Your goals are meaningless
I mean it.
What is the meaning of a goal?
In most cases, goals only demotivate us.
If I’m working toward a goal to make a hundred thousand dollars or get a hundred thousand followers, what does that do for me? I could sit around hoping, manifesting, yearning, to reach my goals…but that often leads to daydreaming and discontentment. If I don’t have a process in place to reach my goals, I’ll begin by daydreaming, realize I’m behind, I’ll get demotivated, and quit.
There’s a big difference between output-oriented goals, and input-oriented goals.
I want to sell hundreds of thousands of books. So far, I’ve sold about 250 (not 250 thousand, just 250). If I went into my book launch with a sales goal (an output goal) that would have only served to demotivate me. By this point I might be thinking wow, this is a grind and it’s not making me very much money. Instead, I went into my book launch with a content goal (an input goal). I’m just trying to post 365 pieces of content this year. So I’m staying the course. I’m having fun.
“I don’t have goals. I have zero goals,” says bestselling author Ryan Holiday. “I’m not trying to sell a certain number of copies. I’m not trying to write a certain number of books. I’m not trying to beat anyone. I’m not trying to be the best at anything. I don’t really care about bestseller lists. I’m trying to do the thing. I like doing the thing.”
David Bayles and Ted Orland had a similar notion. “Making the work you want to make means finding nourishment within the work itself.”
There’s so much we can’t control. I can’t control whether or not I go viral. I can’t control whether or not people buy my books. I can’t control whether or not people recommend my book to their friends, (or write a review). Certainly, I can work hard and smart while I create to make those things more likely…but I don’t control them.
Maybe this title was clickbait. Output goals do have some meaning. Their meaning comes if we’re able to turn them into input goals. If we can develop an input-based process to help us reach our output-based goal, then they have meaning.
Another thing: output goals can help us push toward the finish line. That final burst of motivation when you’re oh-so-close to the end. But we won’t even get close to the finish line if we don’t turn our output goal into an input goal. Output goals can help us realize what input goals we should set to make them happen. But without input goals beside them, output goals are meaningless.
