Why Set Goals?

Yesterday I ran my fifth Half-Marathon. After sixteen weeks of training through the long, cold, winter, I ran the event two minutes shy of my goal time. But we had a blast, we finished it, and to me, that's a successful day.

There is more written about how to set and achieve goals than most of us would or could ever read. It's talked about in almost every self-help book I've ever read and is the focus of volumes in itself. What is talked about much less often, but I think equally important is not the HOW of setting and achieving goals, but the WHY.

Have you ever stopped to ask yourself, "Why should I bother setting a goal? What's the point?". I can say that, even as a motivational speaker who you might think takes goal setting as a given, I have spent a good deal of time thinking about the "why" of goal setting. After all, I think, if I'm going to suggest to people that this is something they should do, I ought to have a good reason. Here it is... it makes you happier. Goal setting makes your life better! And here's the best part, you don't necessarily need to achieve the goal in order to enjoy the happiness benefits that come with it!

Studies have shown that people are happy when they are pursuing a goal, but that once the goal is achieved, there is usually a sense of letdown. BEcause the happiness comes from the feelings one has while pursuing a goal, the realization of the goal is rarely as satisfying as anticipated, and once achieved is quickly incorporated into a persons understanding of reality and thus is less exciting. It is likely this same phenomenon responsible for the studies that show that lottery winners' levels of happiness return to base levels quite quickly. We all dream of the big lottery win, but once we get it, we realize that, hey, it's only money, it doesn't solve all of our problems, and we still have to deal with live like we did before.

So why set goals?
The biggest reason is that it improves our lives and the lives of others. Setting worth while goals makes you a better person, and depending on what they are, way also help many other people along the way as well. The entrepreneur who sets out to create a great company enriches the life of his family with this earnings, benefits his customers with his product or service, and helps all of his employees by providing gainful employment. Win, Win, Win.

The author who sets out to write the next great book benefits from the experience of writing and from the sales of his work. The readers who enjoy the work gain a nice experience of escape from the a novel or learning from a work of non-fiction. The people who work in the publishing house and the bookstores benefit from employment that comes from the selling of that book. Win, Win, Win.

These are all valid and worthwhile reasons to set goals, but the biggest of all is what pursuing a goal does for us internally. The sense of joy, usefulness and purpose that comes from having a goal to pursue are real and powerful. Having a goal gives a reason to get up in the morning. Having a goal gives our lives direction and purpose. Having a goal informs us about what matters and what doesn't and about how we should spend our time.

So go out there and set some goals. Try to achieve as many of them as you can. You probably won't achieve them all, but that's okay, in fact, it almost doesn't matter if you achieve them or not. After all it is the pursuit that makes you happy and improves your life. Achieving the goal is really just a bonus.