How to set goals well: seven basic principles

I don’t know if it’s been the company I kept or the way I present myself, but my life has been littered with exasperated people telling me that what I want is ‘unrealistic’. That it was too hard, not possible, really competitive or unlikely.

It’s true I can be a bit arrogant, and especially when younger definitely indulged in what some therapists call ‘magical thinking’, which no doubt made me a bit of a pain in the arse, especially to myself. But the true measure of magic is what it affects in the physical realm, and that process has to start with an intention, thought or belief. If faith is magic, then I’m happy to be a witch.

I think someone told me I couldn’t slide down the university library staircase. I only hung out on the university library stair well because it was the only place I could talk.

I can still remember telling a careers person at 18 that I wanted to work at the BBC and go on HIGFY (as an aside I remember at one point thinking I would die after I went on HIGFY because it was all I ever really wanted in life) and being told ‘you and a thousand others’. Or that I wanted to be a writer or work in journalism only to be told ‘it’s really competitive and you won’t earn any money.’

I did a degree in English lit, because I wasn’t that brilliant at anything else anyway (PS ANOTHER LIE I WAS TOLD AT SCHOOL, THOSE BASTARDS), and then went and worked on boats, and then sold gutters and fascias, and then worked as a recruitment consultant, and after a lot of tears both in service of shit things and the things I actually wanted, I ended up at the BBC working as a journalist anyway, because , well, turns out that was what was meant to happen.

Turns out ‘working on boats’ involved a lot of dancing, flirting and drinking. Hard job but someone’s got to do it.

I haven’t been on HIGFY but I have had lunch with Ian Hislop and you know, never say never.

My seven basic principles for goal setting

There’s a lot of really interesting science and psychology around goal setting, much of it by people who have spent far longer than I studying it. It can also be pretty nuanced in individual cases, so take the below with considerable caveat - absorb what resonates, leave the rest.

ONE: Don’t short order

Whenever I ask people to tell me what they want, I say ‘don’t short order, don’t censor yourself and don’t be realistic. Tell me what you actually want, however outlandish and unattainable and childish or stupid it seems.’

If you want pizza as a starter, order pizza as a starter. Don’t settle for something you don’t want, because you don’t think you should want it or it’s inconvenient. And if you really want it and it’s not on the menu, ask.

There is absolutely no point in moving towards what you don’t want, is only half of what you want or think you should want, simply because it seems more palatable. And for palatable, read realistic or less vulnerable.

Moving anywhere takes effort and time and will come with unforeseen challenges. Wherever you choose to move, you’ll face rejection and disappointment. It’s much more nourishing and useful to learn how to face rejection and disappointment in the service of something that feels true to your soul, than face rejection and disappointment whilst also rejecting the part of yourself that knows you don’t really want this and disappointing the part of you that believes in something different.

When we ‘short order’ like this (aiming for the pasta when we want the lobster) we fog and confuse ourselves, and lose our connection with what we want. It’s not that we have to have it, or even have to act on it, it’s that we at least need to not keep it secret from ourselves that we want it. As a general rule, don’t keep secrets, but especially don’t keep secrets from yourself.

Sometimes along the way we forget we never wanted this anyway, we just thought maybe we should want it, so when we get it we don’t even particularly like it and then we wonder why we don’t feel good.

TWO: Don’t worry about it seeming impossible

To quote the Wright Brothers: ‘If we worked on the assumption that what we accepted as true really was true, then there would be little hope for advance.

Everything worthwhile we ever do, both on a societal level and a personal level seems unrealistic, impossible and even stupid to dream of - until it’s done.

It might seem unrealistic but maybe that’s because the current reality just isn’t good enough.

It might seem impossible but maybe it’s just new.

It might seem stupid to dream of, but only for people who take disappointment personally or who don’t appreciate the beauty in dreaming.

We wouldn’t have airplanes if the Wright Brothers ‘set obtainable goals’. If someone mocks you for your goal being unrealistic, or wants to know exactly how you are going to get there, remember the problem is not your desire or grandiosity, it’s their lack of imagination. Unfortunately someone somewhere probably snubbed out their dreams, and unfortunately they believed them, an event which was possibly so painful, they can’t tolerate hearing your hope.

Maybe they are trying to protect you, but there comes a point where the only way to keep yourself truly protected is to lock yourself in a really small little airless box. It is possible to protect yourself to death. I believe we are capable of more, whoever we are and wherever we come from. There are definitely more challenges for some than others, but I don’t believe snuffing out someone’s dreams or desires or goals really helps anyone.

I am here for making great impossible unrealistic things happen, not for shrinking people’s possibility. It doesn’t matter how long it takes or how much failure and pain it involves, or how many rerouting updates it may prompt, I operate from the belief that if it is true and loving then there is always a way of getting there. It might not happen in this lifetime, and we might have to pass the baton on, but who is anyone to tell you it it impossible? And don’t buy that thing ‘it’s too late for me now’ - I could go into lots of wordy reasons why that’s nonsense, but really, just fuck that shit and do it anyway. You’re not low on time, you’re low on energy, belief and hope, and that can always be remedied. Like any of us know what’s going to happen next. Start now, get curious, enjoy having a direction for however long you have left.

