Fresh Start Monday #63: Goal setting for people who hate goal setting
In response to last week's newsletter about how most of us have no idea what we want, someone asked, how do you set goals if you have no idea?
It reminds me of everyone's least favorite job interview question - where do you see yourself in five years?
I've had many coaching clients struggle with defining long-term goals. They might make goals but soon forget about them. Think New Year's Resolutions.
Today we're looking at setting anti-goals. Try it out if you've never been able to make goals and stick with them.
Anti-goals are a focus on what we hate. What we want to avoid in our lives.
There's a quote by Charlie Munger that gets to the heart of today's topic:
"tell me where I’m going to die, so I’ll never go there.”
It's the mental model of inversion - the idea that problems are often best solved when reversed. For example, instead of thinking about what would make the perfect day, think about what would make it miserable. Or what you definitely don't want happening in 2024.
Or, if we flip the interview question from above to, where would you hate to be in five years? Isn’t that easier to answer?
One of the reasons anti-goals work is due to our negativity bias. It's a cognitive bias that results in adverse events having a more significant impact on our psychological state than positive events.
In any situation, we are more likely to notice negative things and later remember them more vividly. As humans, we tend to:
Remember traumatic experiences better than positive ones.
Recall insults better than praise.
React more strongly to negative stimuli.
Think about negative things more frequently than positive ones.
Respond more strongly to negative events than to equally positive ones.
At an evolutionary level, we don't yearn for progress; we naturally seek avoidance of danger, pain, and suffering.
A study on motivation from the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology showed that people took more immediate action steps and felt more driven when they framed their goals as something to avoid instead of something to approach.
For example, what would make my day miserable as I grow a coaching business?
No time in my day for movement outside during daylight hours. (Daylight savings time last week made this top of mind)
Having a meeting first thing in the morning.
Responding to emails/texts after 6pm and on weekends.
A calendar primarily scheduled by others.
No slack in my day.
No time for learning or reflection.
If I answer the five-year question, I would hate to create a business that sucks up all my time and becomes my identity and where my self-worth comes from.
Working backward from that list, here are my anti-goals:
Block time in my calendar during daylight hours to go for a run or bike ride. Be firm on this.
No client calls in the first hour of my day.
Snooze notifications after 6pm and weekends and set clear boundaries at the beginning of any engagement.
Leave blocks of time for clients, but block out time for deep work.
Leave 15 minutes between coaching calls.
Schedule 30min to read/journal in the morning before I start doing/working.
Journal Prompts
Pick one area of your life
List out everything you want to avoid or has been painful in the past (many of my above bullet points are pains from the 9-5 corporate life)
What are your anti-goals?
Let me know if that helps with your goal setting!