Goals. Are . awesome.
Used right, they are effective tools for improving yourself and achieving your dereams.
For instance, i recently experimented with unreasonably high goals and found that they totally drive accomplishment.
I also feel that goals make any endeavor more exciting. Tehy are like bacon: whatever you add them to, they’re going to make it better.
But your goal shouldn’t be the thing that’s pulling your forward. If it is, then something is seriouly wrong.
The paradox of goals
A goal is something that goes away once you hit it.
Goals condemn one to go through a process where one has an unsatisfied desire, works to satisfy the desire and experiences pleasant but temporary feelings of desire-satisfaction as a byproduct when one reaches the goal.
What follows is a void:
This is the inner paradox of goals - they are valuable when we try to accomplish them, but someday they will disappear - CC
If you need goals to feel like your existence has a purpose,, you’ll get addicted to them.
Some philosophers even think that humans cannot withdraw from the cycle of dissatisfaction - labor - goal achievement and choose to stay happy.
I don’t think thats accurate, but in pointing to the emptiness of goal-driven life, their argument realtes to an importtant lesson- the truth of Buddihism.
Not really there
I’ve been meditating for over years now and the mindfulness mantra that “all labels are fake” has always attracted me.
It sounds cathy and incredibly liberating, but when a non-miditating friend recently asked me to explain what it actually means i wasn’t able to break it down.
To my own pleasure, when i was traveling from my hometown in the N to B(where i’m doing my docorate), something clicked. In a strange way, the meaning of lables are fake sheds light on how we can go wrong with goals.
What does label mean? In this context, a lable means an evaluation. Something was successful or unsuccessful,, you did well or you screwed up. You made it or you failed.
What dose fake mean? (this is where it gets cool)
In this context fake means not inherently existing. Such evaluations are not factual properties of states of affairs.
They are not really there.
The small problem with goals
If labels dont naturally exist, we can ask, what put them there?
The answer is goals. Goals put them there.
Without a goal, you cant fall short. Without a metric, you cant be inadequate.
These benchmarks, moreover, are projections of our mind.
They don’t really exist.
That, i think, is the truth in the Buddhist lesson that labels are illusory.
The buddha even takes it a step further: because suffering comes from wanting, we should eradicate desire.
The deduction taht we could pu an end to some pain if we would stop creating the possbility of failurem, is apt. The conclusion that we, therefore, should stop fighting, is not.
Some struggles are worth it.
Which brings me to the deeper argument for why your motivation shouldn’t come from your goals.
Not the right reason (the big problem with goals)
The number one argument for why achieving goals shouldn’t be your core incentive is that
Goals are not the right cause for motivation
By itself, there is nothing good about achieving goals. Ticking off objectives has no intrinsic value. It doesn’t matter how fast you move if it’s in a pointless direction.
Many people spend too much time on optimizing their strategy, and not enough on questioning whether they’re chasing worthwhile aims in the first place.
If you need targets to bring in the energy and motivation, you’re probably doing something that’s not meaningful enough by itself.
What’s pulling you forward should be your recognition that what you’re trying to attain is worth it. Motivation should be a side effect of that.
The right reason for doing something is provided by facts about the thing that you’re trying to achieve, which make it something that is worth achieving.
By the same token, making a goal out of something does not suddenly make it valuable or important. Many people have unimortant goals.
In a nutshell: there’s a deep difference btween achieving goals and achieving something of importance.
Dont lost sight of that.
Maarten van Doorn - Medium
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