Why so many goals are meaningless (and how to fix it)

I spend a significant amount of time talking to people about their goals in order to help them achieve them. 

This usually revolves around the entrepreneurship and/or financial space - someone who wants to quit a job, scale their business, or hit a certain revenue target.

There's a great irony in these goals. On the one hand, they mean everything. They're the root of all current activities. They're the primary focus.

On the other hand, they're meaningless. The target they set for themselves is simply a number, one not particularly tied to anything.

We hit this hard on last week's Becoming Kinetic call and found that for one of our members, he had a crystal clear logical roadmap to get to his revenue goal...but that goal didn't actually mean that much.

So today I'm going to push you to hopefully rethink your goals, and to truly tie some meaning to them (and maybe change them).

Most goals are built on borrowed logic

Ask most people what they’re aiming for and you’ll get one of a few responses:

• “I want to make $10k/month.”

• “I want to get to $1M in revenue.”

• “I want to have 100 rental units.”

All clean, simple, impressive, and totally hollow.

I was right there on the $10k/month bandwagon...it’s what everybody on Instagram (and BiggerPockets) says is “freedom.” 

$1M revenue...well that just sounds good. Because be honest...did that come because you reverse-engineered the cost of your lifestyle and business and said “Yep, that’s the number!”?

It’s borrowed logic. It’s default thinking. And it leaves us with targets that look nice on paper but mean nothing in reality.

In my opinion (and experience), this has two negative effects.

It makes obstacles far worse

If someone asked you to jump into really dangerous and choppy water, at the risk of you drowning, would you do it?

What if they told you it's the only way you can save someone you love?

Now you might be an extreme adventure swimmer who would say yes to the former, and if you are then more power to you!

But most people (like me) would say a firm HELL NO to the former but say yes to the latter.

Life gets hard. Entrepreneurship isn't easy. Building a beautiful life comes with the occasional punch in the face.

When you're chasing something meaningful, it becomes far easier to deal with those punches in the face. When the goal doesn't mean much, it requires sheer motivation and discipline to stick it out when it gets hard.

We move the goalposts

The borrowed goals with clean, round numbers are often either a vanity metric, an ego booster, or a demonstration of your potential.

No matter the case, there's always a bigger number. There's always another level. There's always more potential.

So when the goal is to hit $1M revenue for the sake of ego and achievement, and you're at $900k with a clear path to $1M, it's easy to move the goalpost and start chasing more.

My former coach Aaron Velky made a comment on a group coaching call one day 3 years ago that stuck with me. We were talking about moving goalposts and he said "it's fine to move them, but first run through them. Then celebrate. Then move them."

Add depth to your milestones

I started building some clear milestones for myself a couple years ago after that conversation. Each one is rooted in something truly meaningful to me and my family. 

Here are a few examples. For context, my wife is a boss in her field (literally and figuratively) so these goals are for my business and our investments separate from her income.

• Goalpost 1 (GP1): Cover all my personal and business expenses, including some travel

• GP2: Increase the travel budget

• GP3: Cover my wife's share of the joint home/family expenses

• GP4: Cover 100% of my wife's personal expenses

• GP5: Cover the monthly cost of a mountain house

• GP6: Get Jami back into horses

I'll give you a hint...none of these are round numbers. Not one of them ends with 3 neat zeroes on the end.

They're clear. And they're real. Which makes them important and valuable.

The problem with "thinking big"

"Shoot for the stars, you'll at least land on the moon."

I'm all about going big, especially when it's meaningful. But I've also found it to be a double-edged sword that is sometimes rooted in scarcity. 

On the one hand there's the benefit that comes from stretching the limits of your mindset and capabilities. If you've never thought you could accomplish something big, setting a huge goal makes you think differently and helps open up new ideas.

The problem I've found personally though is that when I constantly set incredibly lofty goals, and then move the goalposts, I never truly win. 

I'm like Charlie Brown trying to kick the ball that Lucy keeps pulling out from in front of my foot.

There's a frustration that comes from setting the biggest goals and never allowing yourself to simply win.

And for me, the problem was rooted in this weird version of scarcity.

I felt like the target I aimed at represented my potential. The logical side of my brain knows that if I aim at a reasonable target and hit it, I can simply set up a new and more challenging target.

But the scarcity in my brain says "if you don't aim for the biggest target from the start, you'll squander your potential forever."

What kind of shit is that?

Doing something about it

Maybe you have arbitrary, round-number goals. How can you make them a little more meaningful?

Maybe you're always moving the goalposts. How do you stop to celebrate a bit?

Or maybe you're only aiming for impossible targets. How do you start stacking some wins?

Let me know how this lands and if it resonates with you! And as a bonus, hit reply and share some of your more meaningful goals!