The Secret Side of Goals

Did you know that even simple goals often change us in ways we don’t see coming? It’s true! Hitting your goal regularly of drinking more water will keep you hydrated, yes, but it might also have effects you didn’t expect like clearing up your skin or making it hard to sit through history class without using the restroom! The moral is that we can’t always see all the ways a goal will change us.

Typically the approach to goal setting has been to create goals that are SMART. That stands for specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, and time-bound (Vozza, 2021). But here’s where things get interesting. Sometimes we set goals for ourselves in life that aren’t that easy to define and we can’t see as clearly when we’ve arrived or “reached” the goal. What if, for example, your goal is that you want to be a more compassionate, kind person? You could commit to check in on one person each week to see how they are really doing. This is a fantastic goal but the way it might affect your life in the long run is hard to see.

Think about Frodo and Sam from the Lord of the Rings. When Sam goes with Frodo and sets the goal of sticking by his master no matter what, he has no idea how that will really shape him and turn him into the hobbit we adore by the end of the books (or, ahem, movies). That one, simple goal utterly transforms Sam Gamgee. As a result we get to watch his courage grow in leaps and bounds. He didn’t set a goal to protect Frodo from Gollum or see the elves or fight and defeat Shelob the great spider and yet all of that and more happens as a direct result of his first, honest goal. Part of that is because it’s such a good goal.

That’s a beautiful thing about goals: they tend to change us in ways we can’t even dream of. One day you’re setting a goal that you want to work in the medical field and then it’s like you’ve blinked, and years later, you might find yourself performing eye surgeries on children in a foreign country for a not-for-profit organization. Or let’s say you set a goal to run twice a week. You get really into it, find that you don’t just like running, you love running, and next thing you know, you’ve signed up for your first marathon.

Someone once taught me that the two main ways we change is through the people we meet and the books we read. But the trick is that we can’t see HOW they will change us, only that they will. Keep that in mind today as you consider what goals you might want to set for yourself and, if you dare, dream about where they might take you!

Reference: Vozza, S. (2021). How your goal setting should change during the pandemic. Fast Company. Retrieved from https://www.fastcompany.com/90594896/this-is-how-your-goal-setting-should-change-during-the-pandemic.

Challenges/Points:

• Some goals are easier to set than others but ultimately we can’t see how goals will change us (or where they will take us) in the long run so set them thoughtfully!  

• Most goals are set using the SMART acronym to make them achievable which stands for specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, and time-bound. 

Questions:

• Is there a goal you’d like to set for yourself that is harder to be specific about? Write it down and brainstorm!

• What kind of person do you want to be one year from now? How about three years? Or five? 

• Can you post your goal somewhere you will see it every morning? 

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