The Confidence Guy

Wired into Truly Confident Living

Jun 21

Life Without Goals: The Only Post You’ll Ever Need

Goals & productivity

GoallessYou know the story about the boy in the marching band?

The whole band are marching together with magnificent style and timing, apart from this one boy who’s the only one marching out of step.  His mother, beaming with pride, proceeds to tell everyone she knows how he was the only one in the whole band who was marching in step.

That’s kind of how I’ve felt ever since I trained as a coach back in 2002.  That training was focused on using goals in order to drive personal development and personal change, and even back then something wasn’t sitting right.

It was around 3 years later that I dumped that goal-setting approach and discovered a better way of changing things; a way that actually worked.

I’ve been vocal right here on the blog about how I don’t think goals are all they’re cracked up to be and how they bring along more problems than they solve.  And I thought I was the only one, until Leo Babauta extolled the exact same philosophy during the World Domination Summit.

So here are 5 posts from the archives that tell you exactly why I take issue with traditional goal-setting and what I suggest instead.

  1. Having Goals Doesn’t Work and the Swedish Know It
  2. Feeling Blue – Is ‘Living Up to Your Potential’ BS?
  3. Goal Setting (is) for Dummies
  4. How to Know Where You Want to Go, and How to Get There With Confidence
  5. The No-Goal Guide to an Extraordinary 2011

How about you – can you picture your life without goals? Or do you disagree with me and think that goals are the only way to make real progress?

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8 Comments »
  • http://bombtune.com Wells Baum

    Michael Jordan never wrote down his goals.  He knew what he wanted to achieve and went out and got it.  But he still had a base, a foundation.  

    To go on goalless may leave you in the streets homeless.  And that’s ever more stressful.  

  • Cliff Yvon

    Setting goals, make it happen and live with your dreams is the essence of life.

  • http://theconfidenceguyonline.com Steve Errey – Confidence Guy

    There’s a big difference between setting goals and knowing what matters to you. Often people mistake the former for the latter, but as you’ve suggested by Michael Jordan’s approach, it’s hugely effective to have a theme that you engage with; a theme based on what matters to you.

    That’s the key.

    I’m also not sure how useful it is to compare not having goals to being homeless. I totally agree that if you’re simply coasting or drifting then you’ll see the worst life has to offer, but that’s not what I’m talking about here.

  • http://theconfidenceguyonline.com Steve Errey – Confidence Guy

    Gotta disagree Cliff. Setting goals and making them happen is not the essence of life, in my opinion. You end with “live with your dreams”, which is more like it – to me, the essence of life is honouring the things that matter to you the most and making decisions that respect, honour and demonstrate those things, and make them come alive.

    Goal setting doesn’t need to be part of that process and often gets in the way of that process (hence my issues with it).

  • http://twitter.com/francescjosep Francisco J. Lastra

    I just turned 21, since then I’ve started to think a lot about making something big soon. Don’t know why, but since a kid I pictured myself making a lot of important things in the future.

    The future is now, and I see a lot of great people that accomplished big things being very young and I feel some pressure, but not the bad kind of pressure.

    So this seems a perfect time to write some goals, but that doesn’t make any sense.

    I think about goals and how they can be applied in businesses (“we need to increase our revenue by 5% this year” etc.) but can’t see the benefit on writing down goals for our personal life.

    Now I’m going to read those posts, 

    Cheers.

  • http://theconfidenceguyonline.com Steve Errey – Confidence Guy

    I hope you find something you can take and apply to your own life, but watch out for that voice in your head that’s applying the pressure on you. That voice seems to be comparing what you’re doing with what you’ve seen others achieve, but it’s a completely false comparison.

    Seems to me like you have a good instinct about what works for you – listen to that and I have no doubt whatsoever that you’ll build some extraordinary things.

    Let me know how you get on.

  • http://theconfidenceguyonline.com Steve Errey – Confidence Guy

    Chance has a role to play for sure, but more so than consistent effort? Consistent, meaningful action is key to any kind of success that matters, but I’d also argue that it’s more important to notice what’s right in front of you in order to grab it. It’s that ability to be in the right place at the right time that can make all the difference.

  • Steven B

    I can’t help but agree with this. I grew up forced to set goals. As an adult I had set goals quarterly, each time I didn’t complete the goal on time or it wasn’t done right I felt myself go down. I soon realized I am KILLING who I am with setting goals without any visual of the future. Now, i visualize what i want, and I take action to achieve. I have been growing more every since. Awesome site Steve! thanks for your time, effort and wisdom. 

    ~Steven B