I’m writing this on New Year’s Eve. As the ball drops tonight, people will be enjoying their final moments of revelry before committing, or recommitting, to whatever goal or wild ambition strikes their fancy. Of late, my goals are more anti-goal than goal. The only thing I’m concerned with is living life in as fully engaged a manner as possible. I’m more concerned with how I’m being in the world than what I’m doing. This approach has worked out well for me, and more to the point, I like that this way of meeting life fully is more objectively valid (more on this later) than chasing a desire that I may not even care about when (and if) I reach a made-up finish line.

So for those who wish to eschew the rest of our ambitious societal norms and not get suckered into goal setting one-upsmanship, what are we to do? After all, it’s been said that “Without a goal, people perish” (I think Jesus said that, or perhaps it was Tony Robbins? 🙂 ). If there is even a hint of a chance of perishing, I would have a hard time, ethically, wishing anyone to abandon their goals and resolutions.

On the other hand, if I saw that for the vast majority of people caught on the hedonic treadmill of modern society, that goals were an obstacle to realizing one’s full potential, it would be incumbent upon me to point out the folly of our ways and do my best to offer an alternative. This is indeed what I believe. So here it goes with an attempt to accomplish these two things: point out the folly and offer an alternative to the treadmill of achievement.

What I’m Up Against

There’s a big chance this topic is a form of career suicide. I’m a coach after all. I’ve written blogs about Goal Setting and even given public talks on the subject. People hire coaches because they want to do stuff, achieve things, be unstoppable, create the impossible, etc. I’m also very good at achieving things. If you give me a BHAG (big, hairy, audacious goal), I’ll chase it down, wrestle it to the ground, and either claim victory or try again until I do.

The goal achievement at all cost mindset is reinforced by the billion-dollar personal development industry. What would happen if Tony Robbins told a stadium filled with thousands of salivating growth-seekers “the truth”:

“You really don’t need me to live a great life. Go home, go for a walk, eat a healthy meal, spend time with someone you care about and get a good nights sleep. Do that every day for the next week and see how good you feel. You will realize that you are all intrinsically OK, and that it’s your trying so hard that makes life difficult!”?

Unfortunately, the vast majority of self-help teaching is predicating on creating an intolerable level of pain and dissatisfaction with the present moment and lusting after the pleasures of an imagined future. Pain in the present and reward in the future are the two reagents in a powerful psycho-chemical reaction, sparking powerful motivation to change, pivot, jump, leap and scurry off into action.

The question is, is this fury of activity really necessary, and what is the cost it takes on people (and their families, businesses, etc.)? Even more interesting to ponder, is there a better way to get what we really want and not just gratify the ego?

Goals Gone Wild

Two years ago I created a big goal to double my business. It seemed doable, yet challenging, and very SMART (specific, measurable, achievable, results-focused and timely). I created a spreadsheet with targets for income and various other success metrics that would serve as beacons out in the future, calling me forward towards continuous and never-ending improvement (CANI as Tony is fond of saying). It all seemed so buttoned up, so clear-cut. It was very motivating. Until it wasn’t.

After two months, I started to feel that something was wrong. I was spending a lot of time having conversations with prospects and trying hard to enroll people who were interested in working with me. I was working more hours than I would have liked, and spending far too much time on video calls. I saw that this path was heading towards a life I didn’t want. I also felt like my business was just fine as it was. I didn’t really need to grow it. I was totally happy and earning enough income to live comfortably. Why strive and be miserable? However, my goal was set. With such a die cast, what was I to do?

In a conversation with my coach, he simply pointed out that pursuing habits and goals can be motivating, but also handcuffs, chaining us to a life that was appropriate at one time, but woefully inadequate later on. I sat with this idea: were my goals serving me or was I serving my goals?

Then it hit me: Were my goals ever serving me?

I knew that I was not alone. Having coached over a hundred leaders and high performers over the past several years, I have seen how inconsequential the achievement (or not) of goals can be when it comes to living a great life and doing remarkably well at work. The marks of distinction in a career often come about through unplanned achievement and capitalization on opportunities. The happiness paradox is also well known, that we don’t know what makes us happy, and trying to pursue satisfaction only pushes it away.

