be keeping us from success.

“We get so emotionally attached to a goal that we’re setting ourselves up for failure and disappointment,” says business advisor, author and speaker Stephen Shapiro. “The key for success is, if you have somewhere you’d like to be in five years, don’t be so attached to it that it drives everything you do.”

If that makes you say Huh?, you’re not alone. It bucks the self-help industry’s staple advice, not to mention what most of us were told by family and peers growing up.

It’s true that decades of research show that goals can get you to work harder, focus more and perform better. But they also can kill your creativity, make you more likely to cheat, and less likely to thrive.

“Goals in themselves aren’t bad,” says Lisa Ordonez, vice dean at University of Arizona’s Eller College of Management. “It’s how we treat them.”

One of the first problems is the targets people choose, experts say. Many aren’t necessarily our own ambitions, but what we think we should do.

That disconnect shows up even in the most basic example of what people want versus what they strive for. Most people say their main goal in life is to be happy. But while research has shown that happiness results from simple things like expressing gratitude rather than buying a bigger house, or by prioritising family over career, our ambitions often focus on the latter. Worse, we may sacrifice personal relationships to get there – even though that’s the kind of trade-off most people come to regret…

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http://www.bbc.com/capital/story/20171117-why-we-should-all-give-up-on-goals-already