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4 Reasons Why Goals Don’t Make the Grade
Goals give direction — Process gets results.
Goals are only useful to point us in the desired direction; they don’t get us to our destination. Though useful as a first step, they have some serious deficiencies.
Where goals miss the mark
1. They don’t guarantee success.
Having a goal does not determine success. In any competition, whether it’s for a job, American Idols or a boxing match, each competitor has the same goal, but only one achieves it. So having a goal, in and of itself, is not enough. There is something, or perhaps many things that the winner did differently, things no one else witnessed; they had a system of habits in place that gained them a greater skill or prepared them in other ways.
2. They de-stabilize motivation and discipline.
Goals create a yo-yo effect on motivation and discipline. What do most people do after the competition is over? The athlete stops training after his team or the other one wins the cup, at least until season training re-commences. The author stops writing after sending her novel to the publisher, at least for a while. Can you think of other examples of this dynamic?