Early in my coaching work, I learned that the greatest moments of achievement for my clients were often things unrelated to their singular goal and purpose for hiring me. The goal was simply a catalyst, a reagent that got them playing fully in life. Sometimes the goal was achieved and was as fulfilling as hoped, more commonly, the truly profound outcome of the coaching was something different altogether.

I’ve had people hire me to find a better job and end up quitting their job at going on sabbatical (and being super happy about it!). I’ve had people hire me to get a promotion and they ended up not getting promoted, but losing a bunch of weight (and feeling amazing) while the promotion lay out of reach (and being very happy about it!). I’ve even had people achieve their goal (say, a promotion to management or a wonderful new job) but feel unfulfilled. This last type of outcome is what I’m least proud of.

Yes, there are plenty of cases where people hire me to achieve goals, do so, and are happy and satisfied about the outcome. However, when you see how the sausage is made, it’s hard to see it any other way: When you know that true satisfaction and happiness are what people ultimately are after, and that these elements are not predicated on achievement of a goal, it completely shifts the nature of how you operate as a coach. After all, the role of a coach is to support people in living a fully satisfied and successful life. Goals can help, but they are more often used as a crutch, avoidance mechanism or distraction.

The real power behind your life’s work isn’t your pursuit of a manufactured goal. It’s something altogether different. I’ll go into that next.

The Antidote

There is something you can do, beyond setting loftier goals and willing yourself to rise to the occasion. It doesn’t take any leaps of faith to adopt this new approach, because like it or not, it’s how your life has been working anyway. After all, how many of the grandest moments and poignant achievements of your life were the product of a well-executed strategy – all laid out and conquered in 6, 17 or N-steps?

Instead, I’d like to offer a counter-punch to the goal-seeking and habit-building hobgoblins. Three counter-punches in fact!

1. Saying YES to life

The opposite of goal seeking is to fully embrace the present state of life. This is a simple thing to do, as there is never nothing going on. There is always something to say “yes” to. By “yes” I mean a metaphorical yes, though in some cases it might be warranted for the words to spill from your mouth (e.g. if someone asks for your help).

The wonderful thing about saying yes to life; you save a tremendous amount of energy without having to fabricate a goal, muster willpower and figure out what to do about it. Instead, you simply connect to what seems like the most appropriate thing to do right now, as life is unfolding, and say yes to that – as emphatically and joyfully as you can.

Saying yes to life implies the surrender of the personal ego – full of its likes, dislikes, attractions, aversions, and whims. Does your boss need you to get that report done today instead of tomorrow? Just do it. A friend asks to borrow your lawnmower? Sure no problem. Feel inspired to run a marathon in 6-months? Great, you can do that too. Just start with whatever needs to happen now to make that happen. Feel exhausted and need to take a nap at 2 in the afternoon? That’s cool, go for it.

Note that saying yes to life doesn’t mean you always say yes…it means you say yes to what the deepest part of yourself is saying at the moment. It takes a bit of practice to get the hang of what to say yes to, but if you just start along the path, you can’t help but figure it out. Your mind thrives on the direct feedback life is designed to provide.

Perhaps the greatest example of what life can be like when surrendered fully is accounted for by Michael Singer in his wonderful book, The Surrender Experiment. Even better, try it out for yourself for a weekend (or a week) and see what happens.

2. Be fully engaged

Who is better off, someone who is haphazardly pursuing a stretch goal or someone with no goal but is fully engaged in whatever life (and work and family and etc.) is showing up with? That’s an easy comparison, so let’s make it trickier. Who is better off, someone who is completely engaged in pursuing a stretch goal or someone who is fully engaged in life as it is (with no explicit goal)?

I’m convinced that the latter approach is superior. In fact, the more audacious the goal is, the less likely it is that someone pursuing it with gusto will actually achieve it and be pleased with the outcome. There is a simple explanation for this, that the best things in life cannot be planned, for they are more due to luck, serendipity and randomness than they are the outcome of any brute force work ethic toward a singular aim. This is a rabbit hole worth exploring, and I’ll be writing more about it in future blog posts.

Being fully engaged simply means asking yourself the question: “Was I fully engaged in my life today?” and being willing to honestly sit with the answer that arises.

