Stop Making Goals, Set Intentions Instead
Earlier this year, I decided to stop making goals. I’ve decided to set intentions instead.
This small, but powerful reframing of my mindset has made me feel so much more satisfied, productive and a heck of a lot less anxious!
Why?
Because intentions focus on creating lasting and sustained change. Goals focus on hustling after a temporary and fixed outcome.
Goals can be limiting. Intentions can be much more expansive.
I define a goal as: A predetermined result, arbitrarily chosen to achieve a temporary feeling in a moment in time.
I define an intention as: The desire to create a sustained feeling over time through the development of habits regardless of the ultimate outcome.
The language we’ve been conditioned to use when we want to make a change in our life has always been focused on achieving a tangible “goal”.
What I’ve come to realize is that we really don’t care about the outcome, what we really want is to change how we feel.
Right now you might believe that if you could just make “X” amount more money each year then you’ll feel secure, happy and have the life you’ve always wanted. (Studies have shown most of us won’t feel any happier earning more than $75,000 a year.)
We’ve been taught that we’ll be rewarded with the feeling we desire once we’ve achieved that one fixed outcome.
It’s just not true!
You can start feeling different right now! You don’t have to wait!
Think about the last time you achieved a goal, how long did that feeling you desired really last? Weeks? Days? Hours? Minutes?
I remember years ago when I started working for myself. I recall holding my very first check from my very first client.
It was for $1,000. Within an hour the dopamine hit of my accomplishment started to wear off and I wanted more.
I bet you know exactly what I’m talking about! Once that “high” feeling wore off you started feeling down again.
Maybe you even wanted to start chasing after another goal to get that feeling back like I did!
There’s a reason diets don’t work. It’s because they’re goal-driven, instead of intention driven!
Goals are hits of sugar that make you feel a temporary high.
Intentions are wholesome meals that make you feel satisfied all the time.
Examples of Making Goals v. Setting Intentions
The classic goal every American has been sold is the “American Dream”.
If you work hard enough, you can achieve upward social mobility. You can get married, buy a house, buy more than one car, buy a TV for every room in your house, have two kids, a dog and go on a two-week family vacation each year.
I chased after those goals for years. I achieved several of them, but they didn’t make me happy or feel secure. They felt more like obligations. They were someone else’s dream, not mine.
By the time I reached midlife, I no longer owned a home or a car. I’m divorced without children.
I couldn’t be happier!
Once I stopped chasing those goals, I started living my life with intention.
About a year after my divorce in 2019, I started living out of a bag.
I traveled the world as a nomad. I’m available to help my family and friends anytime they need it. I cured my anxiety!
I no longer wait for some future goal’s promise of happiness. Living my life with intention makes me happy right now in the present moment.
Here are some common goals many of us have created for ourselves that could be reframed as intentions:
Goal: Make a six-figure income three years from now.
Intention: Feel financially secure based on the needs of my current lifestyle. (Try calculating the cost of your ideal lifestyle now.)
Goal: Lose 15 pounds in the next three months.
Intention: Feel healthy, energized and comfortable in my own body.
Goal: Start a business that will be financially sustainable in six months.
Intention: Build a habit of meeting at least one new person each day who might be interested in my product or service.
See the difference?
Goals are what you think you are “supposed to do”.
Intentions are what “feels right” to YOU.
How Goals Can Make You Feel Bad
I was coaching a woman several years ago who wanted to sell 700 tickets to her conference over six months. At the time we spoke, she had sold 10 tickets.
She was a basket case. She told me she had never been more depressed in her life than at that moment. She was even considering leaving her boyfriend (whom she later married!)
Why? Because she chose an arbitrary goal that sounded impressive.
She felt if she didn’t achieve her goal she would be an utter failure.
She literally created an obligation that was a figment of her own imagination that was now making her feel depressed!
Crazy what we do to ourselves, isn’t it??
It was completely out of alignment with how she wanted to feel to say the least.
We started talking about the work she enjoyed doing on this project until this point. I could start seeing her light up as she shared stories about the interesting people she had met over the past year.
We also discussed alternative outcomes. I even told her it was OK if she didn’t do the conference at all. It was a possible outcome if she could allow herself to be open to it.
Within 30 minutes you could see her mood change.
Why? Because she realized she enjoyed the process of meeting new people and it didn’t matter how many people showed up at her conference.
Do you know what was most impressive to me? She had already sold 10 tickets six months in advance when she had never hosted a conference before, had zero traffic coming to her website and no email list!!
She already made something from nothing because of her habit of meeting new people!
Intentions Build Habits, Goals Don’t
Trust me, you don’t want whatever your goal is.
You want to make a change in your life and that comes from changing your habits.
Goals deny you other possible outcomes.
Intentions focus on changing your mindset and habits every day, so you can change how you feel moment by moment and be open to possibility.
Goals feel like an obligation. Intentions feel like an invitation to explore.
Chasing goals makes you feel like you are never enough. Intentions empower you to be yourself.
Intentions motivate you to be more curious. Goals ruthlessly make you feel like you have to find the “right answer” or the “right way” of doing whatever it is you are trying to achieve.
Goal setting is a relic of the old way of working. Setting intentions will help you thrive for how work is changing.
I’ve read hundreds of biographies about philosophers, artists, scientists, writers and inventors throughout the ages. Most of them didn’t set goals. They all set intentions. Every single one of them!
If you want to create real and lasting change in your life, you need to focus on the development of your habits.
Start by setting intentions.
I may not be an advocate of goals, but I’m not advocating sitting around on your butt either! Making a big change in your life takes focus and effort.
I’m merely suggesting the method of achieving the big change you want using intentions may be much more productive and enjoyable than enslaving yourself to a specific goal!
Special thanks to our Fall 2019 Accelerator members who got me thinking more about goals v. intentions!
I’m now setting an intention to no longer use the word “goal” in any of our materials, but to use “intention” instead. If I do, please call me out!
Get encouragement for setting your intentions when you join one of our Communities of Practice.
