WAG vs WUG
I’m not a traditionally “goal-motivated” person. For certain values of goal, motivated, and person. I have a formative memory of telling my third grade teacher that I would not be setting any new years resolutions because the idea is quite ridiculous, thank you.
I continue to agree with past-me about that.
“Goals” are sort of like a report card: some people are super motivated by getting good grades for some reason. If this is you, stop it. Grades are a scam. Do as little as you can to pass, and spend as much of your time as possible being curious about the world around you. Go outside. Lick a bug. Everything worth doing is as far from a classroom as you are allowed to get.
I digress.
Nothing about having a goal helps you achieve a goal. The goal doesn’t define the process that leads to the goal’s success. The goal doesn’t punish you for failure. The goal is Gary Busey standing over your bed breathing slightly too loud while you sleep. Unsettling, perhaps, but it’s not kicking your ass and telling you to achieve your destiny.
You’re defined by what you do, not by what you say you’ll do. Set a goal to have beautiful teeth in a decade and then stop brushing your teeth. Clearly the operative lever here, the essential fulcrum, is the tooth brushing habit.
Best case scenario, you’ve set out to do something you were already going to do, and you did it. Most likely case scenario you failed to achieve the goal, were a failure, should pour salt on yourself, shrivel up, and die.
Yes, I am a perfectionist, why do you ask?
I can’t speak to how anyone else conceives of goals. I suspect not like I do. Given the above, can you blame me for not finding them motivating? A “goal,” as described, is an opportunity to demonstrate my limitless capacity to fail at my own ambitions. Why would I even start down that path?
Except, apparently, I have always set what a normal, rational person would call goals. If you’ve known me long enough you’ve probably heard me say I want to be the CEO of the company. Quite possibly with an almost feverish level of intensity.
Listen, I know I’m not going to be the CEO. I mean maybe a CEO. Eventually. But not at my current day job.
This is what I call a Wildly Unachievable Goal. The point isn’t to ever do the thing. It’s to pick a direction, burn the boats, set out across the American Southwest, and see how close I get. Because every step of the way is valuable. I’ll learn, I’ll grow. I’ll end up closer to it than I ever might have imagined.
I think that for a WUG to work, you have to take it at face value. You have to believe in it with your heart and spleen. If at any point you acknowledge that it’s not really your intention, the magic breaks. It’s the productivity equivalent of a placebo.
Something new I’m trying out are Wildly Achievable Goals. WAGs. This is, I think, much closer to what a normal person would call a “goal.” It’s a thing I want to do, or have, or be, that through a reasonable series of steps, could happen.
A WAG might be “write a book.” It might be “launch an app on the App Store.” They’re things that normal human people do, but maybe you’ve never done.
The point of a WAG is that at the end of it, you have the thing you set out to do. No matter how audacious it is, you have reason to believe you could do it. No matter how long it takes, you think you could get it done.
A WUG is something you know you’ll never do, but you’re going to run full-chested at it anyway, because the point isn’t to get there, it’s to land among the stars.
WAG and WUG. Pass it on.