3. Explore, don’t achieve

Let’s contrast two humans, identical twins with similar life experience. Both are currently managers at a fast-moving tech firm. Let’s call them Emma the Explorer and Arun the Achiever. Both really want to be outstanding in their careers. Arun is hell-bent on being a VP of Engineering and hacking his mind to be in a peak state all the time. He recently took a Strengthsfinder survey is going to unleash his strengths on his company to achieve his goal 🙂 (can you tell I’m not a fan of these cookie-cutter assessments?).

Emma, however, just wants to try things, learn a lot and make progress by being her best on a day to day basis. Emma has no specific method or technique for achieving her goal.

Who will get further in their career in 5 years?

I’ll put my money on Emma, all of it.

In their little known but groundbreaking book, “Why Greatness Cannot Be Planned,” the authors share insights from their work as Artificial Intelligence research scientists. Their ideas, born from computer simulations and drawing support from close examination of great outcomes in various fields, have a startling implication to those looking to achieve anything truly great. The stepping stones to success are never clear at the outset. Therefore, the best strategies are always those that (1) take on the mindset of an explorer who is willing to try novel solutions and (2) is focused on the next logical step as opposed to a fixation on achieving a distant goal.

It’s an idea worth exploring!

What It’s Like To Be Goal-Less

The highest states of performance are a byproduct of serving the present moment to the utmost. Flow states are often characterized by this condition: heightened awareness and full engagement with, the now. Focusing on a goal takes away energy when the point is to be engaged in the now, doing something that matters now even if the thing that matters now is a preparatory step for something being planned in the future. Yes, even planning can be done in the now. However, the more you get the drift of doing what is needed now, the less planning seems to be required.

Following the stepping stones of life, those next steps (often it is only one) that are visible from your current perch, is a much more effortless journey than trying to force a path through the untamed wilds of your expectations, en route to a made-up future. The question then becomes, what will happen if you follow the signals life is offering, as opposed to your own plans?

There are all kinds of sayings that might give you pause before you give up your goals. You know, the whole “without a vision, people perish” thing I mentioned earlier. There’s also this quote you may have heard – that I’m butchering – “if you aren’t following your own plan, you’ll become part of someone else’s.”

The problem is, neither appears true. Quite the opposite, the most outstanding things I’ve achieved in life only make sense in hindsight. Setting and working hard to achieve a pre-defined goal only served in getting me moving and engaged in the world, whereas my shining accomplishments always would come about through uncertain means. To know that I don’t need a Sword of Damocles – masquerading as a goal – hanging over my head to achieve greatness in life is a huge burden lifted off my shoulders. Even better, to see that even in spite of myself, I can achieve wonderful things adds humor to the mix.

Conclusion

If you’ve read this far you probably fit into one of two camps:

1.

You are feeling some relief at the idea of not having to get on yet another hamster-wheel as you start the new year. Instead, you can do a gut-check for what feels really great to pursue right now. Be present, do what occurs to you to do and let the future take care of itself.

2.

Or, if you haven’t abandoned this article by now, are shaking your heads in disbelief tinged with confusion. If my life is not working the way I want it to work, how can I change it without setting goals? What should I do now? Where will this kind of life lead me?

Let me suggest that your life will carry on just fine, and without the mental noise of feeling the need to be somewhere you aren’t, a deeper and more truer signal will inevitably shine forth. You might even be inspired to follow a calling (in your career) or have a profound vision for the future (for your business) or feel truly inspired to create a shift in your home-life. In all these cases, the next step is always the same, engage at the moment, with whatever action is relevant now.

Time spent dreaming of a far-off goal is time not spent engaging with the reality of the present, connecting with the people currently in your life who warrant your attention, and actively sowing the seeds for the future (whatever that future will be) through your present-moment focused action.

Now I am off to the gym. I have no goal to pursue, but I am inspired to try a few new exercises and lift some heavy objects off the floor.

What do you think? Are goals helpful or harmful (or a bit of both)? Please let me know in the comments below!

James Stockdale was shot down in North Vietnam at the outset of the Vietnam war. Held captive for over 7 years, he survived and was awarded the Medal of Honor. What can we learn from his experience? What insights helped him endure under such hardship?

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“Freedom from the known is the essence of intelligence.”

