Why Goals Didn’t Work for Me

When goal-setting becomes a rollercoaster of procrastination and distraction, establishing new habits and routines might be the best step toward success.

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In the past five years, I’ve probably set hundreds of goals—big and small, long term and short term. I’ve set my sights on everything from changing my smartphone habits and exercising more, to being a more patient father and making better use of my time.

Remarkably, with all that goal setting, progress in many areas of my life has stalled.

Instead of being a mechanism of force for my best efforts, my goal setting became another form of procrastination and a distraction from the real problem that was brewing under the surface.

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There are no universal laws on the helpfulness of goals in a person’s life. So if goals have been helpful for you, keep doing what you’ve been doing. However, if you’re like me, and you’ve invested a lot of time and mental energy into your goals with little to show for it, keep reading.

Setting goals might be getting in the way of your progress—it didn’t work for me—and maybe it’s not working for you either.

Let me share what I mean when I say goals didn’t work for me.

3 Problems With Goal Setting in My Life

1. Goal setting feels like real work, but it isn’t. 

Like many people, I find thinking about my goals and making plans for the future to be very satisfying and very easy work. I can experience some of the pleasure of success by simply imagining a better future—without the hard work and hassle of doing it. This powerful combination of high reward and low effort makes it a seductive alternative to ever actually getting started.

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2. Goal setting focuses on having done something, rather than doing it.

Goal setting pushes me to think about the future in a way that makes it feel like it’s already mine. I can dream of getting back in shape and winning our local 5k race, and with my vivid imagination, it’s as if the victory is as good as mine and all that’s left to do is train. This makes me think of myself as someone who wins 5k’s as opposed to someone who enjoys running—an identity I will need if I hope to fall in love with the daily grind of training.

3. Goal setting prioritizes the wrong kind of motivation.

Dreaming about big goals is one of the easiest ways to quickly pump up the motivation. Unfortunately, it’s not a long-term strategy. It’s the equivalent of drinking an energy drink in the morning as opposed to cultivating habits that lead to consistently restful sleep. The motivation we need is the gentler, enduring motivation of genuine interest and consistent progress. The combination of these two isn’t as explosive as an exciting new plan, but they can carry us through months and years of steady effort.

What I’m Doing Instead

Reshaping My Environment 

When I set a new goal, I get an instant boost of motivation, and in that moment I feel I can do anything I set my mind to. But without fail, the motivation wanes, and my willpower goes back to baseline in a few weeks. I notice I try to surf the wave of cheap hits of motivation, otherwise, I’m constantly searching for something new to excite me.

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Instead, I shake up my environment and try to establish completely new norms. Commit to running a race with a friend, promise to deliver a project by a certain date, install an app to block distracting websites on your phone or computer—whatever it takes to disrupt the patterns you want to change.

Making Progress Every Day

Much of the time you spend setting goals and tracking their progress could be better spent jumping into the very thing you want to do. It’s even more motivating to feel a sense of progress and forward momentum toward the direction you want to go.

While goal setting feels necessary, we typically need only a general sense of where we’re headed to take those first few steps. Adjusting course and changing speeds are much easier when you’re already in motion. Getting started and making that first bit of progress are the hardest parts anyway, so why put them off a moment longer?

Take That 1st Step

Are you worried that without goals you won’t make progress? Don’t be. From personal experience, I’ve seen that goals don’t guarantee progress and, in fact, might be a distraction.

What does create progress is reshaping your environment into one that nudges you in a particular direction, and then consistently and willfully taking steps in that direction each day.

This bottom-up approach delivers a smaller motivational tailwind initially but reinforces the mindset of one who is not merely a dreamer of dreams but a doer of deeds.