When Goals Burn You Out

     

Recently in an ultra-productive spur of events I went from 0 to 60 and managed to fill my time with commitments that two weeks prior seemed like a good idea. I then began to notice that I would return home feeling drained and I could now sympathize with breadwinners who come home from work and check out in front of the television with a beer bottle in hand. I experienced a similar scenario, except that in my attempt to recuperate my energy I chugged bottles of Gatorade as if my life depended on it.

I would have avoided the exhaustion if I had been a tad bit smart about goals and followed the traditional left-brained method of setting them.  “What are SMART goals?” you ask.

Smart goals are:

Specific

Measurable

Achievable

Relevant &

Time-Based

But how would a right brainer go about setting goals? With a tempting subtitle How to Have the Life You Want Now! Stephen Shapiro’s Goal Free Living revisits the true purpose of goals as well as the shortcomings that come with sticking to them. He advises his readers to maintain a healthy relationship between their goals and their aspirations and reminds them that their achievements may not always result in increased happiness. Shapiro introduces this reality check, not to discourage you from pursuing your goals, but to help you see the value of living your life NOW. For Shapiro, the hypothetical reference points that goals provide you with are meant to motivate and inspire you instead of filling you with anxiety or dread at the sight of looming responsibilities.

All too often we’re waiting for exterior conditions to change to give ourselves permission to live, permission to see if life will render itself in HD after we’ve proven ourselves worthy, disciplined, or self-effacing enough. Shapiro’s book is replete with wisdom of effortlessness but I’ve attempted to winnow down the sections most relevant to a Type K.

1. Use a Compass, Not A Map

The problem with setting goals is that they affix us to a pre-determined result.  Such specificity can blur your recognition of peripheral opportunities that arise en route to your destination. Instead of using a detailed map to guide your actions, Shapiro recommends using your passion, skills, and values as the magnetic force that guides your intuitive compass.

Set Themes to Your Goals

Why do you want to achieve your goals? Because you believe that achieving them will increase your happiness, health, wealth, security, etc. While these are worthwhile reasons to pursue your goals, Shapiro reminds readers that only 8%

of Americans actually follow through on their resolutions. Instead of setting resolutions or SMART goals, he recommends setting themes. Themes take on the form of general statements like “explore my potential as a writer” as well as desired states of being such as “health”. They form more creative outlets than SMART goals. Translating the goal of exercising into a theme turns into: “explore pleasurable activities that give me a work out”. *Ahem*

Even though themes eliminate “specificity [of] design” they are enough to steer you into action with a sense of curiosity. Shapiro recommends setting themes at the beginning of each year, but I suspect that they work well for month-long or perhaps even weeklong commitments— as long as you ensure that you allow enough time for your intentions to germinate into workable action plans. Setting themes to your goals reminds you that you can enjoy the states you seek to achieve now as opposed to postponing your happiness. That is your privilege in your claim to an abundant life.

Trust that you are never lost

Shapiro encourages readers to stop second-guessing themselves and to “trust that they are never lost”. Instead of viewing goals as a carpool lane with limited opportunities to steer off-course, he depicts goals as a beautiful winding road with an exit at every mile to appreciate the landscape. The vignette reframes so-called mistakes as worthwhile detours that enhance your life experience by providing you with new sights and knowledge. For Shapiro, there are no right or wrong pathways, only decisions: “remember that no matter what path you are on, you are on the right path if you are enjoying it and playing it full out, then it’s the right thing to do”.

2. Want What You Have

In other words, count your blessings. Appreciate what you have, appreciate yourself, and how your particular situation fits into a broader picture. Chances are, if you’re borderline normal, you’re doing pretty well. And if improvement is necessary, there’s no need to take this information personally. In one Shapiro’s exercises he asks readers to rate their life on a scale from 1 to 10.  Most people feel that 5 “represents deep depression” and rate their lives a 7, which implicates “a small step above misery”. Increasing the appreciation for your life can immediately increase your ratings to a 9 or 9.5 and there’s no reason to evaluate it otherwise. Performing this exercise instantly changes your outlook, and it’s the only variable you need to change to experience a new life.

3. Embrace Your Limits

Taking into account your humanity, as well as your fallibility, can ease the pressure of perfection that you seek to achieve through your goals. Even though achieving goals can temporarily prove to others that you’re a robotic super human, know that such a pursuit of public victories leads to an unsatisfying, asymptotic path that negates the true origin of your value. What do you do after you bomb an interview that you researched, rehearsed, and prepared for? You connect with your humanity. When you exhibit this type of self-acceptance and you can look at your inadequacies as “attributes rather than deficits…your inadequacies [will] no longer control you; they [will instead] connect you with the rest of us”.

The Type K’s Middle Path

Goals without aspirations are lifeless and aspirations without goals are fantasies. It’s possible to have a grand vision running in the background of our minds without having them interfere with our present access to our well-being. Even though goals challenge us to stretch ourselves, the more ordinary we make them to be, the more likely we’ll gravitate towards doing them. And, we won’t call them goals. We’ll call them habits, inclinations, instinct, or hobbies. So does the Type K opt out for an easy breezy goal-free existence or does he set SMART goals? It seems that the emerging theme to the Type K’s lifestyle is balance. The Type K sees himself as a potion maker and tries a combination of right-brain and left-brain techniques to mix the right amount of flexibility and discipline into a moldable regime that will allow him to pursue his ambitions at a pace he fills comfortable with.  

The Type K sets SMART goals from time to time but he always accompanies them with the overarching theme of well-being.  Even though he challenges himself to arrive at a specific destination, he uses his internal compass to guide him and remains open to the possibilities that life brings him. When he makes decisions, he doesn’t look back for fear of turning into a pillar of salt. The Type K commits to his present happiness, and understands that there is no such thing as the future. There is only this moment. And he very well knows that the next moment will very much resemble this moment if he cannot amplify his appreciation for this moment.  He appreciates the abundance of where he stands and the mere perception of where he’s headed is enough to fulfill him now. The Type K knows that his true goal is to  “live fully and die empty”.