Your goals are holding you back
Let me tell you a little bit about my goals.
I am a filmmaker, and I desperately want to make films. I want to connect with people and tell their stories. I want to travel the world, finding new unseen insights about how humans work, and how we are making the world a better place. I want to use my research skills to uncover new ideas and connect fresh new ways of thinking to make the world a better place. I want to tell stories that are authentic, grounded, and help people grow.
I can imagine you have similar wants in your life. How you want to succeed in your job and make good money. Maybe it’s to raise respectful children who are well adjusted in the world. Or to become a well known teacher that can share knowledge far and wide. We make goals to signify our ambitions and focus on where we want our lives to go.
The problem is, goals are worthless and I think they’re holding you back.
Let me explain...
When we set a goal, we are taking a stand to say: I want to achieve X.
Let’s use the example of, “I want to make a 60 minute feature length film”. Great!
There’s a few problems right off the start:
1) Why did we decide that this is the measure of success for ourselves? If this is our first film, why couldn’t it be 10 minutes to get our feet wet? Is it successful if our film only finds an audience of 10 people? What if we have 20 mins of great content and 40 mins of boring filler? The problem is we’ve simply drawn a line in the ground that this claim must be achieved exactly as we declared it in order for me to be happy. You haven’t opened yourself up at all to any happy accidents along the way because you were too deliberate in visualizing exactly what your goal is.
2) How are we building up to achieving this goal? As a filmmaker, I know that 60 minutes of finished film is A LOT OF WORK! A loose ballpark for small productions is “For every finished minute of film it costs $1000 - $2000 to make. On a high end production this can be anywhere from $5000 - $20,000+” per finished minute!! So, with no experience you’re going to jump into an ambitious goal that costs real money (meaning real stakes) and have to hit the moving target to make it work. It’s a risky approach but people do it all the time because they thing that you just need to go all in. That’s a nice little lie we convince ourselves because we’ve fallen in love with the result of our goal, instead of the process itself.
3) What happens after we have achieved our goal? Okay so maybe you pull it off. You scrape together the money to make your film, you overcome all of the challenges ahead of you and manage to make something half decent. Now what? If this was the main goal of you’re life, the plateau when you reach the top of the mountain is going to look a little empty. We fantasize about this day when we’ve finally completed our goal and that all will be well in the world. Success will have arrived and we will begin to live the golden days of our lives. Huzzah! Take that Myles!
WRONG. Sure it will feel nice for a period of time, but soon enough you’re going to wake up in bed tomorrow with the same thoughts and fears you had the day before. "If 60 minutes was successful, maybe it should have been 90 minutes! How will I write a sequel to top this? Should I write a sequel or an original new movie?”
Your goal has been achieved but what are you left with moving forward? Better yet, what if you’re never able to achieve your goal? What if you set the bar too high? Does that mean all the work you put towards the task is wasted?
Answer #1 - Identity based thinking
“You do not rise to the level of your goals. You fall to the level of your systems. ”
When I read Atomic Habits by James Clear, it was like a lightbulb moment for me. James breaks down that instead of focusing on goals themselves, what’s actually important is the identity and system behind a goal. If we can sort these out, we will propel ourselves in the direction we want to go, regardless of how ambiguous or specific our goals are.
We mistakenly think that goals are what motivate us. This is an outcome based system. We expect that having a goal is what propels us towards success.
Identity based systems start with you. They start with how you see the world, who you are, and what you believe about yourself. To continue our example, the first step of our new filmmaker’s journey is not to just start making films. It is to mentally understand and embrace that they are now a filmmaker. You have to be clear about it. I. am. now. a. Filmmaker. Not a grocery store clerk making films. Not a teacher who dabbles in film. You are a filmmaker. Say it out loud, embrace it. Roll around in it, and enjoy it. Maybe not a very good one yet. Maybe it’s even safer to say you are an amateur filmmaker. But a filmmaker none-the-less. By making this declaration, it will start to infiltrate our lives in a positive way. We start to make the decisions a filmmaker would make. See the world how a filmmaker would see the world. This is powerful stuff.
With clarity, we can now use our filmmaker identity to ask the question: “What kind of process would a filmmaker follow to make a film?” And our filmmaker identity will answer that it would be logical to, say, research our subject before starting production. Or make friends with some actors who could be helpful along the way. We start to focus in on the recipe that will actually create the outcome of our film, instead of the simple and naive expectations of our goal.
From Atomic Habits by James Clear
Put another way, let’s look at the path each identity would take:
Outcome based system:
Find an idea
Make 60 minutes of content
Release film
Identify based system:
Identify as a filmmaker
Find an idea
Research and understand the idea
Understand the filmmaking process
Adapt our film as we learn and grow as a creative
Enjoy and have fun with becoming a filmmaker as we create our film
Release our film
Which process is going to lead us to better results over the long term? Which process seems more fun?
The beauty of identity based systems is that it’s not about reaching some lofty achievement that will lock in your success and happiness. That’s a fallacy. It’s about enjoying the journey, understanding the process, and actually becoming what you set out to become.
Outcome based systems are about winning the game. If you’re only focused on winning, then the entire process is an empty slog towards one predetermined outcome.
Identity based systems are about continuing to play the game. If you continue to play the game, then its journey of fun, discovery and creativity that will reward you for as long as you play.
Answer #2 - Goal Hierarchies
You can’t entirely eliminate goals from your life. And I want to be clear, there is some value to setting goals. But what I’m encouraging you towards is focusing on the journey, rather then these large goals that define your life.
Another way to embrace this concept is to create a goal hierarchy. Goal hierarchies simplify your ambitions into a ladder, increasing in complexity and ambition as you climb.
For example:
Low-level
Write one page of my script
Work for 30 mins uninterrupted.
Mid-level
Hire my cast and crew for my film
Finish the production for my film
High-level
Create one feature film
See my name in lights at the movie premiere
Each level of goals supports the next level. The lower the goal is, the smaller it is to manage. This also allows us to be efficient in changing these goals to better serve our needs. Find that writing one page of your script is too easy? Great! Swap that goal for something harder like sending out one cold email to potential investors.
Angela Duckworth summarizes this process of swapping out goals as grittiness. And when we apply grittiness towards our goal hierarchy, we end up creating a strong structure of goals that lead us towards our largest ambitions.
To lean more from Angela Duckworth about goal hierarchies and grittiness, check out this video.
Conclusion
The takeaway from this conversation is that goals themselves are pretty empty. They’re easy to make, easier to break, and great to hide behind. What matters most is the process behind each goal. The structure of understanding your identity, embracing a process, and using a system of smaller goals to shape your journey will actually take you where you want to go.
Identity. System. Hierarchy.
Go get that bread! 🍞
(You can buy Atomic Habits here. James also has a 🔥 newsletter I highly recommend.)
