This post is continuing on the series of posts about goal-setting, exploring the degree to which traditional goal-setting is still relevant in our high-change, opportunity-abundant world today. Here are the other posts in the series so far:
- Is Traditional Goal-Setting Broken? (video post)
- Call Recording: How to Create the Framework to Get the Results You Want in Life, With Michele Woodward
- What Other Coaches and Bloggers Are Saying About Goal-Setting
- A Model For Using Your Whole Mind to Problem-Solve And Negotiate Change
- Does Goal-Setting Make You Too Future-Focused?
Who’s really in control?
One of the areas of goal-setting that often gets people stuck is the whole thing of responsibility and control. Some people find it hard to set goals because they feel like they don’t want to set goals for things they can’t entirely control, because then they’ll just frustrate themselves. And of course, there are things that are completely out of our control and being a control freak and focusing on the stuff that you can’t control – the stuff that’s not “your business”, is a recipe for insanity in a world where so much is outside of our control. But the boundaries of what’s “your business” and what you should try to control and how much you should “let go of” and “allow” are pretty subjective and differ from person to person.
There’s the very extreme view that “You create your subjective reality and even the physical world around you through your thoughts” ala “The Secret,” and so you’re totally responsible (and to blame!) for whatever circumstances you sit with. And then there’s the other extreme view that other people, events and external forces determine our fate and there’s not a lot we can do about how things will turn out. And of course there are so many places in between.
I think it’s worth exploring where this boundary sits for you, because it has implications on what kind of goals you’ll set, how you’ll feel about the process of realizing your goals, how much “force” and “focus” and “persistence” you apply when you’re going after your goals, how you react when you if you get your goals, and how you react if you experience setbacks or fail at your goals. So, to stimulate your thinking, here are some of the perspectives that other coaches and personal development bloggers shared on the degree to which you’re in control:
“Hold your goals lightly” is my dictum to goal-setting…”
“Hold your goals lightly” is my dictum to goal-setting. I believe in two constructs that I hold in equal regard; firstly, that we are able to create our world through a positive mindset, consistent focus and a goal wish list, and secondly, that the world creates us through divinely timed events that demand and invite us to transform ourselves and, most times, our goals. Family illness, political crises, even day-to-day events – these can radically change the context of a personal journey. In response to life, our goals need to be light, adaptable, flexible.
I’m a goal-by-evaluation person. I have a exciting goal wish list that attracts me to forward motion, yet, as I’m impacted by life’s events – the important and the mundane – I’m regularly re-evaluating, “Are these goals still important/attractive to me now?” “Does they still make sense to me now?” “Is what I am doing moving me closer toward what is important to me, for now?” And, if not, I go about editing a more relevant list. And hold that one lightly too.”
Michelle Clarke is a High Impact Executive Coach to High-Achieving Individuals. you can find her at www.motivcoach.com and she’s @motivcoach on Twitter.
“…you have to make deliberate decisions at some point, and meaningful lives don’t happen by accident…”
Chris wrote about his annual review and goal-setting process this week and you can read more about it over here. In summary, here’s what he’s got to say about goal-setting: “My sense is that people who are resistant to goal-setting may be looking at the wrong kind of goals. Goals should be personal and liberating, not generic or constricting. If you decide later that you don’t like something you put on your original list, you can always change it – but most years, you won’t have to do that very often.
My life is fairly structured in the sense that I know what I’m working towards, and I’ve made a number of sacrifices to achieve the goals I’ve set – but for the most part, I don’t feel like it’s restrictive in any way… beginning the Annual Review five years ago was probably the most important process that’s helped me get to where I am now… Just remember: you have to make deliberate decisions at some point, and meaningful lives don’t happen by accident.”
Chris Guillebeau “writes, travels and helps people take over the world.” You can find him at www.chrisguillebeau.com and he’s @chrisguillebeau on Twitter.
“I never ever bother with setting resolutions or conventional goals… The Intelligence of Nature guides me to the path of greatest transformation. How this happens is a mystery, a beautiful mystery.”
“I never ever bother with setting resolutions or conventional goals. When I was in my early twenties, I threw a lot of energy to the wind trying to shift the world around to match what I wanted. But the wonder and beauty of age, and working with the amazing wisdom of the shamanic path, has taught me to play with life in a far more creative way. Each year, instead of trying to figure out what I “should” do, I ask Nature the question, “What do you most want me to create, to bring to life in this next year?” I then spend time in Nature, walking and sitting. And when the time is right, She tells me what will be my most vitalized path for the coming year. The Intelligence of Nature guides me to the path of greatest transformation. How this happens is a mystery, a beautiful mystery.”
Davide De Angelis is a philosopher, speaker, shaman, musician and visionary artist and you can find him at www.themoneyshaman.com.
“Goals aren’t something you set once and then head towards blindly. Life just doesn’t happen so smoothly….”
“Goals aren’t something you set once and then head towards blindly. Life just doesn’t happen so smoothly. It’s messy and situations change sometimes on an almost daily basis. While we can get stuck in a planning/re-planning loop that takes away from action, we can also get too focused on an outdated goal or let something take us on an unexpected and unnoticed detour which drags us away from where we really want to end up.
I pretty much ignore all formal or informal goal setting processes. Instead I look at where I want to be (in my case a fiction writer) and where I am now. Then I look at what actions I can take right now to get me there. I repeat this process every few months at the least and make regular (but not obsessive) course changes.