THREE: Knowing how you are going to get there is unnecessary

We get hijacked by the ‘how’ and we want to see all the steps along the way. But we can’t do and see everything at once. We just have to (to use an oft-quoted 12 step favourite) know the next right step. And it might not even be the next right step, it just has to be a step that will give us a bit of a different perspective. It’s not about forcing it to happen and to happen fast. You can’t see what’s in front of you, until you light a candle.

four: Learn how to enjoy getting there

This is what came up when I searched ‘pleasure’ and to be honest it does look fucking pleasurable, although the mother in me is worried that it’s going to be horribly sticky and difficult to clean up afterwards

The best dreams or goals take a while to manifest. There is no point in screwing yourself into a tight little stress ball and beating yourself up until you get the thing you said you would. A lot of the time, when we really want something, we check out of life until we get there. We are so focussed on eating the cake at the end that we forget to put some music on and lick the mixing bowl. Or, to use a sex-based analogy - it’s all about climax and not about the many delicious flavours in between, from the first brush of the arm to the knowing eye-lock to the sinking into each other.

For example it has given me a high degree of pleasure that I’ve managed to squeeze in this erotic picture of someone fingering a citrus fruit into the quite often boring process of formatting a blog post

FIVE: Try not to use your wounds as petrol

Usually, when we make our goals some kind of punishment process, this is due to some element of fear creeping in - we think we can’t get there, so we rush to try and force it to happen quickly, in case time runs out or we run out on ourselves. We are anxious, and we use that adrenalised energy to get us there. We might think life isn’t worth it, and we aren’t worth it unless we get there. Ambition disguised as ‘I am not good enough.’ We need to prove something to someone.

For a long time I was powered by rage and hurt, but also, as I discovered, quite a lot of other things too.

This is not a way to achieve anything except a migraine and low self-worth (which gets a fleeting bounce when you get the thing, but settles in the negative again pretty quickly). You can actually get where you want to go powered purely by hurt, but as a life coach I believe some element of enjoying life is worthwhile to aim for.

The confusing bit can come whilst untangling what is wound/ego and what is true desire. Just because there’s a bit of you that seems to want to drive forward based on pain, doesn’t mean you don’t also genuinely want that thing. To use a basic analogy: just because you rage ate 12 mince pies in an hour because your mum said your dress was a size too small and ‘don’t you want to wear something more loose fitting darling’, doesn’t mean you don’t also genuinely like mince pies and want more of them in your life.

My equivalent of ‘it was a dark and stormy night’ is ‘it was a 20 mince pie/toffee/two packs of jaffa cakes kinda night’

It’s a bit of a process with this one. Most of us run on fear or hurt or anger quite a lot of the time. Switching fuel tanks to move forward not because it feels bad where we are, but because getting there and honouring ourselves and what we want feels good is an evolution. Not a million years one, but can take a while (in my experience).

six: Investigate why you want it

Running: a great fitness goal. Running away from feelings: less good

You don’t have to sketch it out right away, and sometimes it’s not necessary, but it’s good to have at least a cursory investigation into what feelings getting your goal will give you. Questions like: What will getting this give you? How will it have you feel? What will you do or feel like when you get it? And even sometimes, ‘say you’ve got it, what will you do then?’

For two reasons - one because it can help you connect with where you are now, and help you understand yourself a bit more, which is always quite interesting. And two because it can be helpful not to get attached to the exact form of what we want. This isn’t applicable for everyone, or every goal, so let me give you an example of what I mean.

This picture makes even me want a Ferrari, and I own a 13 year old Fiat Punto, which I share with my sister, so you can probably guess at my relationship with cars

Take someone whose goal is to own a Ferrari. The Ferrari is the form of what we want, our ultimate goal - but why? What feeling do we think owning that car will give us? What experience will it offer us that we so connect with and want right now? In some cases it’s not to drive fast, or because we really love certain Italian engineering and we want to be able to play with it all the time, but because it will give us a sense of feeling powerful and valued. But does that necessarily need to come in that form - as a Ferrari? Could we create those experiences already?

Well, actually, even driving fast - that can come in a different form - working on Italian engineering - we could organise that too without needing to own a Ferrari - and feeling powerful and valued - that might come in a different form too. It’s not that wanting to own a Ferrari is wrong or that it won’t give you that - it might do - that might be the form for some people that those feelings come in - however there might be many other ways we could give ourselves that experience. Maybe even to trial that experience, to investigate if it’s really what we want.

Maybe it is, and so we set off to get it. Yet perhaps somewhere along the way, we realise we experience a stronger sense of value and inner power when we put attention on our relationships. Maybe we discover we also love the buzz of motorbikes and the community that comes with that passion. And maybe we still want the Ferrari and we are committed to working to get it - but we’ve used our goal to help us connect with ourselves and life more too. The goal is working for us as well as us working for our goal.

seven: Just because it’s hard doesn’t mean you’re doing it wrong

Well done for making it this far through the post

In my experience, life is tough at times. But just because it’s hard doesn’t mean it’s the wrong thing. It might just be that you’re growing. So enjoy it. We are all on life having experiences, and the tough ones are life too. Everything living wants to grow and be itself and sometimes that is difficult: but you aren’t alone. We are all here doing this together.

I thought this sheep looked suitably pensive and inspirational

Goals are creative and disruptive but hopefully when you stand back and you look at the whole picture, the process of getting there involves you becoming brighter and those around you feel energised and inspired too. Is what you want going to make life better for you and for other people in the long run? Is it making your world bigger or smaller? Does this goal honour you and the world? If so, go for it. Haters gonna hate.

Never ever set ‘achievable goals’: set the mad fucking ones that make your heart sing