Your “Goals” Won’t Make A Difference To Your Career (Here’s What To Do Instead)

Pursuing goals for the sake of the end is inconsequential to your career (and life).

Our work culture is obsessed with goals, measurable outcomes, and OKRs. Are they necessary? Yes. Do they work? Mostly. But, this has resulted in an excessive obsession with achieving the defined outcomes.

This obsession with goals only gives us:

• Chronic feelings of underappreciation.
• Overwhelm and burnout pushing hard on the result.
• Constant low-grade anxiety about not being on track.
• Ignoring the other meaningful aspects of life (and striving endlessly for work/life balance).

Here’s the brutal truth: You may not achieve your goals

In this world of infinite possibilities, life doesn’t care about your goals.

The reality is full of opportunities and lemons (layoffs, health issues, etc.). When you get tunnel-visioned about your goals, you cut out all the opportunities that could be available to you. Say, you’re an L7 looking for L8 promotion. You argue for the scope of work that’ll take you there.

You discard all other pursuits that seem unimportant.

Instead, if you hold your goals loosely and focus entirely on the intense personal transformation needed for L8, you might find an entirely different world. For example, you might get head-hunted to an equivalent position in a high-growth startup.

Here’s how to not get tunnel-visioned:

When you set a goal, start by asking this: How will this transform me?

Will this increase my confidence? Will this improve my ability to trust people? Will this help me see the pleasure of a life well-lived? Will this expand my capacity to play bigger games in life? Will this make me feel more independent? Will this sharpen my thinking?

You can enjoy any outcome when you define your goals through the transformation you unlock.

Pursue goals for personal transformation. Achieving them is a bonus.

Thinking about transformation instead of outcomes:

• Builds resilience
• Gets you open to other possibilities
• Curiosity and experimentation become second nature.
• There are no failures. There’s only one transformation or a different transformation.

Read this post and more on my Typeshare Social Blog