What Works: A Comprehensive Framework to Change the Way We Approach Goal Setting

so many systems for planning and goal-setting assume the user works a salaried desk job five days a week, with paid time off and fully funded healthcare,

goals become a sort of technology for self-erasure. We learn to recognize all the ways we don't fit in and the rungs we haven't yet climbed and define our future selves against those traits. We rarely—if ever—stop to think whether the things we're not are actually a core part of who we are. And that's not just a personal problem. It ripples out int

difficulty with executive functioning. But no amount of deadlines, flashing red notifications, or threats of being held “accountable” are going to matter if you haven't bought into the purpose of the work they remind you to do.

In contrast, we're often fed the opposite line: You can do anything, don't quit, no limits, and so on. These phrases sound good, but when you are faced with real limitations—and the vast majority of us are—they can be supremely disempowering. Again, we start to internalize that it's our self-discipline that's lacking. This is where Bandura's

When I'm truly engaging those critical thinking skills, I'm much less likely to blame myself for failure. I'm less likely to fixate on my own shortcomings and how to overcome them. Critical thinking created a more satisfying life for me than positive thinking ever could.

describes what happens as a result: “our lives become about the struggle to keep up.” She continues, “To truly feel our experience with depth and presence, we would have to slow down a lot (which would make us less efficient consumers, students, workers, prisoners, soldiers…).”

Growth, change, creating cool stuff—it

professionals who read about time management or achieving goals 20 years ago predominantly fell into that category. But today, the reality is very, very different.

Embrace rigor instead of rigidity. Conditioning, in all its forms, tries to squeeze us into a rigid idea of success, belonging, and productivity. The more social, economic, and political conditioning influences our goals and behavior, the better our social, economic, and political systems seem to work. But it's an illusion. Rigidity will never give