Picture it like piloting a boat. You set your destination and point the boat in the direction you want to go, but then a wind comes up and your sails push you in a slightly different direction. Depending on how strong the wind is, you may need to change your destination or just make minor adjustments, but if you’re not aware of the changes in the wind and weather, you could end up completely off-course, or worse, shipwrecked.”
Alex Fayle is a Lifestyle Design expert for people who suffer from Someday Syndrome and put off their dreams instead of pursuing them. You can find him at www.somedaysyndrome.com and he’s @alexfayle on Twitter.
What are your thoughts and experiences?
How do you determine what’s outside of your control, and to what degree do you try to change things that are not entirely in your control? And how does your perspective about how much control you have have an impact on what goals you choose to set, how you go about realizing your goals, how you deal with the times when the going is tough and things aren’t going as well as you’d hoped, and how you deal with setback and failures?
i believe there are two types of people, those who set goals based on the resources they have and the limitations they expect to have and those who set goals first then find out how can they reach them, i guess the second group will be much more successful
Hey Farouk, thanks for stopping by and adding your thoughts. That’s an interesting distinction you draw there. I think I get what you’re saying about the importance of deciding and committing to what you want, even if you can’t yet see how to get it. There’s another side to this though – It’s important to not be in denial about where you’re actually starting from. I think sometimes starting from an honest assessment of what resources you’ve got and where you’re at right now, and using the resources you do have, is also a powerful success strategy.
.-= CathD´s last blog ..Goal-Setting: Who’s Really In Control? =-.
Hi Cath,
I?ve been following the goals discussion with interest and meaning to add my 2 cents worth, but events have overtaken me these last couple of months? which probably says something about my approach to goals
Alex?s take most resonated with me. And not just because I?m a keen sailor and liked his metaphor!
I?d regard myself as achievement oriented and practical, with a strong belief that I create my reality. I may not have control over many things in my environment, but I have 100% control over my response, even if that response is limited to how I feel and what I think about the things that happen around me. I like Stephen Covey?s book, ?The 7 habits of highly effective people? in which he uses the visual language of a circle of concern, and another circle inside this circle that is your smaller circle of influence. He advises expanding the circle of influence and contracting the mental space therefore allocated to things of concern to you. We all know that the stuff that in our circles of concern ends up as worry or other forms of negative thoughts. Which is my meaning when I say we create our reality ? we create (in the sense that we choose and can change) our experience of life, in terms of our dominant thinking patterns and feelings.
So sticking with Alex?s boating metaphor, you might worry about a storm coming but you can?t blow it away from you. You could huddle in the cockpit or hunch over the chart table and start worrying hard. Or you could use the information available to you to evaluate your options: your boat position and course over ground, speed and direction of travel of the front approaching, shelter that you can reach in time, strengths and weaknesses of your boat, equipment on board to cope with bad weather, strength and morale of the crew, etc.
To add another belief in the mix, I also believe ? as you do ? in life as a continuous learning journey. The more we know, the more skills we have and the more resources we gather, the more options that become available to us in life.
In my mind, I liken goals to choices in business and life. We can imagine different future scenarios, and assign probability and risk to them. We can evaluate our capability to make certain scenarios a reality, and decide what to do about it. By choosing one scenario ? or goal ? as our focus, doesn?t mean the other scenarios no longer exist. They all exist at the same time, and we can always make new choices. But of course there is usually a cost or trade off to make in so doing.
To sum up, I think the concept of control versus influence has most practical use as a way of allocating your attention, energy and time. There are things you are concerned about ? ie things that do or might have an impact on you ? but have no direct control over, and there are things you can influence. The goals we choose to pursue in life serve a simple purpose: they help us focus, and they determine where we spend our money, time, attention. Goals are choices, and we can change our minds. I think, like Alex, that goals need constant review and course correcting. They are a tool to guide choices.
I?m conscious that this is a very analytical approach, but I?m a very rational sort of person. That said, I the way I make my own choices is evolving. I use my intuition not just my conscious thought. I believe in synchronicity and that somehow when we make choices the resources and people we need seem to cross our paths (if we?re looking). I can?t justify or prove these things are true, but they seem (perhaps it?s an illusion?) real to me.
Interesting stuff!
Thomas
Hi Cath,
I just had another thought related to the idea of control and goals…
I’ve been reading a great book called “The drunkard’s walk” by Leonard Mlodinow about randomness and chance and how it affects our lives. He explains with anecdotes, and fascinating historical perspectives, the mathematical rules of probability theory and applies them to lots of everyday examples to show how they influence our lives. And he explains how these insights should alter how we make choices.
The main take-away for me is that chance is a major influence on all our lives. We control our choices in life, but often the actions we take as a consequence of choice have less impact on the final outcome than we would want or think to be the case.
A realistic view of the influence that our actions have on outcomes seems to me an important ingredient for reflecting on goals. Difficult to ponder, as problems of probability are often very misleading. A simple example: psychological research shows that when we are given more information about something, it seems to us more believable and probable than when we have very limited information. He quotes examples in the book of legal testimony, and experiments where two group are given the same facts but one group receives more detail. The group that receive more detail think the scenario is more likely to be true. Apparently, it’s because our brains are wired to believe what we ‘see’ and so the more we can visualise something the more real it feels.
There’s a caution here I think about visualisation and goals!
Food for thought…
Thomas