– J. Krishnamurti

How much of your life is a quest for certainty?

Most people are driven by a deep-rooted striving for the reliable, predictable and certain. What if, instead, life was all about expanding your capacity to embrace uncertainty instead of striving for predictability?

This seems like a much better way of living. Life is inherently uncertain. Don’t believe me? Try to predict what you will be thinking in the next 10 minutes or what you will be doing at this time next week!

So much of what happens only makes sense in the rear view mirror.

• • Sitting at the computer terminal at the Lakeside School, how much did Paul and Bill really know about where their hobby would lead
  • Following a chance encounter at Stanford, what did Sergey and Larry expect about their futures? Did they have a SMART Goal??? 🙂
  • Dropping out of college to explore the nature of conscious (i.e., to travel, meditate and take a lot of psychedelics…), did Sam ever imagine the possibility of packing auditoriums around the world, becoming an intellectual rock-star of sorts?

As you look at the current state of your career and life, how much could you have predicted, even just a few years ago? Probably not much.

Why then, are we (and most humans I know) so fixated on being precise about outcomes?

Expectations vs reality

I’m continually amazed and sometimes startled, at the gap between expectations and reality. Sometimes better, sometimes worse, sometimes different and occasionally the same (rarely, but occasionally) – fixation on outcomes, goals, and future-states is a curious natural mode of the mind.

I say ”curious” because we strive for certainty in the future (“certainty” is a cornerstone of human needs psychology), but the world is inherently uncertain. We all can dream and envision. Yet, we all know that our vision is nothing compared to reality.

The same idea applies to work and life. I spent my entire career building visions and plans for new technology products. Yet, even in the midst of helping large teams of engineers rally around a common goal, I knew that the real purpose of any vision or plan was as much to get people working and collaborating together from a common intent, as it was actually to deliver every feature included in the plan.

It’s not that the plans didn’t matter, it’s that the purpose of planning was different than most people thought!

The only thing I could predict about my planning efforts was that things would not go as planned! I also knew that if smart people were working well together, great things would happen.

As a Professional Coach, I now see how fixation on outcomes (without understanding the uncertain nature of the world) is a significant source of stress and can cause us to overlook the innate creative capacity of the mind.

So much cool stuff comes from the “unknown.” As any leader in a growth company will tell you, innovation is the most valuable thing a company does. Innovation is born from uncertainty. A great book, The Click Moment, goes into this theme in detail from a business and innovation standpoint.

Why fight it the uncertain nature of the world? To me, it seems much better to move along with how life actually works than to pretend we can be its master and commander. More importantly, how can we be more comfortable with uncertainty?

The method-less way

To explore this question I recently turned to an interesting book, one of J. Krishnamurti’s works (transcribed from his talks by an editor), Freedom from the Known. Reading J.K. is both frustrating and enlightening. He shoots straight to the heart of what causes psychological suffering – painting a picture of the issues and a promise of how life can be different (and dare I say “better”) with a richer understanding of how the mind (and our reality) works.

Yet, Krishnamurti offers no tools, techniques or methods; emphasizing the utter futility of trying to pierce the veil of thought with more illusory thinking. Not unlike the challenge of understanding the mind as illustrated by Alan Watts (here’s me paraphrasing): “..we are faced with the predicament of trying to pull ourselves up with our own bootstraps. In doing so, we are more likely to end up on our fanny than anything else…”

For someone, such as myself, so interested in understanding the mind and how to cultivate a more productive relationship with it, this is both frustrating, but also fascinating. Not unlike a movie with a cliff-hanger, it creates a sense of interest and curiosity that wouldn’t be present without such an instruction-less finality.

Just like a child tossed into a pool without a life jacket will be more likely to learn how to stay afloat and swim properly….

Without a clear how-to guide for controlling and transcending the mind, we are left with the only thing we ever really have, the results of direct and personal experience at the moment. Without a tool to apply or new habit to build, the mind naturally turns inward, looking and searching for a deeper insight or truth.

I see the incredible value of such an open exploration.

What can we do about it?

However, there are a couple things we can “do.”

First, we can make a choice. We can decide that understanding the truth about how the mind works is of crucial importance no matter what the goal – be that living a great life or being outstanding at work.

