Stop Reaching For Goals!

Posted on June 06, 2023 by Stephen Bassett, One of Thousands of Career Coaches on Noomii.

yet? I might have mentioned earlier somewhere in the article my distaste for the word “goal”.
It is not the word itself so much. It’s what it represents. And throwing the word “reaching” in
front of it pegs my “WTF!” meter. Yes, I have a “WTF” meter. And so should you. Let me explain
why reaching for goals is a shitty way to achieve them. Oh, and “achieve” is another word I
don’t like because it’s misleading in that context.

problem with a goal is it tends to be something you “think you want”, that you don’t currently have. Something you must work towards, strive for, build up to, and so on. Any way you slice it, it’s something you don’t currently have that you hope to have at some point in the future. And herein lies the problem; The future doesn’t fucking exist! It is a made up cartoon (I pick The Jetsons) version of reality in which you will be in better shape, have more money, a better job, be more assertive, finally kicked that addiction, better car, better house, better spouse, or whatever the hell it is for you! How will you know when you have what you have been reaching for? How will it change your life? How will it change YOU, and how You
show up in the world?

your future where this “goal” resides. Let’s say I am the one operating the controls. How would
you know where to tell me to stop the time machine? Let’s play out a little sketch.
“Wait! Stop! There it is! The house I have been dreaming of!”, as you jump out of the shiny
contraption and go running up the long tree-lined driveway screaming, “I told you! Ha! I told
you my goal was real”! You go barging into the place, bounce around on the Italian leather sofa,
jump into the huge pool with your cloths on (thanks for keeping the cloths on), and then settle
into one of the plush lounge chairs on the deck with a drink in your hand. After you have
explored and enjoyed the place and the excitement of the thing wears off, what are you left
with? New house, huge fucking mortgage, same you! Same bullshit machine chugging away in
the background, same self-limiting beliefs, same doubts, same insecurities.

the matter”, I ask already knowing the answer? “I don’t know. Just didn’t feel right. Almost like I
didn’t belong there”, you say inquisitively, trying to make sense of it. “Tell me what you felt
when things seemed to shift from excitement to something else”, I inquire. “I don’t know. Just
felt….kinda empty”, you say with a hitch in your voice indicating your utter disappointment.
“Tell me more about that empty feeling. Where did it manifest in your body?”, I ask. “It was
weird. It was a feeling in the pit of my gut, like I hadn’t eaten in days. Like …..like…”, you mutter
with a crinkled brow. After a moment of silence, I do something I rarely do in coaching, I lead
you by offering a thought, “Like something had gone unfulfilled”, I ask? “Yes! Like that.
Something must have went wrong. We have to go back and try again”, you blurt out and point
to the indicator on the panel that says, ’back to present moment’!
What comes up for you when you read our little story? Hopefully not, “Wait, do I get to keep
the house?” No, you don’t! If you are struggling a bit, let me clarify a couple concepts. Don’t get
me wrong, I think it is important to have goals for yourself in life. It is an essential component of
the desire for personal growth and to keep improving.

Go back to list item number five (Get in Touch With What You Really Want and Why). Get this
rock-solid in your head and heart. It is also important to understand, as master coach and
author, Rich Litvin says, “A goal is not a place you are going to, it’s a place you come from”.
There is a future version of you that has the life you desire, that IS the person you want to be.
“But wait a second. You said the future doesn’t exist”! It doesn’t. Oh, and the past does not
exist either. The past is just a collection of flickering impulses in the temporal lobe of the brain
creating episodic memories, most of which are not even accurate. It’s colored by the muck in
your dirty little sponge (your collective experiences of life).

You can put twenty people in a room and play out an event. Have the people sit for a few
and interview the participants and have them recount the event in detail. Funny thing happens,
you get twenty different versions of the same event. Some vary wildly, some only slightly. Now,
back to the future. As I said before, the future is just a construct of your imagination. It can be
anything you conjure up in your mind. As every new moment comes, you end up with THIS
moment, Now. What truly matters is who you are being in the now. If you are constantly
“reaching” for something, you are not present for what is right here, right now.

close and personal and completely present with that future you that is living the life you
envision for yourself. How are they showing up in the world? What are the actions, habits and
processes they have instilled in their daily life that led to them getting there? What are they
feeling? What are they thinking? How do they use the observing brain to interrupt those thought
patterns that would get in their way? Get in touch with that core essence and take steps in this
moment, and every moment after between here and there to be that person. I have a saying;
The journey is not about the destination. It is about being fully present in every step along the
path. This takes work. But with the help of a good coach, you can do it! Now get to work
dammit!