Do We Need Goals?

Not all goals are created equal. Here’s how to make goals that set you up for success.

There’s a part of me that has always dreaded setting goals. The process of sitting down, reflecting on the year, and trying to make definitive statements on what I’d like to accomplish often feels like too much pressure than it’s worth, especially if and when I don’t revisit these goals throughout the following year.

It turns out our approaches to goals can inadvertently set us up for failure and disappointment.

I’ve been diving into the topic of goal-setting — their framing, wording, and raison d’être — and one thing is clear: goals can fill us with enthusiasm for our accomplishments, or they can fuel feelings of failure. How we frame, review, and use our goals completely changes their effects. I’ve come up with six tips for goal-setting, with the hope that you not only create your own heading into the new year, but also leverage them to make and track your progress.

1. Take some time to reflect

“We reinterpret or reconstruct our memory in light of what our mental set is in the present. In this sense, it is more accurate to say the present causes the meaning of the past, than it is to say that the past causes the meaning of the present.”

Ben Hardy