Second, we can allow the process to happen naturally and organically. A starting point is to turn our attention away from external life hacks, how-to-guides and trademarked methods for self-discovery; and turn our attention inward, to what we see about the nature of the mind, and what lurks beyond it.

We can start looking for what is really true and what is not. We can yearn more for what we learn from our experience than what a pundit has to say about his or her own experience.

Through experience, we can start to understand that we all live in a world of our thoughts, not the world as it is. We can know this to be a fact, and with this deep understanding, start playing in the world (creating, building, enjoying…and yes – even setting goals!) with a sense of freedom and “okay-ness” that isn’t possible when we approach life from a “goal-achievement-at-all-costs” mindset or in following someone else’s strategy for living and working.

Conclusion

So many of the amazing things I’ve experienced in life were only predictable in hindsight. I’m glad life seems to work well that way, and that something is calling the shots beyond my own thoughts, plans, and schemes.

Heck, I never would have predictive I’d be a Coach, even a few years ago!

As a Coach for leaders and professionals in the Tech Industry, I also see the tremendous value in having a thought partner to work with on this journey into the unknown. Specifically, working with a coach who is willing to allow the time and space for a client to sit with the “unknown” and allow the mind to generate insights naturally about how to live well and do great work.

If you are interested in exploring how coaching can help you in your journey forward, click here to learn more.

The nature of imagination and the creative insights that smuggle within its flow; is a mystery. Ideas seem to pop up out of the ether. Almost always, thoughts are utter nonsense. Sometimes, that needle pops out of the haystack, and an innocent idea has an “oh my God” quality to it. Lots of noise. Little signal. The good news is, we only need a tiny bit of signal to create breakthroughs and solve world-class problems, so long as we are paying attention.

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“We do not learn from experience. We learn from reflecting on experience.”

~ John Dewey, Education Reformer and Psychologist

It’s never been easier to learn. There are MOOCs, meetups, professional organizations and thousands of non-fiction books per month being published. Not to mention all the blogs and podcasts and YouTube videos coming online every day.

We are awash in information, and yet, it seems like we are getting further and further from understanding the things that really matter and digesting the content we are eating. We are sitting at an endless buffet of knowledge and getting heartburn in the process. If only they made Tums for knowledge overload! As a way to cope with the onslaught of new material, a common reaction is to stop consuming so much information, and instead, to move into action mode. Start doing stuff instead of just learning about stuff.

“Don’t consume, create! Don’t think, do!”

This makes common sense. If I want to get better at hammering a nail, I should hammer lots of nails. If I want to get better at writing, I should write a lot. If I want to be a better coach, I should get more coaching hours under my belt. If I want to improve my running ability, I should log those miles.

At work, learning by doing implies that the best way to learn is by identifying something you want to perform better at and selecting projects that employ the use of those skills. It all makes common sense. I do learn better when I am engaged in work, as opposed to just thinking about what is to be done.

The Missing Link

However, learning by doing overlooks a critical aspect of how we are built to learn. And yes, we are built to learn. We wouldn’t have gone from living in caves to flying around in metal tubes in the sky if we weren’t.

We learn reasonably well by doing something time and time again. We don’t, however, become excellent at a task through brute force repetition alone. If I hammer a thousand nails, I might get good at hammering, but I also might get good at shanking the metal and dinging the wood. If I run a thousand miles training for a marathon, I might improve my endurance, but I might just as well engrain an atrocious running form into my body.

Repetition, without reflection, will end badly.

Case Study: Wipro’s Experiment

I stumbled upon a research paper, “Making Experience Count: The Role of Reflection In Individual Learning” while plunging down a rabbit hole on the Internet. I was trying to understand how we learn most effectively. This paper illustrates just how vital reflection is to the learning process. It struck a chord, in part, because it hits on something so simple, but often overlooked, when it comes to how we learn at work (or in any other aspect of life for that matter). The authors contrast the effectiveness of Experiential Learning (learning by doing) with Deliberate Learning (learning by doing with built-in time for thinking and reflection on what’s being done).

