Goals Suck

Why the Obsession with Goal-Setting Is a Flawed Approach to Productivity and Life in General

De: M.F. Stone

Narrado por: Matt Stone

Goals Suck!

When you have sex, do you take a timer and a legal pad into the bedroom to log the number of hip thrusts and grunts? Do you compile all of your data at the end of the week and plot it into a graph? Do you have goals for the number of times you have sex per month, the number of partners you have, or keep close tabs on how many minutes you can last for? Of course you don’t. The very thought of setting and tracking goals in the bedroom is a complete absurdity!

Why is That?

Why does that strike you as absurd? You don’t need goals in order to be motivated to have sex do you? It’s naturally enjoyable and requires no such outside motivation. More importantly, the thought of setting goals and tracking them would ruin the whole experience wouldn’t it? But you set goals in all kinds of other areas. Why?

The Problem with Goals

Goals are something we use to incentivize ourselves to do things we wouldn’t otherwise have the desire to do. There is something inherently wrong with this at its core. Goal-setting and tracking merely works to ensure that we spend more time doing things we aren’t truly passionate about.

And if setting goals in areas that we do enjoy can take away from the natural enjoyment of those activities, and ruin our spontaneity, might setting goals actually make the actions required to obtain them less enjoyable? The answer to that question is “yes.”

The Solution

If you stop setting goals, and focus on doing what you love with vigor and enthusiasm just for the sake of doing it, you ensure that your enjoyment of those activities stays high. And if your enjoyment stays high, you keep doing it consistently for years, you don’t procrastinate, and you can achieve remarkable levels of productivity - not to mention you are literally more efficient and intelligent when you are engaged in activities for pleasure’s sake.

©2014 M.F. Stone (P)2014 M.F. Stone

Interesting

I've been deep into goals and mastery, and while I'm not 100% persuaded by the author's proposition, I think it's definitely worth both having disconfirming evidence to what we believe and there were some valuable points anyway.

sucking goals

nice listen. simple but important points well made in a short period of time. a piece of work of which to be proud.

Interesting read/listen

The author took an interesting perspective on goals and success that I had never heard before. The title says it all. I appreciate his philosophy and was given a lot to ponder. I didn’t connect with the style of writing, it was a bit to casual and masculine for me, but I was intrigued by the message none the less.
If you are a driven person, but don’t fit into the a-type, competitive mold, you may find this worthwhile.

Goals Suck vs SMART Goals

It is quite interesting (and contradicting) that Matt produced this book after narrating the SMART Goals book written by SJ Scott - I don't understand why Matt agreed to narrate that when he never believed it. I guess money talks. Well about Matt's book, it has a few good points but it is not applicable for all aspects in life. Matt should have written something like 'Why TOO MUCH obssession with goals is bad'.

Wake-up call to all goal seekers

Matt points out the ridiculousness of goal setting, where goals have a tendency of taking the fun out of things that you like to do. The book is short and to the point,