Making This One Goal-Setting Mistake Can Make You Miserable
<p>Goals-setting is not a magical one-stop solution to cure all your ills. Like powerful prescription medication, it can be effective when used for the proper indication and at the correct dose but toxic when misapplied.</p>
<p>In my previous article, I explored some <a href="https://medium.com/better-humans/8-common-goal-setting-mistakes-that-do-more-harm-than-good-42902f6146c4" rel="noopener">ways that misuse of goal-setting can cause harm,</a> problems from setting overly specific or ambitious goals to the self-defeating behaviors that can result from goal fixation.</p>
<p>Like prescription medication, goal-setting must be used in a deliberate and conscious way to avoid doing more harm than good.</p>
<h1>The Biggest Single Mistake</h1>
<p>The one thing worse than failing to achieve your goals may be succeeding in reaching the wrong goals.</p>
<p>Before you set any goal, you must consider one overarching issue: is this goal right for you?</p>
<h2>Is this the right goal?</h2>
<p>Often people see an ad on TV, a blog on the internet, or watch what people around them are doing and think, “Yeah, I want that.”</p>
<p>Before pursuing that goal, ask yourself, “Is this something I really want?”</p>
<p>The surest way to toxic goal setting is to go chasing after the wrong thing. You can trust me on this because I know from experience. For years, I chased after “success” as a surgeon.</p>
<h1>My Sad Example</h1>
<p>I worked punishing hours to increase my caseload. Believing that if I could get my billing up into the top twenty percent of all general surgeons, then I would have achieved something. But I remained disgruntled.</p>
<p><a href="https://betterhumans.pub/making-this-one-goal-setting-mistake-can-make-you-miserable-be21245d58d1"><strong>Learn More</strong></a></p>