A few thoughts on goals and their impact
2023-10-19
Goals - the favourite topic of every productivity nerd all the around the world, the driving force behind companies und governments alike and most importantly the subject of this article. I want to present the two distinctly different kinds of them to you, talk about how to set effective ones and ultimately also share a word on their negative impacts. So, let's get started without wasting any more time...
When most people want to reach something or improve a given process, they are likely to set out certain goals along the way to track their progress. That's a good strategy and especially an amazing first step. However, in order to level up your productivity game, you should also know about the difference between incremental and zero-to-one (or categorical) goals, as they are distinctively contrary from each other. Incremental goals are the kind we encounter everywhere in our lifes as they represents slow, but steady progress - such as improving a process. They are very important to keep us going, strengthen innovation and drive humanity forward in the broader picture, but their impact is limited due to the already set direction of the basis they are working with. In other words, they can only ever work towards one distant target, but can't change this target. This is where zero-to-one goals come into play as they define an entirely new direction, are therefore categorical decisions and require quite a lot of outside-the-box thinking, which makes them harder to come up with, way less likely to be reached and therefore quite rare.
However, they are also the only ones that really enable leaps in technology and can have an historic impact, since they potentially open a window into a future that was unthinkable of just a short time prior. Examples of this are the loom, steam engine, electric grid and plane or more recently the computer, internet and smartphone. We tend to only think in terms of improvements of already existing things, but the real game changers of tomorrow will be completely new concepts we don't currently have an equivalent for. This also applies to your very own life - the big changes in life come when you categorically change, when you go from 0 to 1. So, allow yourself room for creative, unconventional thinking or get along with the fact you are very unlikely to really innovate on yourself.
In everyday life these are very rare however, which makes setting effective incremental goals ever more important. Luckily, the tech entrepreneur and venture capitalist Peter Thiel has created his "Future Matrix", which teaches us a valuable lesson on the impact of long-term planning. He differentiates between the following future visions:
- Optimistic Definite: You have a clear optimistic plan for your future, which allows for strategic decisions to reach it. An example of this was the U.S. in the 1950s and 1960s, where mostly scientists and researches were in need to develop new technologies.
- Optimistic Indefinite: You still believe in a better future, but have no clear vision, which only makes short-term thinking viable. This is the current state of the US with lots of bankers and lawyers in need that still improve wealth, but without having a broader game plan.
- Pessimistic Definite: You somehow believe in a worse future, but at least have a clear plan for how to deal with it and can thereforefocus on strategic investments and preparation. Look at the present China for such an economy.
- Pessimistic Indefinite: You also believe in a worse future, but don't even have a plan how to deal with. Therefore nothing is ever changed at all and you just try to keep the current system running, which is exactly the situation Europe is currently in.
This framing makes it really apparent, why it is important to have a clear, not so say definite long-term plan, even when we only have a limited set of directions to choose from, as this allows you to plan your incremental goals backwards from your set destination instead of randomly chosing a direction with every new goal, therefore allowing you to achieve greater things in the long run through small incremental steps.
Now that we know that hoping for a better future is not enough, but you actually need clear goals for tomorrow in order to initiate appropriate actions today, I also want to say a careful word about the impact not-well-set goals can have. They can obviously waste a lot of your precious lifetime, but that isn't the point was going for. The real danger lies in defining yourself by your goals and not the person you are today. A very drastic example of this is the so-called post-olympic depression many atheletes faces after striving for and working towards a medal for countless years, then winning one and feeling as if their life doesn't have a meaning anymore. They focussed all their hope and effort on a single goal instead of trying to be happy with their current life,s which had to lead into a disastrous mental low. So, try to be happy with the way you are today and don't focus your hopes on everything getting better once you reach a certain goal.
With that said, I hope you have learned a thing or two and can really shine the next time you have to set an important goal. Feel free to let me know about your experiences in the comments down below and have a great day...