A good goal should scare you a little and excite you a lot.
— Joe Vitale
Do you feel like the goals you have set in life have failed to make you happy? Often, people pursue the goals they think will make them happy only to wake up in midlife and wonder what happened? They feel stuck in boring jobs, doing uninspiring work. As the character, Tyler Durden says in Fight Club, “We buy things we don’t need with money we don’t have to impress people we don’t like.” The problem may be that people have confused means goals with end goals.
So let’s take a look at the differences.
Means Goals are the things we pursue because they will lead to what we want. You are already familiar with this chain of logic. Get good grades in school so you can get a good job. Work hard at a good job so you can get a promotion. Get the promotion so you can have money to retire. Then when you retire, maybe you can do what you want to do and be happy. The Means goal is something you do to get something else that you want; it is a means to an end. It is not a goal you pursue for its own sake.
End Goals are the end in themselves. We pursue end goals because they give us what we want in life; love, connection to others, personal growth, and happiness. There is no chain with the end goal. The immediate result of pursuing an end goal is happiness and fulfillment.
The problem is that we spend most of our time pursuing means goals while losing track of the end that we want. We think the promotion with better pay will make us happier. We believe that only because we assume more money will lead to more happiness. Instead, we often find ourselves working longer hours and spending less time with our families and hobbies.
The pursuit of an end goal means going directly for the things that will make you feel happier and more fulfilled. Rather than work weekends for a promotion in the hopes it will make it possible to take a vacation with your family, you just spend the weekends with your family doing the things that make you happy. Ultimately happiness is the desired end goal of all our endeavors; the means goals are a very indirect and unreliable way to get there.
How to tell Means Goals from End Goals;
Means Goals are usually stepping stones others insist you “Should” work towards. You should get a good job, promotion, married, beautiful house, luxury car, etc. These are not your goals. When you see a “should,” you need to understand that this is society and other people telling you what is advantageous for them. Of course, your boss thinks you should work hard, put in overtime, and desire a promotion because that helps your boss achieve his or her goals. It does not necessarily help you achieve yours.
The other characteristic of means goals is that they have a chain of reasoning joined together by “So.” You already know this drill; do good in school so you can get into a good college. But getting into a top college is not the end. It continues with, do good in college so you can get a good job. And on and on. One good clue you are looking at a means goal is that it is an endless string of “so” statements that take you from one step to another in a logical sequence but never lands on happiness.
End Goals, on the other hand, are motivated by a feeling. The key is that you feel happy, engaged, or in love while pursuing the goal. There is no vague promise you will feel satisfied after achieving it. Happiness comes from working on the project, not from reaching the end. Climbing a mountain can be an end goal. Yes, there is a destination, but the real purpose of the activity is to enjoy the adventure of climbing the summit. You want to enjoy the views, stop to examine the wildflowers, and share the experience with family and friends. And the crucial word there is “experience.” End goals are focused on having an experience along the way, more so than on getting anywhere. The happiness comes from the process.
The two types of goals lead to different kinds of happiness;
Means Goals generate a feeling that is more like relief than happiness. Fear of not getting the grade or the promotion has motivated you to keep working. When you finally achieve your objective, the fear is lifted. It’s not so much happiness as temporary relief from anxiety. That is until the next milestone presents itself, and the tension sets in again.
End Goals have happiness baked right into the experience itself. You lose yourself in the activity. It does not feel like work. Instead, you are engaged, time flies, and it seems like it is over too soon. I can’t explain it more. It is a feeling and you know it when you feel it.
How to create end goals;
First, the ultimate aim of all end goals is happiness. That is not just some “fluffy” idea. The research is detailed, happiness makes us more engaged, productive, and creative. If you want more success in your life, start focusing on getting happier. It is the ultimate productivity hack.
End Goals all boil down to one of three things;
Experiences; what we want out of life is a series of experiences—the experiences of love, happiness, and adventures. We don’t just want to get through life; we want to have an experience of being alive. A good life is a series of good experiences.
Growth; children live in a joy that adults often admire and wish they could recapture. That is because children know one thing that adults forget; growing, learning, and improving makes life rewarding. A child’s job is to learn and develop skills through play, which brings them great joy. We need to recapture the feeling of being alive that comes from growth and improvement.
Connection; humans are a social species, and we all long for a sense of connection to others. That can be through love. It can also be from shared interest and purpose. In all cases, we want to connect with others, and the ultimate expression of that desire is to make a contribution to others in your family, friendships, work, community, and the world.
How to set End Goals;
I recommend this exercise to set better end goals. I browed the idea from Vishen Lakhiani’s excellent book, The Code of the Extraordinary Mind. I highly recommend both the book and the exercise.
Set aside ten minutes to complete the exercise. You will need a piece of paper or a journal and a pen. Draw two lines down the paper to divide it into three columns. Label the first column, “Experience,” the second “Growth,” and the third “Connection.”
Now set a timer for three minutes and fill out the first column. Just write whatever comes to mind. Don’t edit your thoughts or worry about spelling, handwriting, or grammar. Aim to get as many ideas down as possible in the three minutes. Working fast will help you bypass the judgmental part of the brain that edits your ideas and throws out the ones it sees as foolish or unrealistic. Sometimes our best ideas do seem stupid and impractical at first, so you don’t want to miss out on the opportunity to get those ideas down.
When the time is up, reset the timer to three minutes and move on to the next column.
Before you begin, here are a few things to consider.
Experiences A great life is defined by a set of great experiences. So make a list of the experiences you want to have. Do not think small. Small goals do not call to the soul. Dream big, and don’t worry about being “realistic.” A few years ago, I made a bucket list and included “Deliver a TED talk,” with no idea how to accomplish that seemingly impossible task. Then an opportunity to apply for an audition came up, and I applied, auditioned, and delivered a TED talk (Shameless self-promotion, you can check out the video here.) If I had not written that idea down and had the thought percolating in my brain’s, I might never have noticed the opportunity when it presented itself. No idea is wrong. Write it down and just see what happens.
Growth To have the experiences you want, you will need to grow into the kind of person who has those experiences. I’ll be honest; when I got selected for TED, I was not a TED level speaker. Once accepted, I worked with a coach and the other TED team members to improve my speech. I practiced alone in my laundry room and in front of audiences. I had to endure my share of criticism. From that process, I grew my skill and confidence until I was ready for the TED stage. To have the experiences you want to have, how are you going to have to grow? What new skills will you need? What will you need to learn? What level of health and fitness will be required to do those things? Look at the list of experiences you want to have and ask yourself, “what kind of person will I need to grow into, to have the experiences I want to have?”
Connection Research in positive psychology has shown one of the best ways to make yourself happy is to forget about yourself and focus on making others happy (for a summary on this research see Sonja Lyubomirsky, Ph. D’s excellent book, The How of Happiness: A New Approach to Getting the Life You Want). Look at your list of experiences and growth and then ask yourself, if I have theses experiences and grow in these ways, then how can I use that to improve the lives of others? Ask how you can contribute to your family, workplace, community, and the world. I call that the Bigger-Than-Self-Goal, and it will come up again and again.
Final Step, post your list of desired experiences, growth, and connection in a place where you will see it regularly. Let it serve as a reminder of the end goals that will make your life happy and meaningful. Review it often and look for ways to get started. It may be reading a book, taking a class, or scheduling a trip. Get started on the ones you can and, like my TED experience, allow the others to just percolate for now. There is magic in those big dreams, even if they do not seem realistic today. Once you put them down, they begin to take on a life of their own.
I can’t think of a better way to end than with the words of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe;
Whatever you can do, or dream you can, begin it. Boldness has genius, power and magic in it.
