The value of goals

Stephanie at idealawg recently posted on debunking myths about the value of goal-setting (http://westallen.typepad.com/idealawg/2007/03/debunking_anoth.html). It's easy to debunk a specific study that seems to have been apocryphal - it's easy to debunk almost any formula or convention. It's harder to ask questions like: why has this myth been so popular? What good has been done by this belief, whether or not it is true?

Have you worked with people who can't set goals because they are frozen or stuck or lost? Have you experienced a time in your ife when you could not look forward and see anything at all? Imagine what it means to someone to have given up on wanting, to have given up on expectation. To some people, it sounds very zen, very higher consciousness. To others, it sounds like giving up on life.

Goals do not always call people into connection and relationship and productivity. Sometimes, under some conditions, they do. It is one of the challenges of people who think about such things to notice the difference between goals that are good for people and goals that direct them badly. Perhaps life rewards the drifters and floaters who do what occurs to them without thinking about where it will lead for themselves or others. Or perhaps it is worth noticing what is occuring to you and making a decision about whether you want it and where it will lead.

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