- Posts: 4394
Do You Need Goals?
JLSpinner wrote:
Kyrin Wyldstar wrote: As Obi says we need goals to live but we also need attachment to those goals. Fear of failure produces this attitude towards non-attachment but its a false attitude. If we are not attached to our goals that just produces excuses and mediocrity. Neither of which are desired or productive. Do you want to be the best Jedi you can be or do you want to be a mediocre Jedi? You see the goal doesn't matter, but your attitude toward it does.
Yes, the attitude is the most important part. But it works both ways. Obsess too much over that goal and you will miss everything. We cannot lose our awareness of the moment.
And what is it that you are being mindful of in the present? The present accomplishment of your goal of being the best Jedi you can be? Just because we have a goal that we are focused on does not mean we keep our minds on some future milestone. It means we keep our minds on our present efforts to accomplish that needs of that goal right now.
Please Log in to join the conversation.
- OB1Shinobi
- Offline
- Banned
-
Inactive
Kyrin Wyldstar wrote: ....Fear of failure produces this attitude towards non-attachment but its a false attitude. If we are not attached to our goals that just produces excuses and mediocrity....
I think its partly fear of failure but also fear of work thats at the bottom of peoples resistance to goals and goal setting. And after fear of failure and fear of (or more accurately; aversion to) work, i think theres also a fear of putting in all the hard work and one day realizing it wasnt worth it and that the goals have become a trap. I believe that is mostly an excuse which masks fear of failure and aversion to work though. Thats what it was when i did it. I told myself i didnt want to get trapped in the rat race, and that was my excuse for hiding from my own life. Wasted a lot of time hiding... time that i regret losing.
I also didnt really know where to start, because i had an exaggerated sense of what taking responsibility for my life really meant. I thought i had to have everything figured out and organized feom the beginning, and that i had to aim for something extraordinary. So I think that many people read "having goals" and interpret that to mean turning into some kind of hyper-achieving CEO or something. In reality, overly ambitious goals arent goals at all, they are pipe-dreams. Fantasies. A smart goal is one that you can actually achieve. Its also useful to realize that many of our goals are not pass/fail goals, like winning a gold medal at the olympics, but rather they are goals of ongoing maintenance and/or improvement, like eating healthy or getting in shape (or being mindful;)). We can break those into pass/fail milestones such as "eat X number of calories and run X distance on thursday" but in those cases you can still benefit just from the effort even if you dont make the exact numbers. Youre still pursing your goals even when youre not perfect, and you can always modify the goals and the standards associated with them as you go along.
People are complicated.
Please Log in to join the conversation.
Not too many years ago I was entirely focused on the future and my financial and professional success. I was unaware of mindfulness or "living in the moment" as I was always striving toward something. This is not to say that I didn't enjoy moments, but those moments were seen as the rewards of constantly striving toward a future goal. I was happy, but stressed sometimes.
Then a doctor told me I had cancer and might only live a year or two more. Suddenly the big life goals I had did not seem so urgent. Being promoted at work or buying a better car became meaningless while I grappled with my own mortality. The smell of the outdoors after a rain shower suddenly became more appealing to me than making money. That's when the whole mindfulness thing started to make sense to me.
I still have short term and long term goals, but what has changed is I don't stress nearly as much when I don't reach them on schedule. My goal is now to remain alive and enjoy every minute of it that I can, and that means I make a conscious effort to remain in the moment and actually observe what is happening right now.
Please Log in to join the conversation.
@Senan, Since you went through such a radical reevaluation of your goals maybe you had the wrong goals before? I'm not saying you did or didn't but it seems to me that it is our demise that should drive the urgency of our goals if they are worthy goals.
Buying a car may not be worthy as its materially based but maybe saving money for financial independence for yourself and/or your wife would be a worthy goal. With that independence buying a new car is an option you did not have before that you can exercise if you like or not. Also if you were to go it would also provide options for your wife in your absence. If I had not buying a car as a goal but saving for financial independence and I found out I had cancer it would actually reinforce the urgency of achieving that goal, not destroy it. I think the pursuit of our goals should always create options, not limit them.
Please Log in to join the conversation.
Please Log in to join the conversation.
It seems we're in agreement that goals are much more complex and nuanced than the stereotypical 'I want to earn lots of money and buy a big house' sort of thing.
When I asked the question, I was indeed thinking of all manner of goals, big and small - from 'I want to finish this spreadsheet at work today' to 'over the course of my life I'd like to think I'll fall in love, get married, have kids, and then grandkids'. I'm counting as goals both highly specific targets and also the kind of vague dreams that often form our overarching themes in our lives.
I think we have decided fairly conclusively that we can't literally abandon all goals, like the goals to eat, drink, sleep, and so on.
But I guess there's a difference between goals that keep us alive in the very basic sense and the ones that give us something...extra, and are therefore arguably unnecessary.
Personally I'm kind of particularly interested in this element:
Johno wrote: The only thing that keeps me going are principles and goals. They are like the compass and rudder in my life.
Like, do we need the kind of drive and general forward-motion that goals provide in order to be able to be passionate about life - about actually living it?
I've just thought, also - something like Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs - can we raise ourselves above the bottom level without deliberate, conscious goals (although, y'know, in the spirit of Mr Watts et al I'm going to pretend to ignore the 'Ego' level :laugh: :blush:)
Attachment maslow_2018-01-09.png not found
Or, y'know, please do carry on as you were if I'm now derailing things I'm very happy to read and ponder whatever angles come along!
B.Div | OCP
Please Log in to join the conversation.
Please Log in to join the conversation.
Kyrin Wyldstar wrote: @Senan, Since you went through such a radical reevaluation of your goals maybe you had the wrong goals before? I'm not saying you did or didn't but it seems to me that it is our demise that should drive the urgency of our goals if they are worthy goals.
Buying a car may not be worthy as its materially based but maybe saving money for financial independence for yourself and/or your wife would be a worthy goal. With that independence buying a new car is an option you did not have before that you can exercise if you like or not. Also if you were to go it would also provide options for your wife in your absence. If I had not buying a car as a goal but saving for financial independence and I found out I had cancer it would actually reinforce the urgency of achieving that goal, not destroy it. I think the pursuit of our goals should always create options, not limit them.
You're absolutely right, Kyrin. The new information caused me to really evaluate what my goals were and why. I realized many of them were selfish in that I was consumed with my own future happiness without giving due consideration to what might happen to others if I was unable to achieve my goals. I've realized that it is a very real possibility that my wife could be left without my income, but still have my bills. We've changed our focus now, and a lot of it is comfort and stability rather than extravagance.
Interestingly enough, we've also learned to take advantage of opportunities to be extravagant when it makes sense. If we have some extra money, I'm much more willing to spend it on a unique experience that I can still enjoy despite my illness. In years past I never would've considered spending $400 on a pair of concert tickets, but when Justin Timberlake comes around and my wife wants to make a date of it, I'm going to enjoy that opportunity. It is less a shift in goals and more a shift in prioritizing which are more important to me now.
Please Log in to join the conversation.
Kyrin Wyldstar wrote: And what is it that you are being mindful of in the present?
Life, Kyrin. Experience, Knowledge, opportunity.
Please Log in to join the conversation.
JLSpinner wrote:
Kyrin Wyldstar wrote: And what is it that you are being mindful of in the present?
Life, Kyrin. Experience, Knowledge, opportunity.
And what do you "plan" to do with that experience, knowledge and opportunity?
Lol just teasing, I know what you mean but to my earlier point I think any "future" goal has a component part of "nowness".
Please Log in to join the conversation.