What kind of Goals should you pursue?
There is clear evidence that following our goals is a critical ingredient of resilience. But does it matter what these Goals are and how you follow them? Indeed, it does. It turns out that the type of Goals you follow will not only make you Resilient but also make you Happy or Not Happy!
Consider if your chosen Goals have the following properties –
Intrinsic Goals
Intrinsic Goals are those that you pursue because they are inherently satisfying and meaningful to you, which allow you to grow as a person, to develop emotional maturity, and to contribute to your community. By contrast, extrinsic goals reflect more what other people approve or desire for you – for example, pursuing goals for boosting ego, seeking power or fame, and bowing to manipulation or peer pressure. People usually aim for extrinsic goals as a means to an end – for example, working hard to obtain a reward (like wealth or social approval) or to avoid a punishment (eg. Shame or loss of income/ face).
Following intrinsic goals make us happier, in part because they are relatively more inspiring and enjoyable and we are more likely to invest in them; persevere at them and succeed at them. Lastly, goals that we intrinsically value, directly satisfy our most basic psychological needs in life.
Does this mean that extrinsic goals are always bad? Not necessarily. Sometimes we pursue extrinsic goals (like material wealth) in order to obtain the resources and opportunities that will allow us to pursue our cherished dreams or intrinsic goals.
Authentic Goals
Do you value and truly “own” your goals, or are they really the goals favoured by your parents, spouse, or neighbor? One way that you can own your goals is to choose ones that fit you well. We are happier and more likely to persist at a goal when our striving toward consistently makes us feel good.
The more a goal fits your personality, the more likely that its pursuit will be rewarding and pleasurable and increase your happiness. If you understand your individual values and have a clear sense of your desires, you will likely instantly recognize when there’s a match between you and a particular activity. If you don’t, then contemplate whether you feel “authentic” when pursuing a particular goal!
Approach Goals
Consider if the most important and meaningful goal that you are currently pursuing (big or small) does it involve 'approaching' a desirable outcome (eg. Making three new friends) as opposed to avoiding an undesirable outcome (eg. Making sure your house doesn’t fall apart). Interestingly the same goal can be conceptualized as an approach goal (e.g. to be fit and healthy eater) and an avoidance goal (e.g. not to be fat). Studies have shown that people who pursue 'avoidant' goals (or construe their goals in avoidance terms) are less happy and more anxious and distressed and perform poorly on whatever it is that they are pursuing, than people who generally pursue 'approach' goals.
Harmonious Goals
Your Goals should complement one another. Simultaneous striving for conflicting goals (like “building my business “ and “spending more time outdoor”) will make you so annoyed and discouraged that you would relinquish both goals and end up feeling stressed out and unhappy. The adoptive solution is to change one or both goals to make them more harmonious with each other (eg. Resolving to work on your paper work under the sun or partitioning your day into work and leisure)
Activity Goals
Which goal is more happiness-inducing: seeking to better your circumstances or taking up a new activity? Research suggests that when people strive to change their circumstances, by defining and achieving their goals, they certainly feel happier, but they risk experiencing hedonic adaptation. In other words, you are likely to adapt quickly to your new situation and begin to desire ever-higher levels of pleasure simply in order to recapture your previous level of happiness. However, the process of pursuing “activity” goals allows a person continually to experience new challenges, take on new opportunities, and meet a variety of experiences.
Vision Board
This is a goal setting exercise where you look forwards to a future world that you want to build and inhabit. So how do you go about this exercise?
Pick a moment in the future. This can be a key date like a birthday (milestone dates like one’s 40th or 50th birthday). Sometimes it is easier to fix on a period like 5 or 10 years in the future. Whatever you choose, being clear about the date is fundamental.
Build a picture of the world that you want to be living in at that date. Use pictures that you can obtain from magazines and the internet. If you choose to use pictures/images of people, please use them of people of the requisite age (not their current age).
The objective here is to build the vision board with your partner, to be able to describe it to your coach.
It is not an art competition. No one is going to judge you on the quality of the vision board. Take your time in doing it. The process can be quite cathartic as it can generate new conversations and ideas as you envisage the future you want to create.
Go ahead and create your own Vision Board and upload it here. The objective is to build the vision board and describe it to your coach (and partner if you like). Take time to self reflect on it. What do you see? Visit it again at a later time. Notice how close (or not) are you to the picture you made!
Goal Commitments
Instructions:
Please think about the goals that are currently important to you or have been important in your life recently. This include - Intentions, Wishes, Desires, and Motives. List at least one (1) and up to eight (8) of your most significant and meaningful goals below. Are these goals - Intrinsic, Authentic, Approaching, Harmonious and Activity related?
My Goals
My Role Biography
Role biography is a self-discovery technique where one 'self-explores' the ‘biography’ of his/her life, by reflecting through various 'work' roles that they have taken, this far.
Role here is defined as the pattern of attitude, meaning, feeling,, and behaviour that characterised an individua's way of living and working, within the various systems of activity, such as family, work organisations, professional networks, social groups etc. through which he/she led life.
Individuals experience an A-HA moment when they realize that they are more than the sum of the 'professional' roles they have played. Getting to this stage might resemble detective work as one discovers many patterns and similarities between the various roles one has played, often without awareness of – Why did they 'choose' them? Why were they 'offered' to them?
This exercise thus offers a rich data set of one's Motivational Need System, and hence what kind of Goals if taken, will satisfy them most (or least)!
Go ahead and draw your own Role Biography! Take a blank sheet of paper and draw your personal 'journey path' of life, putting 'thumb nails' at significant 'age mile-stones' , e.g., When you were 5 years old, When you were 14 years old, When you were 23 years old, When you were 33 years old etc.
What role did you 'assume' and/ or what role were you 'offered' in personal, professional and social settings? Do you see any patterns? What does it tell you about your 'Personal Motivation Needs'? What kind of roles made you happy? What kind of roles made you unhappy? Why?
My Leadership Development Plan
Please think about the key areas of your Organisatinal/Leadership role. How does it align with the Organisational Strategy? How does it align with your Personal Development Strategy? List at least one (1) and up to eight(8) of your most significant and meaningful work related developmental goals. Also think of all the internal (self) and external (people and external systems) support you require in order to succeed in these goals!
