Goals Driven By Values

Everyone has goals.  

Whether you call them goals - or aspirations or desires or fantasies or just things that you want - you have them.

You may have a goal to become rich.  

You may have a goal to reach the top of your field.

You may have a goal to become more emotionally strong.

You may have a goal to become a better partner.

Or you may have a goal to get fit or read more or travel to Italy.

Having goals is a good thing.

They can give us a sense of direction and purpose.

But, as we all know, the real challenge around goals is not the process of setting them.

The real challenge is, of course, in achieving them.

So why is achieving a goal so difficult?  And why are we not better at it?

The answer has two parts.

The first reason why achieving goals is so difficult is because the goals we set for ourselves are often times not actually meaningful to us.

For example, most young people have an aspiration of becoming rich.  The belief is that wealth brings both material comfort and the “freedom” to then do what you please - both of which are constantly reinforced by our culture.

However, material comfort is psychological quicksand - the more things you get, the more things you end up “needing” (read: wanting).  And, before you know it, you have a new goal to get more.

And that “freedom” everyone talks about?  Most never get there.

Freedom or autonomy also requires the person themselves to step away.  But most people who invest an enormous amount of their time pursuing only material wealth end up developing an identity based around that pursuit.  

Abandoning the pursuit means abandoning who they have become - and that can be incredibly distressing at a certain point.

That is why your goals must align with your underlying values.  It cannot be an either / or.  

Your values must drive your goals.

The second reason we don’t achieve our goals is because we don’t understand how achieving goals actually works.

Achieving a goal is not only about doing the right things.

Achieving a goal requires you to actually grow.

You need to become the person who is capable of achieving the goal.

You need to grow so that you can reach it.

If your goal is to have a more balanced relationship where your partner is more assertive, then you need to become the person who enables and allows that assertiveness to take place.

If your goal is to become healthier, you have to become the person that values health over indulgence (most of the time).

It is a subtle, but important difference.

If you hope to achieve something, but are not willing to grow as a person, how do you expect to ever reach your goal?

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