Goalless living?
Friday, January 11, 2008 at 09:53 One of the questions I have been asking myself recently is “What happens if we deliberately live without any goals?”
All the books I’ve written in the past and just about every other self-help book assumes that goals are essential to success. But is this true?
We tend to think that living without goals would result in lying on a couch in front of the tv all day with a six-pack of beer (or whatever your own particular form of goofing off is!) But I suspect that this is actually the result of negative goals, rather than no goals at all. A negative goal would be something like “I don’t want to do the housework”, “I don’t want write that report”, or “I don’t want to do any work”.
The reason I have been asking that question is that I am conscious that many major positive changes in my life have come about without my having formed any definite goals about the changes. It’s been far more a case of acting on opportunity out of a deeper feeling that I am taking the right action for me. I’ve written before about how it’s sometimes only possible to see what is important to you by looking back to see where your past actions have been leading you.
So if you genuinely live without goals, positive or negative, what are you going to be doing? I think a fair amount of the time you would be doing the things which you enjoy doing, simply because you enjoy doing them.
If you enjoy doing something, you are far more likely to do it well in my experience.
I’m not quite sure where this is leading me, but I am sure it will be interesting to find out!
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Reader Comments (19)
Your article reminded me of a speech that Steve Jobs made about his career to Stamford students in 2005.
http://news-service.stanford.edu/news/2005/june15/jobs-061505.html
In the speech he talks about trusting your gut and doing what you love and how that you have to "trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future".
It would be hard to say that Jobs has pursued goalless living given what he has achieved. However, he does seem to have based his life and career decisions on gut instinct rather than analytical planning.
I'm a great fan of your book, the tools and techniques, and use them everyday. Is there perhaps another chapter brewing in this area?
Mike
Thanks for giving me that reference. Yes, some of the things that he says are uncannily like what I said, especially "You can't connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards."
Maybe not just a chapter... perhaps a whole book!
On the one hand, we have (as you point out) almost every time management book saying start with first principles, i.e., purpose/vision/goals. The problem here is, in my experience, I don't know (at least on a conscious level) that they *are*! Mental cost: Guilt, trouble feeling authentic, self doubt. Solution: Rather vague "get it all out" exercises, with maybe some fire-walking to spice it up ;-)
On the other hand, we have more modern ideas (yours and GTD come to mind) that posit that starting from the bottom-up (i.e., at actions, projects, and inputs) is a prerequisite to discovering the above. It's a question of making space - either mentally ("How can I think when I'm too busy to make time to think?") or physically (with materialistic distractions, say).
Now I think it's not an either or, it's an on-going process - and it's cyclic. I'm now forming some goals (out to maybe 3-5 years) based on some rather radical changes I've made in my life the last year or two. Did I have that clarity then? No. Will my current thinking change? Naturally! (In fact, a test might be whether our goals change over time; I'd argue strongly that they should.)
Thanks for the post.
Well you might be one step behind on this one - Stephen Shapiro published a book last year named Goal-Free Living - How to Have the Life You Wnat NOW!
I believe his concept is somewhat similar to yours - great book, and I do recommend it.
Speaking of which, I have read and abused ALL THREE of your books!! Tabbed and highlighted pages throughout each of them. I have read Get Everything Done twice, and have used more tools from that book than you can imagine. I have used the What's Better list periodically for the past 2 or so years (I admit I am not consistent with it beyond a few weeks though!) and LOVED the "self-coaching dialogue" structure of How to Make Your Dreams Come True. And Do It Tomorrow incorporates many of the principles I've been using in my own life to become less attached and more in the flow. Also, I've used your "rapid draft" method to write articles, newsletters, and speeches. (Of course, I plan to use it to write my own book, too!)
I am a huge fan of yours and will be one of the first purchasers of Goalless Living or whatever it winds up to be! :)
Warmly,
Tammy Cook
Chicagoland
Although I haven't read it yet, the book, "Invisible Path to Success: Seven Steps to Understanding and Managing the Unseen Force Shaping Your Life" by Robert Scheinfeld seems to embrace the same thinking.
I slightly got the impression it was a case of "Tired of the continual chase after wealth, status and performance? Well, here's how to give up chasing after wealth, status and performance so you can have even more wealth, status and performance".
I came across Robert Scheinfeld's ideas quite a few years ago and looking at his book on amazon the basic message seems unchanged. If I've got it right, it involves writing your life like a movie script (or a tv soap) and it will then play out the way you wrote it (if you do it properly that is).
I found his ideas intriguing, but I can't say that they worked for me.
I think I probably need to read Robert Scheinfeld's book before quoting it!
My approach is very loose. For example, I am getting married at the end of the year. There are lots of things to organise but rather than setting myself goals to achieve by certain dates I have thought of the event as a whole, picturing it in my mind's eye. I have then written down all the things that need to happen to achieve that. Each day or so I go through and work on one item. Sometimes things are easy and just fall into place which is great! Other times, it feels like a struggle so I leave that particular item and come back to it another day. I always trust that I will find the right answer but perhaps today is not the right day! Often, when I have put something to the back of my mind, the answer or person who can help me will pop up out of nowhere.
Tuning into the whisper of your intuition and following the path of least resistance is a whole lot easier than a rigid timetable of goals and it works!