One of the experiments cited by the authors was a field study at Wipro, a large business-process outsourcing company. In the study, a group of customer support agents-in-training were assigned to one of two groups: (1) reflection or (2) practice. Both groups went through the same training program, with one key difference. The reflection cohort was instructed to spend the last 15 minutes of their days articulating the main lessons they learned during the day. The practice cohort didn’t reflect, and instead spent the final 15 minutes of their day continuing with other training activities.

At the conclusion of the training period, all trainees were given a knowledge assessment. The cohort that was given 15-minutes to reflect on their lessons learned each day scored 23% higher than the control group. Even more interesting, after graduating from the training program and put into customer service roles, the reflection cohort was found to demonstrate a 19% higher likelihood of getting a “top-rating” by customers.

I can’t think of an easier way to boost performance by a large margin!

Conclusion

One study doesn’t make a rule of law. However, this idea seems to have legs in other domains. As a coach, it is common knowledge that a powerful question to ask clients in concluding a coaching session is one that prompts reflection on insights gleaned and lessons learned.

Personally, I use journaling as a way to reflect on learning from day-to-day. My typical journal entry will include a brain-dump of (1) What happened today? (2) What did I learn? (3) What’s next (based on the lessons learned)?

Most of us work in fields where learning is vital to our relevance on the job. How can we maximize our potential and learning aptitude? It’s clear that learning by doing is only part of the picture. The consolidation and integration of whatever we learn is a vital part of the process. It doesn’t have to take a bunch of effort. 15-minutes seems to do the trick.

The aforementioned study sums things up well:

“Together, our results reveal deliberation to be a powerful mechanism behind learning, confirming the words of American philosopher, psychologist, and educational reformer John Dewey” “We do not learn from experience. We learn from reflecting on experience.”

What does it take to achieve more? For most of my life, I’ve lived with an underlying assumption that to produce more, I must do more. If I wish to make more money, I must work more. If I want to be better at a sport, I must practice more. If I want to improve the quality of my life, I must try more new things.

Turns out, I was wrong.

The confusing thing is that doing more of something does often produce more significant results. If I’m looking for a new job and speak with ten people I know, and learn about one new opportunity, I might get more opportunities by talking with another 10 or more people. If I lose a few pounds each month by walking 10,000 steps a day, I will probably increase my weight loss by walking 20,000 steps a day…for a while at least.

This fact, that effort tends to yield results – so more effort will lead to even more results – kept me from seeing an even more powerful way to get better results from less. We can take this notion further, and make a bolder claim – that doing less can yield even more results than doing more ever could.

Let me emphasize this again. You can not only achieve the same results with less effort, but you can also produce dramatically more than usual from less output. This seems to be the way the world works, not only in business but in all aspects of life – relationships, finances, health, careers and more.

It’s counter-intuitive but true. Nature agrees. Try micro-managing a potted plant and see how it dies right before your eyes. I’m speaking from experience! Little bits of a few key ingredients are all nature needs to thrive.

Vilfredo Pareto, an Italian polymath, did the groundbreaking research that led to what is now called, the Pareto Principle, and further popularized by the series of best-selling “80 / 20” books by Richard Koch – management consultant turned champion of the “getting more from less” movement.

The 80 / 20 principle states that 80% of the results are a function of 20% of the causes. Conversely, 20% of the results are a function of 80% of the causes. In other words, the highest value causes are 400% as effective as all the other stuff being done. This principle (or more extreme versions of it, like 90 / 10 or 99 /1) show up in almost every part of our world. A vast majority of outputs are a result of a few inputs.

If all you (or your team, your business, your family, etc.) did were focus on the 20% (or less) of high-value causes, you would have the lions share of the results with 80% (or more) of effort and time freed up. Further, if you decided to only “halve” the amount of time and effort spent in total, but focused on the high-value activities, you would more than double your results – with plenty of free time and energy to do other things….or just relax!

It gets even better – the free time and energy aren’t lost opportunities. We all know that creative thinking and problem-solving improve when we aren’t pushing our nose-to-the-grindstone. Insights are inevitable when you have more space and calm time in your days.

Where will those fresh insights and ideas lead you? It’s worth finding out.

Explore:
1. Which areas of focus – your work, business or lifestyle – would you love to get more results from less effort?
2. For a specific area of focus in your life, what few causes are creating the majority of your results?
3. What are you willing to do less of, for the sake of allowing more space for high-value activities to flourish?