Making This One Goal-Setting Mistake Can Make You Miserable






Goals-setting is not a magical one-stop solution to cure all your ills. Like powerful prescription medication, it can be effective when used for the proper indication and at the correct dose but toxic when misapplied.

In my previous article, I explored some ways that misuse of goal-setting can cause harm, problems from setting overly specific or ambitious goals to the self-defeating behaviors that can result from goal fixation.

Like prescription medication, goal-setting must be used in a deliberate and conscious way to avoid doing more harm than good.

Before you set any goal, you must consider one overarching issue: is this goal right for you?

I worked punishing hours to increase my caseload. Believing that if I could get my billing up into the top twenty percent of all general surgeons, then I would have achieved something. But I remained disgruntled.

So I set new goals and became a hospital leader and the Chairman of the Department of Surgery. I bought new cars, a bigger house, and even a sailing yacht, yet despite achieving my “goals,” I wasn’t happy. Instead, I was an overweight, out-of-shape, sad sack who couldn’t appreciate all the good in his life.