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Goals are Bananas! The Fallacy of Goals

May 15 2008 – 12:40pm

Bananas by Flickr user ppdigitalAs a society we are obsessed with goals. Searching on Amazon for “goals” will bring up over 400,000 books. People are paying thousands of dollars for life coaches to help them achieve these goals. We want to get married, we want to have kids, we want to lose 20 pounds, we want to become millionaires. Imagine if we focused only on achieving these goals, regardless of the means. Our miserable marriage, resultingly screwed up kids, low blood sugar, and the stress of our high-paying job wouldn’t have us very happy in the end.

Some good reasons to completely rethink goals:

So should you just forget about having any goals? Of course not. Just think twice next time you’re beating yourself up for not achieving a goal. Either that goal wasn’t sensitive to your personal situation and desires in the first place, or something has changed about your personal situation and desires that makes it infeasible. Focusing on goals without mindfully evaluating the ever-changing landscape that is your life and your desires is a recipe for misery. If you take the time to ask yourself what it is that you really want, relative to what opportunities lie in close reach of yourself, you may find yourself with a perfectly good bunch of bananas.

Photo by Flickr user ppdigital.

P.S. I’m teaming up with some all-stars to make something that will help you manage your mind. Stay tuned. You’ll learn about it in early 2014.

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This post is filed under Creative Productivity.