I’ve always loved setting goals. When I played competitive sports, I would sit down before every season and offseason to outline what I hoped to accomplish. Following the guidance of 7th-grade health class and various personal development books, I made sure my goals were specific, measurable, and performance-based. I scribbled in sub-goals, action steps, and evaluation dates until each season’s goals spanned almost 20 pages in my notebook. I also included longer-term goals—by 8th grade I had goals for my entire high school basketball career.
As we begin 2019, I know that many people have drafted resolutions (or goals) for what they hope to accomplish in the new year. I think this is great, and I’ve also drafted my own list. However, I can’t help but acknowledge the disillusionment I feel with the whole process. Setting goals has started to feel a bit hollow, and I can’t muster up the enthusiasm I once could for personal development. Why might this be?
Part of it could simply be that I’ve just seen myself fail too many times. My athletic goals were probably excessively lofty at times, and so I came up short more often than not. After one particularly injury-ridden cross-country season, I remember sitting down to find out I had not accomplished a single one of my goals. However, I don’t think this it. After all, I’ve also achieved plenty of my big goals, and even these accomplishments sometimes have felt hollow. I also don’t think the construct of goal setting itself is flawed; I’m a firm believer that change and progress both require diligence, attention to detail, and intense focus. Therefore, something else must be going on here. What might this be? Below, I’ve outlined my best guesses.
1. Not enough focus on the “controllables”
“Focus on the controllables” is such popular advice that it’s become a bit trite, but I think there’s something to the idea. After all, why should it have been that my injury-ridden season left me falling short of every single one of my goals? While I was hurt, I spent several hours each day performing cross training, rehab work, visualization, and other exercises. When I returned from my injury, I worked harder than ever to get back into running form. By the end of the season, I was back to where I was before, and when I competed I did so with a fire that left me collapsing with exhaustion at the end of every race. I did all of this and still felt like a failure. Of course, the reason why I felt this way is that my goals centered around finishing times and places, and advancement in end-of-season competition. If I set my sights on 16:30 but ran 17:20, then that was that, I fell short. If my goal was 15th and I got 25th, then I fell short.
One of the things I like about running is that it lends itself to these objective analyses of performance. If someone on JV has a quicker finish time than someone on Varsity, that runner has almost always earned themselves a Varsity spot for next week. There is very little potential for coaching bias to factor in. However, I now know that there’s more to it than this. While performance-based standards are the easiest to evaluate, they are not the most directly reflective of what occurred in between the start and finish line, or between one start line and the next.
At the time, I would have told you that what I am saying now is “all fluff,” and I still feel that temptation even today. If I receive a less-than-perfect grade on an assignment, it’s not much consolation to me that “I did my best.” If I work hard to foster a relationship and it fails, it’s not much consolation that “I did what I could.” This is healthy, to an extent. Objective truth grounds us in reality—my essay apparently wasn’t flawless, and I probably didn’t approach that person in the most helpful way. However, when performance is everything, you are setting yourself up for burnout and disappointment.
Therefore, make sure this year’s resolutions include room for ambiguity, mistakes, and setbacks. While you’re at it, throw in a bit of room for unrewarded work, smiles, and courage. This does not mean constructing loopholes for yourself. In fact, as “the work” takes precedence over “the results,” there will actually be less and less room for excuses. Poor results can be explained away, but poor work is much harder to rationalize.
2. Too much “me”
I think another reason goals can be unrewarding is that they often concern only our own success. Sure, it feels pretty good when you do something you set out to do, but if you are the only one who benefitted, how long will this feeling last? Of course, things done “for yourself” (meditating daily or eating healthier, for example) can often have ripple effects that do positively impact others. I’m also not discounting the value of things that make you happy. It’s not selfish to resolve to give yourself more time to read in 2019 if reading is something that rejuvenates you. No, what I’m discounting here is the pervasive mindset that looking out for oneself is the only way to get ahead.
One of my biggest college challenges for me is the fact that the college environment inherently encourages a self-focused mindset. To get the A, you must focus on your studying and your understanding of the material. To get the internship, you must focus on your qualifications and accomplishments. Even leadership in volunteer organizations is competitive—acceptance is often dependent on how way you can play up yourself in an interview or what your recommendation letters say. I don’t know about you, but for me, focusing on myself this much is draining. At times it’s necessary, but none of this stuff is really that satisfying.
In 2019, I’m going to try to step outside of this mold. For every “me-focused” resolution I set, I set another “me-second” resolution. These resolutions are goals I really don’t expect to get any tangible personal benefit from (other than bragging about them on this blog, a cynic might say). I promise I bring this up not to try to “make my self look good,”but because I want to be held accountable. I’ve seen myself fall into the self-absorbed trap enough times that I know I need to rely on others to pull me out of it occasionally. In fact, one of my favorite parts about my true friends is that they have the confidence to let me know when I need to take a step back and give myself up for a bit. If my approach inspires someone else to try a similar thing this year, that’s an added benefit.
Conclusion
It's natural to wonder what the point of this focus on goals is. After all, even if you evaluate your work based on the controllables, the world will evaluate it by its results. Even if you set goals that put other people first, the world will continue to judge you for your personal accomplishments. I get this, and I understand that changing the way you view something won’t change the way others view it. However, I believe that change always follows awareness. Sure, I fall into the same traps every week, but I fall into them slightly less than I would if I were unaware of their existence. Who knows if any of this will lead anywhere, but it’s the best plan I have for 2019. If I learned as much from you guys this year as I did last year, I’m sure I will have a refined plan for 2020. But let’s not worry about that now: 2019 is calling, and it’s going to be great.