About three or four years ago, I decided to stop doing this, and have a "year of being". By the end of the year, I'd started using the methods in "Your Best Year Yet" and "Getting Things Done" to set several much shorter term plans, combined with the methods in "How to Get Everything Done" for actually doing them. I was feeling a lot happier, and getting a lot more done, without the "Big Goal".
In one of those twists of fate, the little projects led me to a place where I do have a "Big Goal". But it grew out of the little goals I was doing, not out of a manufactured goal-setting process.
I know that research has shown that people who wrote down goals years ago have achieved more then people who didn't. But I have a hunch that they wrote down goals because they were the kind of people who were going to achieve more, rather then the other way round.
What a great thread, thanks for all of the insights. It's really an interesting concept. And Mark, I hadn't even looked for Shapiro's blog, I erred - his book came out in 2006 (it's '08 now, not '07!) and I read it when the ink was still wet. I am going to reread it because when you summed it up with this quote
"Tired of the continual chase after wealth, status and performance? Well, here's how to give up chasing after wealth, status and performance so you can have even more wealth, status and performance".
alarm bells went off in my head - that's EXACTLY what I want! :) And to the best of my recollection, that is a pretty good description of the theme. The first time I read it, it seemed good but not "great," but I didn't record my thoughts and now I can't remember what seemed to be missing from the book.
And wow, talk about genius - Mark, you were able to sum up the main idea of the book in such a beautiful, one-sentence phrase, that's a skill I want to bring into my own toolbox! Amazing. Let's not even MENTION the fact that you did this just from reading descriptions of the book and other thoughts by the author, ok?! Heh. Impressive.
Carol, your thoughts make me think of the word, "Detachment." Sort of the idea, choose your desired outcome, start taking action to move towards it in a detached manner. Just start taking small actions, stick with it, and suddenly big results will start occuring!
As for the other things you've studied, Carol - I'm on the board of the Chicago Coach Federation, and we actually hire The Best Year Yet people to moderate and provide the structure and online program for our annual goal planning, so I'm very familiar with that, and I also have been a follower of David Allen's work for a few years.
And here's an interesting thing I heard on a teleclass; That legendary story, about the 3% of Harvard graduates who wrote down their goals blah blah blah, is an urban ledend. The speaker (I can't recall her name, but the mp3 is somewhere in my educational files!) was challenged by an audience member, "Is that story really true?" and she said sure, I read it in so-and-so's book... But then she researched it, and could not find any direct reference or results of any such study! I got a little sidetracked, but I just wanted to bring up the thought triggered by your comment.
Tammy
It's interesting that one about the Harvard graduates being an urban myth. It's not the only one around the self-development world. Two others I can think of are:
"90% (or whatever) of our learning is visual". This was taken completely out of context from a scientific paper. The author specifically denied that it could be used in this way.
The famous quote by Nelson Mandela from Marianne Williamson "Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure" was never in fact said by him. In fact Marianne Williamson on her website specifically denies that Nelson Mandela ever used this quotation.
Had to laugh at this one!
"90% (or whatever) of our learning is visual". This was taken completely out of context from a scientific paper. The author specifically denied that it could be used in this way.
I read that too! The mis-quote. In fact, heard it (mis-) quoted at a presentation just tonight, that people only remember 7% of what you say and 90% of what they see.
Alan Weiss's book "Money Talks" calls out the Mehrabian quote, if that is indeed the same one you were referring to.
I may start a reference article on my PC - misquotes and mis-understandings! Especially where these stories take on legendary status, being picked up and passed on by speaker, after speaker, after speaker...
Thanks for identifying Mehrabian as the author of the misquoted research findings. That was what I was thinking of, but I couldn't remember the details.
The Wikipedia has an article on him which includes a paragraph on the misintepretation of his rule, including his comments on its correct application.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albert_Mehrabian
The attribution gives a false impression of profundity to what are usually no more than platitudes.
"Education is the progressive realisation of our ignorance", Plato. (or was it George Bernard Shaw? No, it was Einstein, I'm sure it was, wasn't it?)
And you are so very right about the "floating quotes," I can't tell you how many times I've looked for the originator of a quote, only to have 5 or 6 different results.
It's interesting to me, too, how everybody "trusts" the Internet to be correct. I received an email with "porcupine babies - they're so cute!" and looked at the photo, and those "porcupine babies" look identical to a little hedgehog we once bought from a pet store.
So I go to Google images, search porcupine babies. Then I search hedgehog babies, to compare. And oddly enough - the same photos come up for BOTH!
As the Internet keeps expanding and growing, it seems it may take more and more research to find "credible" answers to quick inquiries.
I believe that your goal is to maximize your happiness. I believe every living thing have a goal, conscious or not. However I don't believe it's fixed forever.
I too have found at times that it is past actions which tell me what I am gravitating towards. Once I become aware of these 'interests' it becomes easier to see and grab opportunities in these directions.
So I am interested in seeing where the idea takes you.
Reading "The Wealthy Spirit" by Chellie Campbell. In the Intro, it quotes Marianne Williamson and attributes the quote to Mandela's Inaugural address! I guess it's a pretty common misquote. I won't post every time I see this, don't worry! But I find it amusing that (I found this the day after my last post) immediately upon hearing that this isn't Mandela's quote, I find it attributed to him! (Reticular activitating system in action?)