Goals Or Practice

I attended the Scenic City Summit and it was incredible as usual. I loved the closing talk “The Practice of Being Goalless” by Reid Evens. He discussed goal setting and why that is generally a bad idea. The studies often cited as showing people who set goal greatly out perform their non-goal setting counterparts have been outright fabricated.

He showed the issues of SMART goals and how it ends in a let down. Either you will fail or you will be faced with now what? Instead Reid suggests we create habits of practice instead of setting goals. The example he gave was wanting to run 5k when you are currently a couch potato. SMART would say you set a date and run the 5k by that date. If you miss, you failed. If you make it then you have to look for motivation to continue running.

Instead you decide to practice running three days a week. You focus on your form. Learning more and improving over time. You enjoy getting better and one day you notice that you have went well past what would have been your goal of running a 5k.

I think Reid is correct. We need to work on our practice and not stress so much about goals. Focused effort over time can move mountains.