A Quality of Thought: “It’s not what a goal is”.

If you’re stuck in your goal-setting, here’s a useful thought:

It’s not what a goal is. It’s what a goal does.

A common frustration in high performers that often sparks them into looking at coaching as an option, a way out, is lack of motivation. The highest performers, temporarily losing their motivation mojo, and then stuck in a thinking loop best summarised as: “Why am I not motivated?”

As if settling on a justification for being de-motivated is their ticket out of the rut.

(It’s not. It’s just something else for me to be down on myself about. Another demotivating thought that keeps me demotivated. And notice, in this moment, how I’ve slipped into victim. It’s easy to spot when I do: a victim always needs a reason. A reason to be happy. A reason to have goals. A reason for being motivated. A reason for being de-motivated. But the only reason for de-motivation is thinking demotivating thoughts.)

My escape hatch from my (temporary!) state of “lacking in motivation” is a goal. And when that lack of motivation shows-up as resistance to setting goals, I remind myself of what Steve Chandler teaches us in “100 Ways to Motivate Yourself”:

It’s not what the goal is. It’s what the goal DOES.

This is a useful perspective which I can use in at least 2 ways …

(1) I can take a look at my current goals and notice that they’re outcomes which are not inspiring process. These types of goals need to be re-examined and either upgraded – or temporarily shelved. They’re not helping me – they’re keeping me stuck.

(2) I can create new goals that begin not with the outcome, but with the process. That is: I will set process goals, entirely within my control, requiring small but consistent (daily) activity, continual measurement and an element of external accountability. Outcome is secondary – at least, until I start to feel my motivated state return.

It’s interesting that in that last point, we wait to feel motivated. Well, that’s fine – when I’m on my return to peak motivation. But I don’t want to base my plan for escaping low motivation on feelings. I want to base it in action. No consulting my mood. No asking whether I feel like doing this. It’s my process. And I just follow it.

It’s not what a goal is. It’s what a goal does. Lacking motivation? Get back to process goals.

Thanks for reading!

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